Have you ever had one of those days where everything is
going according to plan, nothing is out of the ordinary, and then, out of
nowhere, you suddenly have a knife protruding from your leg and you’re bleeding
in the parking lot?
Oh, so just me then?
Cool, cool.
My clumsiness knows no bounds. I once slammed my finger in
the kitchen cupboard, turned around and tripped over the family dog, stood up, and
finally stubbed my toe on the base of the banister. It’s a miracle I didn’t
fall down the stairs while I was at it – really go for the gold, you know?
And, despite my predisposition to break in every door and
baseboard in the house by running directly into them, I have never broken a
bone (not officially, anyway). Not even
as a small child, when I ran circles around my family in the living room,
screaming at the top of my lungs, and slipped and ran headfirst into the metal
fireplace holder. I did get a very stylish butterfly bandage, though. Nor the
time when I fell (twice!) out of the van because I missed a step and bit
through my bottom lip.
Let’s not forget the innate toddler curiosity that spurred
me to place my hand squarely on the stovetop burner. I still have the scars to
show for it.
And so, it’s not terribly surprisingly that I would end up,
at some point, with a kitchen knife in my leg – not when you really think about
it. I didn’t get the normal injuries other kids had – broken bones and sprained
ankles from playing sports. No, I go for the spectacular, the kind that make
doctors cock their head to the side and say, “How did you manage to do that?”
I’m kind of exciting to doctors. I’m much more interesting
than your standard common cold.
About a year and a half ago, I was dog sitting for my
parents while they were out of town. My husband and I brought this spunky,
Yorkie-Schnauzer mix named Stuart to our apartment to stay overnight, and we
planned to drop him off the next morning at my parents’ so he would be comfortable
while we were at work. On this morning, I decided to pack a lunch. I wanted one
of the best staples there is for lunch food – a classic tomato sandwich.
However, trying to be clever, I decided instead of slicing
the tomatoes at home and risking the mayonnaise on the sandwich turning them
into a mushy disaster, I would take the whole tomato with me and pack one of
our kitchen knives, so I could slice it fresh at work.
You know where this is going. I decided to pack a razor-sharp
kitchen knife in my lunchbox. Which was nylon fabric, by wrapping it in paper
towels as “protection”.
Nothing penetrates paper towels! Nothing!
Everything was peachy keen as I brought Stuart down to the
car in our parking lot. I pushed his hyper, wriggly body over into the
passenger seat and set the lunchbox down on the driver’s seat so I could do so.
Momentarily forgetting about the existence of the knife (if I only remembered
one thing that morning, it should have been the knife), I leaned over the
lunchbox to get the dog settled.
And that’s when it happened.
It felt like a schoolyard bully pinching me as hard as they
could. I couldn’t figure out what it was – at first. Did I just kneel on the
seatbelt buckle? Was there something on the sea-
Oh.
Yes, there was something on the seat.
Remember my tomato sandwich?
For a few seconds, I didn’t do anything. I thought, “maybe I
can just stay here in this position, and never find out what I’ve just done.
Maybe if I don’t move, I can rewind time. I’ll just turn to stone, here in the
parking lot.”
It’s not that I’m super squeamish about blood, it’s the
injury that comes with it. I don’t like gaping wounds, or legs that bend
unnaturally, or puke. Wait until I become a mother, won’t that be fun?
I closed my eyes and gently sat up. As I did so, the knife
that had gone through layers of paper towels as well as my nylon lunchbox, slid
out of my leg.
Now, before I tell you what happened next, let me preface by
coming to my own defense. I couldn’t feel any pain, and Hollywood has taught me
that if you can’t feel pain when you sustain an injury, you’re basically dead. So,
there I was standing in the parking lot, basically dead. I watched in horror as
my jeans went from a dark blue to red, blood pooling around me. I was in shock
for the first couple of minutes because, you know, I was BLEEDING, so I pressed
my hand against the wound.
Meanwhile, the dog panted in the passenger seat, completely
oblivious of my imminent demise. He smiled at me. I wished for Lassie, or Old
Yeller, or the dog from the Cesar Savory Delights commercial.
Nooo, instead I had Stuart the Wonder Dog, as in, it’s a
wonder he can be so clueless.
I saw an older man walking on the other side of the parking
lot, and I called to him – once, twice, three times you’re out. I know what you’re
thinking – maybe he just didn’t hear you? Well, this was a small parking lot
and my yells scared away the birds; he wasn’t THAT old.
It was impossible to tell, as I couldn’t feel any pain
(remember, I was on my deathbed) how deep the knife had gone, or where exactly
the injury was. I saw a hole in my jeans and plenty of blood, and that’s about
it. In my confusion, I even used my jacket to tie a tourniquet just in case it
was worse than I thought.
Of course, a tourniquet would have been better if I tied it
ABOVE the wound and not BELOW it, but hey, hindsight’s twenty-twenty.
I called my husband to let him know I had been stabbed, and
to please come get me.
I know, I know. That came out wrong. Again, hindsight.
A few minutes passed and my neighbor came into view, heading
toward her car, which was conveniently parked next to mine. With a polite, “Excuse me?” She looked up and
I watched as her eyes widened to saucers. I asked if she could put Stuart back
in the apartment, as I was a little…preoccupied.
Sometimes you meet people under the strangest of
circumstances. We became friends. We bring her the family chocolates that we
make at Christmas time, and she allows me to pet her temperamental bird. I
learned that the strange screaming noise we randomly here when watching t.v. is
not, in fact, a dying puppy, but a very vocal Aves. The more you know.
My husband and my mother-in-law arrived a few minutes after
my neighbor had helped Stuart into the house, and we got a good look at the
knife wound. It was minor. It was embarrassingly so. I guess I wasn’t dying
after all.
While my husband drove Stuart home, my mother-in-law took me
to InstaCare. I walked in, in a pair of very oversized shorts (my husband’s),
limping up to the front desk.
“Hello, I’m here for InstaCare.”
The lady in glasses reluctantly pried herself from her phone
screen and looked up. “Please fill out
the tablet. What are you seeing us for?”
“Oh, right. I stabbed myself.”
There were several other people waiting for InstaCare, but
for some reason, I was the next person called.
Remember how I told you I made doctors’ days more exciting? This
was no exception. He didn’t try to hide the look of glee as he came into the
room to do my stitches. “This breaks up the day, between all the coughs and
upset stomachs.” I’m sure it did.
I was glad to be of service.
Maybe next time I can up the ante and come in with an axe in
the back of my head?
*Update: I went axe throwing. I did not get an axe in the back of my head. Poor doctor.
*Image Credit to Respective Owner.
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