Yesterday, I Stapled my Finger

Pretty catchy title, eh? Figured that some people would just click over here to see what the heck that was all about. I didn't make it up. Honest. I in fact stapled the pad of my index finger while stapling the December page of my desk calendar on my blotter. I accidentally ripped it off while ripping off November's page and had my fingers behind the cardboard for support while stapling and then... The photo to the left is not me BTW. The puncturing of my finger brought back a flood of childhood memories of stupid things I've done to my hands...

• I was about 8 or 9 and I was playing with...you guessed it, a stapler. My mum told me to quit playing with it (umm...the stapler) or she'd beat the living bejeezus out of me I'd hurt myself. I of course ignored her and ended up ramming a staple, full depth, into the fleshy part of the palm of my hand under my thumb. I couldn't whine about it go to her to ask for help because that would obviously admit stupidity on my part, so I pried it out of my hand with something sharp (obviously not my intellect).


• Around the same time I was playing the back yard while my dad was working on our fence. I was farting about with his tools and was jabbing a chunk of wood with a particularly cool looking chisel with a clear handle. He said, "That's really sharp, put that doon ye daft wee bugger!" I of course ignored him and kept playing with the chisel...until it slipped and cut the palm of my hand. He may have said, "I told you so...now away and see your mother."


• I was about 10 years old and had the chore of making the evening cup of tea for my parents and bringing it to them while they watched TV. Heck, that was so long ago television may even have been in B&W (that's black and white, or uncoloured, for you youngsters). Anyway, I boiled the kettle and was pouring it into the teapot and for whatever reason stopped paying attention and poured the boiling water on the top of my left hand above the thumb. It was sure red and swollen and eventually fluid built up into a big bubble and when it was ready to pop...sorry, a bit graphic. Hope nobody was eating their sausage rolls or beef wellingtons while reading that.


• I was bit in the left thumb while trying to catch a rabid cat in a former career as a short order cook a dog catcher. Except I wasn't a kid when that happened.


• I was sitting on the floor at my parent's house and was writing something on a bit of paper with a pencil (yes, it was pre-computer days) when I tried to toss the pencil up onto a table, eraser first, and the eraser jambed into the edge of the table and the palm of my hand rammed into the sharpened tip of the pencil. The graphite mark stayed in the palm of my hand for months. Note: I was about 25 years old at the time. Sigh.


• The first and only time I joined a group of friends playing 'flag football' in the snow I tried to catch a pass and the ball snapped my left thumb back. It really hurt, but the pain my have been numbed by the cold (and alcohol). The next day my thumb had swollen to the size of an Octoberfest sausage and I went to the emergency. I apparently had a 'flake fracture' of the left thumb and they bent up a special splint out of fibreglass so that I could keep working as a draftsman with my drafting machine. Yes, that would be the mid-80's prior to the glory days of AutoCad.

*Sniffs* The memories bring a tear to my eye. Such fond memories. I stayed out of trouble in my 30's by coccooning myself completely in bubble wrap. When possible, I try to have V or Sean use the power tools about the house on my behalf while I drink beer and watch TV cower in fear in the basement.

#fridayflash~In My Mind's Eye

In My Mind’s Eye


The rising sun bathes my living room in an orange glow. I sip my mug of hot chocolate; tendrils of steam curl through the air and dampen my nose with condensation. As I close my eyes and inhale the drink’s rich aroma, I’m transported to my childhood home at the other side of the country. I part the sheer curtains, looking beyond the grimy glass and vinyl-sided houses lining my street to the stucco homes in the neighbourhood of my youth.

We didn’t have a lawn when we first moved to the suburbs. The front yard consisted of raked and seeded dirt, a small Pampas grass and a cherry blossom tree. Across the street from my childhood home grew a field of tall, golden grass that bent and swayed with the wind’s breath. Children frequently filled the space and launched their kites into the sky. The colourful shapes often gained such altitude we feared they would drift into the paths of planes approaching the nearby airport.

At the eastern edge of the field, where it bordered the school grounds, grew a tall maple. One spring morning I climbed high into the branches of the ancient tree whose waxy, green leaves were beginning to unfurl. Using a pearl-handled pocket knife I carefully carved my initials, and those of a girl I secretly liked, into the bark of a branch thicker than my father’s arm. Later that week the girl caught me admiring her from afar.

“Why don’t you take a picture? It lasts longer,” she teased from across the school yard. My embarrassment prompted me to avoid her for the rest of the sixth grade—and all of grade seven.

The field was eventually subdivided into properties and large stacks of dirt were scattered around the area like giant Hershey’s Kisses. The neighbourhood boys frequently set up brown and green plastic soldiers on the mounds and bombarded them with lumps of dirt until the enemy was vanquished. As such war games progress with boys, the group eventually split into two camps and tossed our ammunition—dirt bombs—at each other.

“Take that, you Commies!” I shouted, lobbing a grenade.

“Get ‘em, guys. Let’s nail ‘em with these bombs,” shouted one of my other Allies.

The war games were a major source of amusement that summer until young Teddy took a direct hit to the forehead with a lump of dirt concealing a jagged rock. He stood stunned for a moment and eventually put his grimy fingers to the wound. A lazy stream of blood meandered to the corner of his eye. When he saw the red on his fingers he began to shriek and ran home to his mother. A ceasefire was declared.

As the summer progressed our mild climate blessed us with regular sunshine and minimum rain, typical for that region of the country. The shirtless boys played outside constantly; their pale skin eventually darkened to shades of chestnut brown.

The neighbourhood continued to evolve. Holes were dug, foundations poured and skeletons of new houses were soon erected. Large concrete sewer pipes lay stacked across our street awaiting their burial in the soil. One afternoon our front door bell rang, rousing my father from his afternoon nap. He answered the door. Nobody was there. He had just gotten comfortable in his chair when the doorbell rang again. Another walk to the door to find nobody. He sat down. Upon the third ring dad dashed to the door, again finding the entrance empty. He sprinted down the stairs and across the road. It took only a few moments to find a long-haired teenager hiding inside one of the pipes. He dragged the youth out by the scruff of his neck.

“If you ring oor bloody bell again I’ll kick your arse!” he shouted, pointing a nicotine-stained finger at the boy’s nose. “And if you tell your old man and he doesnae like it, tell him to come aboot and I’ll kick his arse an’ all!”

The youth, his eyes wide and his face ashen, nodded and fled through the construction zone. Truth be told, the kid probably didn’t understand my dad’s threats because of his thick, Scottish accent. In today’s world, the boy would tell his father who, in turn, would call the cops and have dad charged with assault and uttering threats.

Time crept past and the field was finally gone. Eventually the Pampas grass grew to such a size that small children could hide within its depths, ever mindful of the long, slender leaves that could slice their exposed skin. The cherry tree grew full and brightened the front yard for a couple of weeks each year with its fragrance and pink flowers. Somehow, though, its network of branches became an annual haven for wasps.

I release the curtain, losing my view of the street. The old neighbourhood is both many miles and many years away. I sip my hot chocolate but discover it has gone cold and wonder to myself: Where do all of the kids play these days?