Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take, I said Doctor, to relieve this bellyache?

I write to you a damaged woman. I will use my nine good fingers to explain:

Wednesday night I received a coconut. Eager to enjoy my snack I promptly went to work on it. The nut had already been removed from it's outer crust (see diagram) in traditional grocery store fashion. It was up to me to do the rest. First I drilled a hole into one of the coconut's "eyes" to drain the milk. My drill and I were both pretty excited (the drill doesn't see much action these days). Then I used my brute force to break the subject into several medium sized pieces. The next step was to cut the meat from the softer inner shell, but this would have to wait until tomorrow.

Which brings us to Thursday. Never being one to rise early enough for excessive tasks to be completed before work, I chose my lunch hour as the prime time for coconut meat removal. Unfortunately to explain my lengthy bouts of bad luck with knives and extreme heat would just take too long, so you'll just have to trust me. I knew I would have to move quickly and with great purpose. The longer you meddle with things like knives the greater opportunity for disaster. I grabbed the largest knife I owned. Now I know what you're thinking because I was thinking it too, but the large knife was absolutely necessary. You can't ask a boy to do a man's job. The events that followed were disastrous..... and typical.



I had made it down to the last piece. Maybe it was the sound of Tina Knowles voice in the background, maybe it was the Accident Prone gods smiting me. I dug the knife into the meat and applied full force to ensure a clean cut. Then the coconut buckled landing my left middle finger straight in the path of the blade. I dropped the knife and looked at my finger in disbelief, screaming at a level that was totally unnecessary (see video).


I was able to catch a glimpse of my finger nail hanging off just before my hand was encased in blood. I frantically and aimlessly wandered about the house for a moment, wondering what to do. I then realized I had no choice. I had to drive myself to the ER.

Now I don't mind being single, and I like living on my own. However, when a twenty-five year old, single gal has to do something like drive herself to the emergency room it can be quite traumatizing. When things like that start happening I'm pretty sure you get a complimentary membership to E-Harmony.com and 10 cats are delivered to your house within the next 24 hours. There's just no coming back from something like that.

So I'm speeding down 4th, calling work with one hand, bleeding with the other (I'm a good knee driver). I jog into the emergency room holding up my bloody hand (loosely wrapped in a lime green hand towel) like the Olympic Torch as if to say, "Here it is! Here's my quick ticket into this place!" Of course, this didn't happen. First the nurse had to order her steak fingers basket for lunch, THEN I got to see the Doctor.

I did eventually see a nice lady doctor (not a lady doctor... a lady doctor) who glued the hanging stump back onto the rest of me. They tell me there's no reason why my finger won't go on to have a perfectly happy and healthy life. Sadly I don't own a digital camera, so any actual sitings of the finger will have to happen in person. But it does look something like this:

Okay, not really. But it is pretty gross.