Well, second impressions, actually. <\/p>\n
A long tie ago, just after the earth cooled, I was working in a northern Ontario town, installing a machine for a major Canadian furniture manufacturer. I had met the ogwife for the first time, on the previous trip. I was staying at the hotel where she worked.<\/p>\n
A machine install takes me a week, more or less, and I was on day two. With the machine about 20% together, my wrench slipped off a bolt and I sliced my right hand open along the knuckles, a slash about three inches long. A flap of skin has opened along the back of my hand so I look like Edward Kangaroohands, and I marvel a moment at the structure of the inside of my hand. The maintenance man helping me takes a look and keels over.<\/p>\n
I wake him by using my left hand to smack him back to alertness, and make him drive me to the local hospital.<\/p>\n
I’ve been working all day, this is midafternoon, and I’m filthy. I have grease all over my hand, and the triage nurse is dabbing at the filth with a betadine sponge.<\/p>\n
I grab it out of her hand and start scrubbing, rubbing the grease andf filth away from the wound causing the skin flap to be pulled painfully back, but it needs to be clean if it’s gonna heal. The nurse faints. I finish cleaning the wound and in walks the ER doctor, Dr mengele. He’s drunk and has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He looks at the passed-out nurse, looks at my hand, sits down and starts stitching the skin, and in his drunken haze, he passes the stitches through the flexor tendons that control the fingers. This means every time I close my hand the skin on the back of my hand goes along for the ride. Like when I can make a fist again, the skin on the back of my hand will fold over the knuckles. <\/p>\n
This is not good. <\/p>\n
Dr Mengele finally realizes he’s been stitching for five minutes and hasn’t iced me up ‘How thoughtless of me. Vould you like some novocaine?” “no, I’m fine, just finish” the ash of his cigarette falls, thankfully on my other hand, and he puts in the fifteenth stitch. He finishes, wakes the nurse, and I go about my way. <\/p>\n
All the way back to the hotel, I’m flexing the hand, and trying to figure out which sutures are actually attached to the tendons. I don’t know if the skin will disconnect itself when the sutures are removed, but the more I think about it, the more I don’t want to take the chance.<\/p>\n
So back at the hotel, the someday ogwife waits at the front desk, I wander in and take a shower. I get a packet of 3-0 silk out of my kit, and take it to the front desk.<\/p>\n
I know if I let my hand curl up it’ll pull stitches open or cause other trouble, so I get the someday Ogwife to use duct tape to attach my fingers to plastic knives. Thus immobilized, I use my fingernail clippers to remove the stitches that are holding my skin to my tendons, and fumble with the suture silk (I’m right handed, and I’m awful with the left hand) until the future Ogwife takes over and stitches me with close, even stitches. I explain to her how to tie a surgeons knot, and I’m all set. I spend the rest of the week working (clumsily) wiht my left hand and finish the install. <\/p>\n
In two weeks I return for a followup visit and the Future Ogwife helps me cut the stitches out and pull them. I knew then I’d found a woman tougher than any other, and figured if she could stitch me up, she was a keeper. We dated for another couple of years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, second impressions, actually. A long tie ago, just after the earth cooled, I was working in a northern Ontario town, installing a machine for a major Canadian furniture manufacturer. I had met the ogwife for the first time, on the previous trip. I was staying at the hotel where she worked. A machine install […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}