Tuesday, December 20, 2005

My Wife & The Knife


Welcome to The Ant Hill, a place where I will drone on about the everyday bullshit that I encounter and go through. I will do my best to keep this regularly updated.

For my fist post I will entertain you all with a story that I hope is not a recurring theme. Just about, no wait I do mean EVERY, year I end up in the emergency room for something stupid. Outside of the usual broken hand/wrist from silly, but fun to recall, altercations, they are pretty ridiculous. Such as the time that I had an infected hang nail that was causing me some distress due to the pressure of the puss and gore contained within. I decided to lance the sucker myself with a staple, not sterilized even though this was during a time when I still smoked cigarettes and was sure to have a lighter on me. After lancing and relieving the pressure I noticed a pretty red line running from my finger up my arm. Once that pain became quite intense, my highly intelligent wife suggested I go to the beloved ER. It was there that they informed my that had I let the pretty red line make it's way too much higher towards my heart, I would have been in real trouble. But this is all background info really. I have made it through a whole year, finally without going to the ER. But the year is not quite over I guess and may have just severely jinxed myself.

Last night, Siouxsie was to attend quite a large cookie swap with about 15 friends, at Jaime's house. Mike and I were going to get tanked and see Kong. Needless to say with that many people attending this thing there were quite a number of batches to be made of Siouxsie's signature "Supreme Bars". I had made many return trips to Redner's supermarket to obtain things that we had forgotten and overlooked. Such as the disposable 9 X 13 inch baking pans. I mention these because they play a key role in the events that transpired.

The batches had been made and were properly cooling outside on the table of the back porch. Our daughter Sophia just woke up, and was fed. Siouxsie had showered; I was dressed and ready to go. I told Siouxsie that I was going out to start both of our cars. After returning from the bitter cold I see Siouxsie doing what I assume closely resembles an island rain/fire/mating dance. I opened the door and all she could get out was I cut myself and jammed her thumb in her mouth. We went over to the sink to rinse it and see how bad it was. I knew at first glance, given my track record, that this required the work of a medical seamstress. But she insisted upon calling her mother, whose medical advice outside of the delivery room is based on 1950's textbooks, and she was on her way over to our house.

7:30-ish and off they were to the grand waiting room of the Phoenixville Hospital. Where they would sit for the next three hours before even being escorted back to the treatment area. Bucking their spot in the line of priority were, a 2-year-old kid who had swallowed a nail on the advice of his older brother, and another little boy who had fallen off the bed and needed a whole mess of staples in his noggin. Siouxsie was worked on by a student, and was alarmed at how much noise Siouxsie made when she was given multiple needles in the wound to numb the nerves so they could stitch her up. Seven stitches altogether. Not quite as good as the story of how she cut her wrist while trying to slice a frozen 'everything' bagel, and have the neighbor who she went to believe that she tried to kill herself (even with the presence of poppy seeds and garlic in the gash). But that is another story altogether!