Giving Me The Finger

I have been uninspired of late. Not to worry, plenty of blog fodder still comes my way. My last commenter seemed to think I was waxing political and has decided to never read my blog again. Those of you who know me, no doubt knew that I was merely pointing out that someone who happened to disagree with my opinion decided to go on Facebook and say things about my park that were untrue. She was the one who kept pushing me to give my opinion. I had no intention of talking to a customer about politics. 

This is not an apology for my beliefs. I always own what I say and if an apology was called for, it would be forthcoming. Life just keeps going and we are busier than ever. This morning I actually slept until 10:00! I deserved it after the weekend I had.

I got up at 5:30 am, which seems to be the designated time for my little dogs to pee. It rained last night and I loathed the idea of getting my toes wet, since I had every intention of crawling back under the covers. Since my daughter's dog died earlier this summer from eating a rabbit she caught, I have been super diligent about walking through my back yard to make sure Martha, the boy cat has not left any "gifts". 

Martha just stares at me like he is trying to hypnotize me when I try to scold him for the carcasses he leaves in his wake. I have been tossing rabbits, birds and mice over the fence all summer. I always hope they will be found by someone else, but I am the one to dispose of them later in the day. This morning I paid for my negligence. As I stood at the door waiting for the little stinkers to come back in, I noticed that Cujo was reluctant to come to me and would not turn around to look at me. He is usually very obedient, but he knows how I feel about eating carcasses.

Charming Eddie scooted through the door, ready to go back to bed, so, leaving the door behind me open I tip-toed over to Cujo and saw the tail and two tiny mouse feet hanging from his mouth. "SPIT IT OUT!" He knew he was in trouble and chose to run from me and into the house and to the side of my bed. While I was very happy that he could not jump up into my bed with his short legs, I was still not happy that he was going to eat a mouse. I picked him up, intending to take him back outside and shake the rat from his mouth.

He SWALLOWED IT WHOLE, me gagging all the while. I shamed him and then denied him access to the bed. The rest of us went back to sleep.

Why did I need the extra sleep? Well, like I told the man admitting HeWho does things to scare me to the emergency room when he inquired why we were there ….. my husband is an idiot. Why? Because he gets these genius ideas and when he tries to implement them, he usually sustains an injury. It is like being married to a geriatric McGyver. 

This particular incident involved a 12 volt fan salvaged from a radiator out of a wrecked car. He installed solar panels on the roof of the bath house this spring. The batteries for said panels are housed in the "hallway" between the men's and women's sides of the building. This also allows access to the plumbing and holds the water heater. Along with all manner of stuff that may one day be useful. Like his beloved barn, aka Fred Sanford's Emporium, I do not enter this area. It is poorly lit, damp and creepy.

He had an idea to use this fan to keep the batteries from over heating. Keeping in mind that I have never seen the apparatus he constructed, I am pretty sure I can tell you what happened. I picture this to have lots of different colored wires and a roll or two of electrical tape, maybe some gorilla tape, as well. He is a big fan of gorilla tape. The fan itself has no safety cage covering the blades.

I am sure he had his drill close by and no safety goggles. He does not believe in safety goggles. He doesn't always turn the power off when installing things, either and is frequently shocked. No big surprise, right? He wired up his fan and found the blades to be turning in the wrong direction. Now, he had partially screwed this fan in place. Why would you secure it before you know if it works? For safety purposes? He pulled the wires apart and rewired it and it began turning in the desired direction with great force. So much force that it pulled those screws right out of the wood and was headed to his head. He said his head, but I picture his upturned face, since I am pretty sure he was looking at it. As it fell he raised his left hand to deflect it and it pretty much mangled his left pinkie finger.

I was in the office where I am held captive on weekends. I was pondering when to start popping corn for family movie night and doing a mental head count to know how much to pop. He was on the other side of the park, right across the road from one of our work campers. We ALL have cell phones, but instead of calling or texting me or Kevin, he got into his truck and drove up to the office. You will recall that he never simply walks anywhere.

I saw him pull up close to the door, right where I asked him NOT to park because the sun hits the chrome and bounces back into my eyes. He came through the door with his hand clutched to his chest. His face was ashen, he was sweating profusely and hyperventilating. I did not notice the bloody rag on his hand, I thought he was having a heart attack, taking a few years off my life. He said "I think it took my finger off." That's when I saw the bloody rag and peeled it away. His finger was still attached, but not a lot of tissue was left. I could see bone.

I called for help so I could drive him to a hospital. Kevin was the first to respond and I handed him the store keys and told him where to put the pending reservations and just wing it if any non-reservations showed up. By this time, the immediate pain had subsided and HeWho scares me was looking much better. As I was pulling out, a friend was pulling in. Terry and Sharon took him to the nearest ER for me and I checked in my campers and Kevin took over the movie screen set-up.

This turned out to be a bad idea. The closest ER is 20 miles away and not at all equipped to handle a big emergency. This was not a big emergency, I knew they would X-ray and clean up his wounds, maybe try to suture it closed, bandage it and give him enough pain meds for the weekend and refer him to a hand surgeon. But it would seem that competent ER doctors are rare in these parts. The "doctor" on duty was afraid to do any suturing, despite the fact that he called University Hospital in Columbia and was instructed to do just what I thought would be done. Instead, he just had the nurse apply a pressure bandage and give him the x-rays and tell him he needed to see a hand surgeon immediately. Oh, he also gave him a Percocet for pain.

So, off we went to another city to a hospital that I only had a vague idea of it's location …… in the dark. I have night blindness, but I got us there. He wanted to drive, of course and would have driven a lot faster than I did. We crawled into bed around 2 am after a nurse practitioner did what the doctor should have done and we see the hand surgeon later this week. 

Now he sits in his recliner, hand in the air in a Percocet haze waiting for me to fix his bandage. Looks like he is trying to give me the finger and doesn't know which one to use!