Wounded Digit

ouch!

In my twenty years of professional cooking I had great knife skills. While other cooks I worked with cut themselves on average about once per year I had a once every four years average, and the cuts were never serious. When I cut myself last night on my Oxo mandoline I burst out in a short string of obscenities. My little finger on my right hand apparently was not paying attention to the razor sharp blade that was slicing cabbage like a paper shredder. It was a real attention getter and hurt plenty while bleeding according to the laws that say, “When you cut out a chunk of flesh, you will bleed profusely!”

Of course it happened towards the beginning of dinner prep making the rest of the meal a challenge to prepare. There was zucchini to cut into bite sized cubes, sans fingers. There were onions to chop and eggplant to slice. It was all quite hindered by the creeping thought of, “You will do it again if you are not careful!” from that little voice that is supposed to protect us. This little voice however was just irritating me on this occasion. Dinner prep did get done, albeit much slower than usual. The paper napkin that I wrapped my bleeding finger in needed a replacement soon. I went upstairs for a bandage and was again reminded of the diabolical minds that package bandages in those impossible to open wrappings. They probably do tests with a hidden camera on volunteers who cut themselves then try to open a bandage packaged by maniacs while the test observers are laughing their collective asses off behind oneway glass.

the look on my face when I cut my finger was something like this

For the next hour I tried my best to keep the poor little pinkie elevated to slow the bleeding and throbbing having thoughts of where was that protective mandoline guide that would have saved my finger the pain and my mind the turmoil? Then it occurred to me that I would have an interesting couple of days ahead  as I engaged in my travel/food writing at the computer. It’s not enough that the bandage gets in the way but the cut is toward the tip of my finger making typing as smooth as a soccer player kicking a ball with a foot in a cast. It can be done, but it hurts and doesn’t go so well.

I always like to look on the bright side of things and it occurred to me that with this cut I now have four years of cut-free chopping, slicing and dicing ahead if history is any indicator. To avoid any knife work over the next couple days while my finger heals I could just go out to eat or cook heat-and-eat foods…yuk! When it comes to typing I will just have to blunder through the pain and discomfort hoping for a speedy recovery.

There is a lesson to this mistake that says; “Those who don’t use proper protection shall type hindered for days and shall type badly.” So my friends take care of thy digits and don’t be stupid when handling sharp objects while preparing dinner or you will type like meeeeeeeee.