Monday, August 03, 2009

So, How Was Your Weekend?

So, last night my wife decided to cut her finger off. You know how some people get an idea into their heads and you can’t convince them otherwise? (Women - what are you going to do?)

Technically, she wasn’t really trying to cut off her finger: she was trying to chop up some vegetables. And it wasn’t the whole finger, just a little skin (and the barest edge of the nail) from the tip. Nice clean slice – she’s always been good at things like that.

It’s probably best that she was cutting snow peas at the time. Onions might have stung a little. (They were supposed to be vegetarian wontons. I guess she figured they'd be better with put a little meat in them.)

She was using a brand new knife: it was, in fact, one of those chef’s knives that Albertson’s gives away for free if you give them a whole wad of stamps. So, if they need a testimonial, I’m available – those suckers are sharp. Good steel.

Not a huge, horrible wound or anything, but we couldn’t convince the bleeding to stop. So it was off to the Emergency Room. With Annette, of course, complaining that I was speeding. ("See the red spray on the windshield, officer? I was kind of hoping we could get that stopped sometime soon...") I'm not sure I entirely understand the logic there: "OK, I may just bleed to death on the way, but make sure you obey the speed limit." What the hell? Wouldn't that be kind of embarrassing if there's an afterlife?
"So, how'd you die?"
"I cut my finger and bled to death, because I wouldn't let my husband... oh, never mind..."
The ER wasn’t jam-packed or anything, so we were in and out relatively quickly, and I took Annette home and tucked her in for some nice technicolor Vicodin dreams. And now she has this huge honking bandage on her index finger covered in bright pink tape. Sadly, it doesn't bend well, so when she tries to flip me off (usually for making remarks like those above), it turns into one of those British reverse-V things. (If it had been on her thumb, it would have made hitchhiking a breeze.)

So, do I trust my wife with sharp objects from now on? Well, to be honest, I’m not sure I did before, so overall, nothing has really changed.

Anyway, that was my weekend.

11 comments:

Diogenes said...

Oh, my God, do you realize how lucky both of us (and, more importantly, our spouses) are? If Obamacare had passed, the Government Bureaucrats would have euthanized our wives!!

Diogenes said...

Glad she's OK... but keep her out of hospitals, lest the Liberal Democrat Grim Reaper gets her!

Nameless Cynic said...

Obama euthanize her? Hell, she's trying to do it to herself. And she's serious about it - Death of a thousand cuts

I mean, I know she's working on losing weight, but this seems extreme to me.

Diogenes said...

Keep her away from the chain saw.....

ToeJamm said...

She would have been turned away with Obamacare. Only serious wounds are treated, too many free loaders to take care of. But we asked for this mess, and you can't say you werent warned by not only the opposing candidates, but thousands of years of history as well.

Diogenes said...

Thousands of years of history? Oh please, enlighten us!

Nameless Cynic said...

Indeed. Please tell us, oh Jammer of Toes, which thousands of years of history should have told us of this. Did the Etruscans have universal health care? Or was it something to do with ancient Assyria?

Diogenes said...

Maybe it was the Egyptian Pharaoh, Carl (not Karl) Marx?

Anonymous said...

Just look at the current government run health care in Canada and Britain to see health care rationing.

Assyrian was a tyrannical government and it is no longer with us, it failed. Look at the history of socialism, including socialized medicine, to see its failures. When you give people something for free it increases the demand. And at the same time you take away supply by eliminating incentives for doctors. This leads to rationing. Why do people of other nations come to America to receive health care? Why do Canadians come here to received care that they were denied in their own country?

Diogenes said...

Such an incredibly simplistic view of the economics of healthcare.

Your basic premises are wrong.

Who's talking abot giving free health care to everybody? If that's what you think the current proposals call for, you had better try to do some reading.

Who's talking about eliminating incentives for doctors? Nobody's suggesting that doctors will work for nothing. At WORST (from the doctors' perspective) their incomes will be decreased... but they won't be eliminated. And 99% of doctors won't quit being doctors because their incomes are lower. They'll still make more than a decent living, so there's no need to start setting up any "Feed the Doctors" charities.

The healthcare industry is a good deal more complex, and a lot more resilient, than the rightwingnut talkradio types would have us believe.

Nameless Cynic said...

Oh, and incidentally, you're right. We should look at those other countries and their "socialized medicine."

Out of the top 30 industrialized nations, America ranks 27th in lifespan. And those poor beleaguered Canadians you keep running down?

They rank 9th. And they manage to do so while spending a little over half what we do. Wow, it must suck to be them, huh? All that crappy healthcare doing a better job of keeping them alive and all...