So, we were making dinner tonight. Angel Joe had pork and chicken on the grill, I had broccoli on the stove, and a pan full of onions and tarragon as the base for a bean side dish. Drained the can of navy beans, put ‘em on the counter, gave the onions a stir preparatory to dumping the beans in, reached back to do something and…whoops!

Yup, sliced myself open on the vertical can lid.

So first we had a little argument over how I should hold a clean dish towel over my hand. Angel Joe won. Then we turned off all the burners (and closed the can, which still had the beans in it), and got in the car. Took three minutes to drive to the emergency room. And then, time…slowed…down.

Turns out Friday night is a popular night for injuries. They should really have a board that lists all the injuries ahead of you, so you feel better about waiting. Later, I found out I was behind two face lacerations (mountain bikers), another cut hand, and a guy who shot himself in the foot.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have a set of dice, so we had to play I Spy.

“I spy, with my little eye, something that starts with C.” (cut)

“…something that starts with B.” (blood)

“…something that starts with D.” (dishtowel)

Periodically someone would come in and either talk to me or prep me in some way. My blood pressure, which is usually around 90 over 70, was 139 over 73. (It had gone down 20 points when they measured it again, right before I left.)

They were all very nice. Finally, after I’d been measured, numbed, irrigated, but had failed to guess that Joe spied cupboard, a guy came in to stitch me up. First he wanted to make sure my tendon wasn’t nicked. Don’t read the blue text if you don’t have a strong stomach.

So, yeah, he took some tweezers, spread open my big ol’ cut, and watched the lil’ white tendon while I bent my finger back and forth, to make sure it worked okay and didn’t have any injuries. Luckily tendons are tough, and mine was unhurt.

After that, watching him stitch it up was trivial. Then they got a trainee kid in to bandage it.

(cocoon of gauze slides freely on my finger) “Um, that’s a little loose.”

(tip of finger turns dark red) “Um, that’s a little tight.”

Finally he got it all bandaged up. Apparently it had been a long day for trainee guy, because these were his instructions: “Make sure you keep it wet…” (Looks at ceiling.) “I mean, make sure you don’t get it wet. Keep it dry.”

Those are my emergency-room bracelets. One to tell who I am and where I live (in case I get lost?), a red one to say I have an allergy, and a teal one to say what it is (latex).

Trainee guy’s boss told me to return in ten days to get the stitches out.

“Can I take them out myself?” I asked.

(Him, nodding vigorously.) “No, you should absolutely come back here. It’s free.”

So, an hour an a half after I first came in, bleeding copiously, we left. It was almost eight, and we were STARVING. We returned to the scene of the crime.

Angel Joe went out and found that he had left the middle burner of the grill on low, so the chicken was a brick. We ate the skin, and he threw some bratwursts on. I dumped the can of beans into the pot and cooked them without looking to see if there was any blood. They were delicious.

And yes, I did wind up rebandaging my hand. Somehow, it was both too loose and too tight at the same time.

No one looks good after coming back from the Emergency Room. I am no exception.