Cut
January 29, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.
At John's today working. We took lunch about an hour after I got there, and as I was cutting some tomatoes to put on my sandwich, the blade slipped on the skin of the tomato and slashed the the tip of my left thumb. I walked quickly to the bathroom, and by the time I got there my hand was coated in a sheen of bright red blood.
I mentioned that I cut myself briefly to him, totally dismissed it as just a nick or something--I tried to downplay it to him as I sat at the table a minute later, my hand pressing a bunch of toilet paper to my thumb. But I was getting dizzy. And as I ate, and tried to maintain a conversation to get my mind off of it, but I could tell John realized I wasn't all right. He got up early, whereas we usually linger at the table and talk about whatever.
The bunch of paper I had clutched in my hand was soaked at this point, and so I went and got a fresh bunch, and the bleeding slowly drew down from here.
At this point I was able to look at the wound, and it was deep, but clean. It started right at the line where my chewed fingernail starts, smack dab in the middle of the fingernail (if it was a line), cut down sideways, and went back as it got closer to the portion of the thumb where my fingerprint would be, where it stopped.
I tried to work for a while, but my thoughts wandered to how I could get away. I paced for a while, and eventually settled on just announcing that the cut was too bad, and I would have to come back on Monday to finish my four hours. He was okay with it.
We sat in the kitchen as I put my jacket on, talking about the new ipad, and how exciting it was, and I departed soon thereafter to walk to Fred Meyer to get those bandages that fit on your fingertips. I walked there smoking with my right hand, and my left hand still clutched the bunch of toilet paper... but there was just a fine daub of a few drops of blood at this point, and the bleeding had completely halted.