maybe i'll have a cool scar now

I sliced my right-hand index finger open yesterday while putting away some dishes. I'd taken 3 glasses out of the dishwasher and stacked them on the counter (for you efficiency stickler people, the cabinet is directly above the dishwasher, so no, I can't put them directly from the dishwasher into the cabinet because I can't reach the cabinet when the dishwasher's open). The counter was crowded with dirty dishes, so I put the stack on the corner of the counter while I closed the dishwasher door. I remember thinking, "Huh...that stack looks kind of precarious perched on the corner like that." (So it's not as if I lack common sense. I just choose to ignore it.*)

Anyway, as I lifted the stack of glasses it toppled over and bounced off the counter before shattering all over my kitchen floor. To be more precise, it was only the top two glasses in the stack, and they probably shattered when they hit the counter. I know this because I made a futile grab for them as they fell, and the next thing I knew, there was blood pouring out of my finger.

This had happened to a friend in Scotland, and our med student flatmates told her to hold her hand above her heart and put a towel on it to stop the bleeding. So I did that, bandaged it up and went to class. Got some funny looks for the hand-above-the-heart thing. It was okay until I came home and was sweeping up the glass, and then it started bleeding profusely again. I briefly considered driving myself to the ER before deciding 1) it wasn't that serious; 2) I don't like needles; 3) I didn't want to die of one of those antibiotic-resistant megainfections you get in the hospital (you know, the ones they talk about on 48 Hours); 4) I didn't want to get blood all over the inside of my car.

Eventually I went to an Eastern medicine doc (a friend of my parents) who gave me this miraculous powdery clotting stuff he'd given my little brother 15 years ago when he sliced his finger open on a can of grass jelly.

I'm not really sure what the point of this story was, but it took me forever to type. Who knew h, j, n, y, m, and u occurred as frequently as they do?

*Stolen from one of the greatest comic strips ever.