Temporary Insanity

Some people are great people. I’d like to think I’m a good person… well I’m alright. Point is when a friend/co-worker asked me if I could help him move I said yes. Cause I try to be a good little human. And like any good little human I’ll do some manual labor for the promise of free food and drinks. (Specifically pizza and a diet cola of some kind, root beer is best. If you need something moved and consider this a fair trade please contact me.)

I was to show up Saturday morning at 9am along with some other people. I have a bad habit of jumping the gun, leaving early and being the first to show up places. While it works wonders for going to the movies I’ve discovered that showing up early for anything of a more social type of interaction it can make for an awkward situation. This is why I try to leave later then I normally would any more. Following my new set of rules I got to this place about 8 minutes later then scheduled and was still the first one there. The others arrived shortly and I was given the task of manning the truck and stacking the boxes. In between the dolly loads of boxes I saw some bungee cords sitting there attached to the truck. Being the useful sort of fellow that I am I decide that I should use the cords to secure some of the boxes in the are of the truck that is above the cabin area. I was stretching the bungees attempting to get them to attached to each other and one of them came loose smacking me in the face.

I felt a slight sharp pain but it was gone immediately. Felt a bit like being punched in the face, my tooth ached a bit but otherwise no lingering pain. I started tasting blood in my mouth caused from my lip pressing against my teeth too hard. Then I felt that my chin was wet and reached for it pulling my hand away to reveal blood. “Huh.” I thought to myself. Touching it with my other hand realizing the blood was considerable I decided I needed to see it in a mirror. Searching out the bathroom (Being careful not to bleed all over the place.) I washed myself looking in the mirror. Several attempts at trying to affix a bandage to my lip was a no go, partly because it’s an awkward place to put a bandage, partly because the thing was bleeding so much it got slippery before I could get the second half of the bandage on my face.

I remember thinking to myself that this thing is going to need stitches. Not that I’m a medical expert put it was rather deep. So much so I did a tongue check to see if it had gone all the way through my cheek. I’ve never had stitches before so I thought I should get a second opinion, plus I thought it’d be kind of lame to bail without telling him. I was here to move shit. I was going to move shit if I had to sew my lip myself. I wadded up some toilet paper that had puppies on it and pressed it to my lip so I could move about with out dripping blood everywhere. Going outside I found my benefactor and showed him the wound and it was immediately suggested that I should seek medical help at a hospital.

I got in my car ashamed at the fact that I was a dumbass and started driving with one hand on the wheel and one hand on my face. Periodically moving and folding the toilet paper to get a fresh section I made my way to my doctor’s office hoping they were open, which of course they were not. If this had been my office in Wilkes-Barre they would have been but let’s not go there. I decided I needed to make my way to the hospital’s ER. I realized I didn’t have any idea where the ER was and since I was already driving with one hand cell phone use was ill advised so I decided to call someone while I was still in the parking lot of my doctor’s office. The problem was who the hell did I know that was awake this early on a Saturday, certainly my brother was huffing pillow somewhere, so I called his roommate figuring he would know this sort of thing, which luckily he did.

Hanging up I made my way to the hospital using a masterful display of skill in the art of driving with one hand and two knees, folding the toilet paper, which was now mostly covered in blood. Upon entering the ER I was asked why I was there and pulled down my bloody toilet paper which met with something along the lines of “Oh shit.” which is never what you want to hear. She then asked me for my info and rather then try to speak I just handed the woman behind the counter my drivers license, trying hard not to bleed on my wallet. (It is a rather nice wallet that Mean Dean the METAL Machine sent me one year for my birthday after one of my weekly e-mails made a joke saying I’d take a mail order bride… though in retrospect blood on the wallet would probably have made it more metal… there’s always next time.)

After some waiting I was lead to a room where after more waiting a series of women took some more info and eventually gave me a tetanus shot because we couldn’t figure out when was the last time I had one. After a bit more waiting in walked the Hot Doc. I know it’s entirely possible I was hallucinating from whatever but I swear to whatever god you believe in that I heard the bell chiming ahhhh noise Scrubs uses whenever something really awesome happens. I attempted to flirt with her as best as I could, which was made somewhat easier when I discovered she was Polish, but really now how the hell do you flirt with the woman that is injecting you with a numbing agent so she can sew your flesh back together? Seriously, how the hell do you pull that one off cause I haven’t got a clue. The whole matter was complicated by the fact that the wound was on my lip so not only was I slightly drooling from the numbness but if I moved my mouth to talk I would have made her job that much more difficult. After the fact I was instructed to look for a ring, but I’m willing to bet most people that work in an ER find it difficult to wear a giant glove piercing diamond ring which makes that whole argument a bit null and void.

At the end of the day, it was totally worth it. I was going to make a joke about how I asked my brother to cut me so I could go back to the ER but then what if I legitimately get injured, it’d be bad karma man. My only regret is that it didn’t happen while doing something much cooler, like a bar fight, or wrestling a grizzly. Bottom line I’m not going to let this little setback effect my will move for food instincts. Though next time I will totally be wearing safety glasses, cause stitches are fine but loosing an eye would suck. And now for pictures of the aftermath taken today.

Random Notes:
I’ll update when I damn well feel like it and when I have something worth saying. This way I don’t waste your time.

Stan “The Man” Lee guest stared on the show Heroes as a bus driver and I totally geeked out.

I ran into Vince and Matt from Anomaly and they are doing shows on on the 2^nd and the 10^th of March and seeing as how it’s my birthday I’m so totally going to be there and so should you.