I like it when people hurt themselves. I think it’s friggin’ hilarious to watch someone bounce off a trampoline or fall down the stairs. In fact, the older or younger they are, the funnier. Sure, it’s one thing to see your 23 year old pothead brother fall off the deck. But when it’s Grandma, it’s 50 times funnier. In fact, they made a whole show of this. Ever hear of America’s Funniest Home Videos? That is one of my all time favorite shows. If you happen to stroll by the Kevolution Theory compound Sunday between 7-8 and head me laughing my ass off, it’s because I am watching AFV. (Unlessof course it is football season.) Every week, it’s a new slate of people falling or tripping over all kinds of objects; picnic tables, dogs, steps, toys, chairs. They do it in all kinds of social settings as well; weddings, parties, picnics, proms, holidays. And every fucking time it cracks me up. It’s such a simple and basic tenet of humor; people in pain who aren’t you. Those of you cool enough to be my friends on MySpace often see me putting such videos up. I have enjoyed this for years and years.
So I guess it is only right that something like this happened to me. And while there was no one there to video tape it (that I’m aware of, thank God), karma commands me to share it with you. And what better way than to Klog about it, so anyone on the Internet can read about it. Hell, I’ve had thousands of laughs at stranger’s expense, so it’s only fait I share it with the vast World Wide Web. Plus I haven’t written anything in a while and would like to get my hits up past 100 before the year end. We all have goals.
There I am working on a window. For reasons not germane (look it up) to the story, I have to open the window so I can stick my head all the way through and get a look at something outside. Said window is pretty old. There are 4 “panes” in the window. There’s a screen, a storm window, then the actual wood window frames. Both hold panes of glass. One is in the up position, the other in the down position. I am inside the house, and I have to open the wood panes first.
The bottom wood pane opens about ¾ the way. The upper wood one isn’t moving at all. I try to open the storm window next, but to no avail. I have a hammer (which always adds to the funny). I try to lift the lower window all the way up so I have more space to work in. It’s still stuck. I try to hammer it up, but it’s a pretty old window, and I don’t want to break it. Hammer doesn’t work. So I drop it to the floor. So it makes total sense to try pushing the window up. I try with my hand, then arm, then shoulder. Damn it, why is it so fucking hard for me to open a freaking window? Next, I try to shoulder the window up with my left shoulder, while my right hand is on the top of the window, trying to push it up. I emit manly grunts to further accentuate my effort. So as I’m trying to push this window up, the previously stuck upper window decides to finally succumb to gravity. It suddenly loosens and comes down. Right on the tip ofmy middle finger.
YYYEEEEEEOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!
My body immediately hits “Holy Fuck” on the pain meter. I look up and the window has caught my middle finger and wedged it between the lower window. O, OK, I see what’s happening her….
YYYYEEEEOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!
I see my finger is now trapped between both wood window panes. To the point where I can see both panes are bulging on their tracks, right where my now purple finger is stuck. I am trapped. I am alone. And I am starting to be in some serious, serious pain.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck ,fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” is the only word I can say at this point. Rather loudly, rapidly and worriedly. (I suppose, if I was writer, and I really wanted to embellish this story to add to the situation, I would say that this wasn’t my house and how not even 5 minutes before the window dropped, someone was in the very next room watching Church on TV. But, hell, even I don’t know if I am that good a writer yet or if I could even make something like that up.)
It’s funny how the mind reacts in this situation. There are fleeting few seconds of calm where you can study the situation and try to come up with a solution. Then there is the rest of the time when it is screaming “YYYYYYEEEEEEOOOOOWWWWWWWW! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK….”
The window is much taller than me, so my finger (and by virtue my hand and arm) is now stuck well above my head. My first reaction is to wildly try to pull the lower window back down. No, I lie. I am sure you can appreciate how recollection of such a sudden and traumatic event can be a bit fuzzy. No my first reaction is to wildly try to pull my finger out. I try it. I try to grab my hand to pull, but it’s not coming out. Shit, this fucking hurts. OK, solution one doesn’t work, time for plan B.
Plan B is wildly trying to now pull the lower window down to get my finger out. Of course, my damn finger is the wedge between to the panes, so it’s not budging. OK, deep breath in. What can I do now? The hammer! Yea, the one that’s…all the way…over there….on the floor. Shit, if I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning, hammer in the evening, hammer the ever-loving shit out of this window.
Shit, another wave of pain radiates. This is so embarrassing, I’m kinda glad no one is here to see this and mock me. Even if someone was there, and they would ask me if I need help, I would coolly say, “Nah, man, you kidding me? I’m fine here. Fine, fine, fine.” Clearly, when you look into a house, and see some dork with his hand trapped in the window, and jumping about like a trapped money, you too would just keep walking along.
I am getting scared. My finger is getting crushed. And it’s high enough over my empty head that I can feel the weight shifting from the finger to my hand, to my wrist. Like Police Chief Wiggum said when he got his tie caught in the hot dog rotisserie, “This is gonna get worse before it gets better.”
For a fleeting second, that vision of the fox that chews his arm off to escape the trap comes to mind, but this is my right hand we’re talking about. I am a dominant rightie, so it has to stay. Plus, typing these Goddamn blogs would take 3 times as long with just my left hand.
We’re going on 2 minutes here. Yea, that doesn’t sound long, but get your finger stuck, and see how time flies. I am getting really worried that there might be some real damage being done here. I jump onto the window sill and start trying to wedge my body between my knees and the panes, just trying to wedge something loose. Finally, somehow, one of the panes moves, and my finger is free. Now the pain really starts. Throbbing. Wow, so much pain from just the tip of my finger. Surprisingly not a lot of blood, since I guess it stopped flowing to the tip. The rest of my finger feels a little bit like it’s been pulled away from my hand. I’ve broken fingers before, and this pain feels pretty similar. A few breaths in and out. “Everything will be all right” keeps running through my head. Like I’m a doctor or something.
It’s funny when you get something like this, how much you realize you use, say, your middle finger. I mean aside from flipping other people off in rush hour. All this happened on Wednesday. And since then, I’ve noticed how often I use my middle finger. Tying my shoes, washing dishes, shaking hands, lifting stuff, brushing my teeth, opening doors, typing Klogs, etc.
I was really tempted to post a picture of my finger here, but that is just too much work for a Saturday night. I will best describe it to you like this. It’s about 25% bigger than my other middle finger, in just about every dimension. The nail is almost entirely purple. The nail itself is now raised above the rest of my finger, and there seems to be some sort of bubble or something right past the nail (right where it was crushed). It looks like I shot steroids into it, and they all just stopped at the tip. It’s quite disgusting, and oddly fascinating at the same time. It’s a mild nuisance at this point. If I catch it in the right place, I still get jutting pain. It looks a lot worse than it feels.
So that’s my story. I have now karma-ically paid my dues to the universe, so I can go back to watching people fall with no guilt. In fact, I think that’s what I’m gonna do now.
As always, thanks for reading.
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