Me Stupid

I did something very stupid and I feel compelled to share it with you, my dear readers, lest you have the same mishap. Fair warning: this is pretty gross but the worst part is not what you might think.

I chopped off most of the top digit of my left thumb. Ok, I said it. As my dear friend Corinne would say, "Stupid, stupid, stupid me!" When I consider the thousands of hours I have spent working with kitchen knives, I am ashamed...

Sjaantje Emile had a friend coming over so we decided to make fresh pizzas for dinner. Dough finished, I set it on the chopping block and ridiculously grabbed my 10" chef's knife to cut it into 4 pieces. (With dough, you must make a quick cut in order to sever the gluten strands but clearly the 10" was an overkill.) The first chop was good, quick, clean. The next caught me glancing away at precisely the wrong moment and down goes knife, off goes thumb. Stupid, stupid, stupid me.

Thank God Sjaantje was there - at first she simply rolled her eyes and said, "Stupid, stupid, stupid Mom!" but nevertheless rose to the occasion and, I think, kept me from going into shock. Calmly, she retrieved the First Aid kit from under the sink, removed my shoes (so I wouldn't bleed on them) and then told me that breathing that fast probably wasn't a good idea. (I was hyperventilating.) Hearing Henk come in the door, Sjaantje went to tell him the news..."Hey Dad! Mom just cut off her thumb - look, there it is on the cutting board. Ew. There's blood on our pizza dough!"

After stemming the blood flow and evaluating whether this was a job for him or the local hospital, Henk decided it was such a clean chop (I am good with knives, you know) that he could take care of it. He cleaned the remainder of my thumb as best he could, sterilized the severed piece and just before wrapping the booboo gently put the top of the thumb back where it rightly belonged.

That night I dreamt Henk had put the top on backwards and I was forever stuck with a thumb that looked like a pig's nose.

The next morning we needed to change the bandage and also evaluate the situation. The wound was clean; the top epilthelializing nicely to the bottom half; no more bleeding. However, we realized that my knight in shining armor needs new glasses.

Indeed, he had reattached it backwards and there was my thumbnail in the spot where my thumbprint should be. "Is this some sort of a sick joke, Henk?", I flabbergastedly asked.

You can surmise that I had to rip that piece off again (PAIN!) which led to another stemming the blood session. The piece was put on the table but somehow had disappeared when Henk next needed it. That was about the time we noticed Wuzzy sitting there all polite like he does when he wants ANOTHER treat.

I warned you this was a gross story!

The irony is this happened just one day after Henk and I wrote our proposal for a private dining club chez Tilleman, planned 4 adult cooking classes for the spring and detailed a proposal for a children's cooking camp.  All cooking lessons begin with a knife skills class.

The thumb is healing nicely, no worries about any infections. It's going to look pretty funky but I am not concerned about that. Besides, there's always a silver lining: I will forever get a 10% discount on any manicure in the future.