It was a middle of the night trip to the bathroom, and I hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights. That door is usually open.
Once I got the bleeding stopped, I had time to reflect on a couple of things. The first was that I was grateful for my good friend beer providing me with a cushion that stopped me from hitting it any harder than I had (nose first, gut second). The second was that I didn’t know people really did that.
I had visions of the unbelieving and sympathetic looks that the ER staff would have given me had I broken my nose, and the Domestic Violence pamphlets that would have been slipped into the paperwork.
This morning I’ve been reviewing all of the times that I have been doing something stupid and paused to try to figure out how I would explain the thought processes leading up to the event to the responding police, paramedics, and/or firefighters.
Do any dopers have interesting stories about injuries or near injuries that occured in circumstances where the best you could say was that “It seemed like a good idea at the time”, despite the fact that it very obviously wasn’t?
Does licking an electrical cord count? How about if the other end was still plugged in?
I’ve told this story before, but what happened was this: The cord came out of the electric mixer and fell into the cake batter. I fished it out and noticed that there was chocolate cake batter on the business end. CHOCOLATE. So you see I couldn’t waste it.
After reading LifeOnWry’s post I remembered another. Her’s sounded just like something I would do.
While jogging on a treadmill at the gym I dropped the earbuds part to my headphones. The other end of the headphones was still safely plugged into my walkman which was attached to my wrist.
What did I do? Did I turn off the treadmill and bend down to pick up my earbuds? Did I just grab the plugged in end and pull them up while keeping my pace?
Nope. I stopped running and bent down to pick them up with out stopping the treadmill. I flew off the back and hit a concrete wall. Luckly I didn’t hurt myself and no one was there to see it.
Well, I was in the 5th grade and playing tag football with my friend and her older brother and his friend… We are in her back yard, happily tagging along… Picture this… A little girl with long brown hair that is too small for her age, grabs the football and makes a run for the “goal,” which is the side of the house. A glance behind her to make sure the guys aren’t sneaking up… and the next thing she knows, she is inside, on the couch, bawling.
Apparently, I tripped over the garden hose and fell into the side of the house. Since I had one hand stretched out in front of me, it hit first, and broke. Luckily, my friend got to go with me to the emergency room. To keep ourselves amused during the hours long wait, we played with the bed controls, and the nurse snapped at us. You should have seen the way my mom let into that nurse… hehe
Long ago, I was making some toast in a toaster over. I was using some of that designer bread, the kind that slices into extra-large pieces.
The size of the pieces of bread was keeping the door from closing all the way, so I put my thumbs on the door handle and put my fingers on top of the toaster oven so I could brace the door shut.
It was just like a cartoon. I had time to say to myself, “What’s that sizzling sound? It’s M-E-E-E-E-E!!!” before I snatched my hands off the top of the very hot toaster oven.
Luckily no major burn damage was done to my fingertips. The moisture and oils on my hands were what I heard sizzling.
I have also tried to iron a shirt while I was wearing it. It seemed at the time like I would just run the iron over the shirt real quick, so I wouldn’t actually FEEL the heat. But I did feel the heat, and it burned me.
Okay, here’s another: In my house we have this little key-chain tool. It’s for when it sleets and your car locks get frozen. You take this little thing, and push a button and a thick wire comes out, and heats up. You are SUPPOSED to stick it in the car lock. I seem to always be tempted to touch it to see how fast it gets hot. Guess what? It gets hot fast. SO I burn my fingers every time I do it. We call it the “Make your hand hurt thing” instead of the “car lock thawer”. Actually, I think that my husband hid it from me, because I burned my fingers on it about 4 seperate times.
sheesh.
Also, when I was in college, I ate a lot of baked potatoes. I would pop them in the oven for about 45 minutes, because I prefer the oven-baked potato over a microwaved one. Anyway, my roomate decided to make herself one while she was away from the house tanning. She popped one in the MICROWAVE, set it for FORTY-FIVE MINUTES. Then she left the house!!
When I got home the house was filled with smoke! I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Finally I realized my microwave was super-hot! The potatoe caught FIRE in the microwave and nearly set the house on fire!
Anyway, how would you explain that to the fire-department? Who’s going to believe that anyone actually thought you should put a potatoe in the microwave for 45 minutes???
I’m shave my legs with a disposable razor, and intead of rinsing off the hair, I’ll run my finger over the blades to dislodge the hair. Why, why, why? It dosn’t make a big cut, but usually will take off a couple layers of skin. When will I learn?
I was cutting up a carrot to run through the juicer. I held it in my left hand over the sink while I used a big ol’ honkin’ knive to hack away at it…
Took seven stitches to close the wound. I came home from the quick care center, finished cutting up the carrot (using a cutting board this time) and juiced it and drank it. Think it still had some blood on it, actually.
The worst part was when the insurance company sent me a form saying that it appeared that my injury was caused by an accident, and would I please describe it.
See, I wasn’t even wearing the shirt when I burnt myself. Even I know not to do that!
I was completely naked with the shirt on the ironing board. I was trying to iron the clothes I was going to wear to work that day. I still somehow managed to run the edge of the iron across my stomach.
I used an office paper cutter to make a torn floor-scrubber pad into hand-sized pads. I was a little worried about someone catching me cutting up non-paper with a paper cutter. I lifted up the front of the big platform to sweep the shreds from underneath. When reached underneath to get the shreds, I neatly planed the skin off the back of my middle finger. The good news; apparently, cutting scrub pads will not dull a paper cutter.
Oh gawd, tanstaafl! I do that ALL the time. And every time I do it, I think, “WHEN am I going to learn??”
I also ran a steak knife right through my hand, but you know, I think my general idiocy is pretty well documented already, so I am not going to mention that one.
Ok, way back in '75 I thought it would be fun to shake up my brothers by throwing some firecrackers over the dinghy I was hiding behind, into the fire they were sitting around.
Threw them, then ran down the boardwalk…
Tripped and gashed my face badly below my right eye.
I was in a band concert in 7th grade, waiting for it to start. You see, we had this speaker guy who kept on talking for about half an hour before we started to play. We had to sit on the stage the whole time. I was in the back, leaning on the back to legs of my chair, as is my habit, and i fell over, hit the concrete wall, and blacked out. My friends tell me the guy speaking didn’t even pause.
I worked at McDonald’s for a short period of time many years ago. I was working the breakfast shift and taking hash browns out of the fryers. Yup, dropped one in the vat of hot oil and instinctively dunked my hand in to retrieve it. Normally I don’t have quick reflexes but this time I did as I only burned three fingers.
Just yesterday I was purchasing one of those grill-tops that cover two burners at the store. I ran into someone I knew and I spent some time talking with them. For some reason I shifted the grill in my hands and smacked it hard into my teeth. Just standing there, chatting idly, and then bashing my face in with the grill thing that I was holding. I think my tooth is a little loose now, too. Dumb, I am.
3 years ago. christmas eve eve. I get up to open the heating grate, and kick my glass of water over, breaking it, step on the glass, then walk down the hall way to get something to clean it up with before I figure out that “oh, hey, is that trail of blood coming from MY foot?”
8 stitches.
3 years ago again. Summer. My house. Swimming. Where I swim, the drop off is only bare;y deep enough for me to do a shallow dive in. So what do I do? I Take a running leap and jump in feet first.
12 stitches.
2 Years ago. Doing dishes. Watching maralyn Manson music video. Jump at a particularily gruesome scene and slash open the skin between my thumb and index finger on my left hand.
6 stitches.
last summer. My aunts cow farm. Fixing/taking down/putting up barbwire fences.
While attempting to go in between 2 wires, I lose my grip on the bottom one I’m holding and it springs up andsticks into my hand and stays there. I gave myself 3 stitches with some cotton thread, then went back to work.
month ago. School. Asshole called me a peso whore. I kicked him. he pushed me. Sprained my ankle. Then, last wednesday, I go outside looking for the dog, step on what I THINK is the ground, but is actually 2 feet of snow… Sprained it again.
Theres alot more where that came from… I have so many scars you’de think I was a profesional knife figter or something…
