This thread reminded me of an incident a few years back. It was already a memorable day because it was November 1st and it had snowed a fraction of an inch overnight, what would have been a trivial amiunt except that the trees were still in full leaf and the snow adhering to them was bending smaller trees to the ground. This is relevant to say that I did not have the ceiling fan on at the time. So I was sitting in the living room reading a book, when the ceiling fan I had personally installed around 15 years earlier (with three light sockets and glass shades) completely without warning fell from the ceiling. It was still firmly attached to the wiring, which ripped a line through the dry wall ceiling and swung the fan precisely in my direction, to have the fan hit me in the mouth.
Only a few days ago, I got out of the shower and walked toward the bedroom window to open it and let in the breeze. On the carpet, by the bedside table, I spotted a small piece of cardboard. I picked it up and discovered that it was a pristine property card from the McDonald’s Monopoly game that was on some months ago. Pall Mall actually. I live alone and probably haven’t been to a McDonald’s for 3 or 4 years. And I hadn’t been out for days. I would like to say that it wasn’t there when I went to bed or when I woke, but really I guess I just failed to see it. But still, where the hell did it come from.
Last July I was cutting apple wood up into chunks for BBQ smoking. We’ve had several apple trees fall or die on our property so I basically have a lifetime supple of seasoned apple wood for smoking, just have to cut it up.
So I was cutting a smallish piece of split wood into chunks on a miter saw. It was maybe 3" wide by an inch, inch and a half wide on the split side, a foot long or a bit more. When I use a power saw I’m extremely careful and attentive to what I’m doing. But this time the saw blade caught in a knot or something and violently whipped the piece of wood out of my hand. For about 1 second I thought “wow, that was a close call” until I saw that my middle finger on the hand that had been holding the wood was spurting blood. No, my finger didn’t contact the saw, the tip of my middle finger had been ‘clubbed’ by the piece of wood, splitting it open and fracturing the bone. Time for a trip to the ER…
8 months later it’s mostly healed, although the side of the fingertip where it was split open is still numb.
Just this morning I was groggily making my way to the sunroom while juggling a cup of coffee, a plate of toast, and my iPhone. While (unsuccessfully) trying to keep the toast from sliding off the plate, I dropped my phone into a mess of butter and marmalade. I then exclaimed what I always do when making a fool of myself, “Fuck me!” To which Siri replied, “I won’t answer that.”
When I was a teen I was in the backyard next to the swimming pool we’d had installed a couple years before. I heard the faintest plop, turned and there was a leafy-looking object in the middle of some outward spreading ripples, but it was the wrong color.
I fetched the leaf skimmer and got it out. It turned out to be a small fragment of rubber balloon. The rubber was very decrepit and not stretchy. It was far too light to be tossed over the fence so I concluded it must have been an escaped helium balloon that didn’t rise high enough to burst until the sun had weakened the rubber, or perhaps, winds aloft had kept the pieces from reaching the ground for a long while.
Fifteen years ago I was at home (before I sold that house) with my gf who had stopped by to visit. My phone chimed. I looked and saw I had received a text message from a woman we’d kayaked with. She was in Ocean City, Maryland and had sent me a selfie from the beach. Her top was off.
I squinted and looked again. Yep, no top, a big smile. I was gobsmacked. I immediately told my gf what had happened. I felt guilty somehow. She looked and confirmed our friend was topless. We discussed why this friend would do this, and the only reason we could come up with was that it was an error of some sort.
Sure enough, I get a follow up apology text. She meant to send the pic to a guy she’d been dating, and in the glare from the sun she accidentally sent it to me. She then texted my gf, apologizing and explaining. She then texted me again, asking if I would please delete the picture, which I did.
A couple of weeks ago I walk out on my porch late at night and trip over something. From my years of consuming manga and anime this is the point where I should expect my hands to land on one of the softer parts of a Japanese schoolgirl. But in this instance, my hand went directly into an anvil lopper draped over the porch railing. Boy (I think to myself) it is a good thing it didn’t somehow get levered closed–I would have lost a finger. It was only then that it occurred to me to look and see if there was any damage done. Turned out that I couldn’t tell because all of the blood. So I wrap the two fingers up to stop the bleeding, and when I later take the cloth off I discover that it had cut through the webbing between the fingers and cut down into the white fat of my pinky, causing a pretty comical gap to appear at the base when I spread my fingers. So I bandage the fingers together to keep the gap closed (any other location and I would had no choice but to go to the hospital for stitches, but I managed with this one). By now the gaping maw into the interior of my finger has around 80% closed, but I think there will always be some notch left.
Last year we were staying at an isolated rental vacation home. Both of us got up before dawn and went outside to check out the weather. Up in the night sky there were a long, strung-out trail of lights moving along silently and steadily. There were several dozen of them. We watched until they had all passed behind a cloud and were out of sight.
Now, I wanted them to be UFOs, but when I got inside I asked Google what was up. Turns out they were SpaceX Starlink satellites. I hope to see them again sometime.
Many moons ago when I was single I used to rent out the upstairs flat of the building seen here
With two businesses below and a funeral home next door the place was pretty quiet on holidays.
When I woke up on Christmas day one year after a night of heavy drinking with friends I made myself a cup of coffee and wandered out onto the balcony. As often happens it was a very foggy morning, still, and quiet. Zero traffic on A1A.
I wasn’t out there very long when there were weird flashing colors reflecting off of the fog and I couldn’t make out where they were coming from. Then from my left coming up Rivocean Drive a fire truck silently crept up. No sirens but lights going full blast. As it made a right to pass in front of me ever so slowly I noticed a guy dressed as Santa perched on top of the thing. He locked eyes with me, didn’t say a word and just slowly waved as he passed by and continued to do so as the firetruck made another right and turned down Seabreeze.
A minute later I wasn’t even convinced of what I had saw and was questioing just how much I had drank the night before.
In that case, I think you got off light! Knives and glass cuts are usually much nastier. But, yeah, the location (fingertips) is a bad one, beause you are always bumping them on something. Get yourself some Superglue and seal up them little slits.