During the walks of life we all have our little adventures. Some more pleasant than others, some more dramatic, and some that just downright suck…
To complete the following scientific field-experiment you will be needing the following:
1 Enraged Springer Spaniel
1 Enraged Mutt of questionable heritage
1 Dumbass Swede
1 Plastic bag with ice
Some clean rags
Although it is strongly recommended you don’t try this at home, kids, make sure you have a working phone for the inevitable 911-call.
Whip the two dogs into a fighting frenzy (unless they already hate each other of course – then just throw a hamster between them), unleash them and let them go at it for a good minute, overturning furniture and pictures of your aunts and cousins in the process.
When you feel the fight is at its absolute peak, insert your hand right into the very nexus of the snapping jaws, aiming for both in general – and none in particular… At this point I suggest you close your eyes if you’re squeamish and brace yourself. If the conditions have been properly met, and the set-up has been done right, you should now feel a crunching bolt of pain shooting through your hand. Kinda like getting your finger slammed in a car door, only 20 times worse… Open your eyes and take a good look at your right hand. The middle finger should now be 30 % shorter and have a considerable amount of blood pumping out in perfect timing with the beat of your racing heart. You get extra points for achieving a “fountain-effect”…
This is where you yell to your wife that the “motherfucking fucking dogfuck just fucking bit the fuck off your fucking finger-fuck” and then start running around the living room like a chicken without a head, making sure to spray as much blood as possible on all the walls and furniture, providing them all with a nice amount of red coverage… It adds that extra dramatic touch to the scenario and also puts your point across that you are in severe pain.
Now it’s time to recover your finger. It will be laying around on the floor somewhere in the vicinity of the dogfight. It will be that pale little fake-looking thing that you have seen better versions of in the high-school drama-club props room. It will be strangely spongy and cold to your touch. A weird realization that this dead thing does not belong to you anymore should settle over you…
Remember the plastic bag? As your wife calls the police, the fire brigade and the National Guard, you try and open a ziplock bag with one hand. The first test of mundane, yet challenging, chores to come over the nearest week.
As you decide you can’t wait for these lazy ass bastards to come and save your ass, you yell at your wife to get in the friggin’ car and drive you to the hospital. As you charge out the gates, please note how the entire mobile rescue- and health care system of Florida has besieged your apartment complex. You get extra points if you managed to get the S.W.A.T. team there as well. Flick them the finger (left one, remember – the effect gets kinda lost if you don’t) as you tell them all “thanks for showing up ya fucking humps!” and then sit back and wail all the way to the ER. Who needs a siren when you can scare the crap out of grizzled truck drivers with your whining?
Once inside the ER make a dramatic entrance by plopping down in the chair in front of the registration desk and scream at the lady “I have a fucking finger in this fucking bag”. Sit back and enjoy the disgust and pity stirring amongst the housewives waiting for flu-shots for their goddamn kids… You will get in before every single one of them, because after all… you have a REAL problem.
Two hours later you’re still waiting to see a doctor and the last baby has had his flu shot. The novelty of having your finger in a bag on the seat next to you has worn off and the adrenaline roaring in your body an hour earlier has receded to a whisper, leaving a dull throbbing ache to reverberate through your arm instead. You know that big crane-sledgehammer-thing construction workers use to pound bearing beams and poles into the ground? The thumping sound those make? That’s what this pain sounds like in your head…
Finally you get your wound cleaned by a nurse and looked at by a doctor. The five bad-ass shots (three in the hand, one in the shoulder and one in the butt), the soaking of the stump in some orange stuff that burns like hell and then being told that the finger can’t be re-attached will take that edge off your initial relief of finally being taken care of.
When they tell you that you have to keep the “wound” open so it drains properly and so no dog bacteria get trapped under the skin you finally realize that they are not really going to do shit for you. They give you the name and number of a plastic surgeon and send you home with 15 vicodins. The good ones…
A couple of days later you see that surgeon and he informs you he will have to remove even more of your finger to be able to stitch it up nicely and that he will get back to you after he has scheduled the operation. In the meantime he shows your wife how to change the dressing twice a day and how to apply the antibiotic ointment to the stump. This is where your wife loses it…
One week later you’re still sitting there with your stump since you have found out that your medical insurance was cancelled last month, and that to qualify for Medicaid you have to have been a US resident for 5 years. Of course… you have only been there for three and a half years… The surgery is $5,500 and since you don’t have that money you have to cancel the surgery and grin and bear it… All the physicians you call guarantee that the stump will heal if left to its own devices without any closing surgery, but that you have to look out so the bonestump doesn’t get infected and that the finger will look like shit when healed.
So what have we learned from all this?
Never break up a dogfight? (I had them both castrated the day after and they are now resting uncomfortably in their brand new cages, fucked up on the sedatives I harassed the vet to give me. They can’t even fucking walk straight. Boo-fucking-hoo.)
Keep your insurance up to date? (Yes… My favorite part was when the plastic surgeon reaffirmed the ER doctor’s diagnosis that the finger couldn’t have been re-attached; “You see son… Stuff like this they only do at the ERs in countries like Sweden... Ever been there? Fantastic health care, and free too!" No shit...)
Is that what we learned?
No, we learned that being hopped up on Vicodin fucking rocks! I have never felt as “right” in my life before. I didn’t feel dizzy, I didn’t feel like I was flying and I didn’t see any strange purple bumblebees playing the bagpipes… All those things I always expected from hard drugs stood me up. Instead I was just wrapped up in a comfortable blanket, leaving me ache- and worry-free, functioning like I was always meant to function. I even told B: “Hon, I don’t think these pills are working ‘cause I feel like a million bucks!”
When I finally decided to ween myself off the pills a day or two ago I was horrified to learn how I REALLY felt. The finger, that had been throbbing dully for a week, was on fire and my body was aching in every fucking joint. Now I know why people don’t want to give up these fuckers. Reality fucking sucks.
So in the end of this gruesome experience I am left with a battlescar to show off at social functions and a story to expand upon as the years go by. The pain part fucking sucked (as did typing this fucking review with only my left index finger) but it was not as traumatic as I thought it would be. The only time I actually cried was when B was changing my dressing for the first time. We both cried like bitches when we saw the stump. Me, because I’ll never play the classical guitar again, and she, because that is The Finger on which she has taken the joy ride many-a-time. Also… it looked like the bastard child of a road killed naked mole rat and a rib eye steak… That added some sadness to the moment.
The kid came in and looked at my finger for the first time yesterday as I was changing the band aids. She just shrugged and said “It will grow back, right?”… I haven’t got the heart to tell her yet… Especially after the beautiful picture she drew of me screaming like a bitch with a red waterfall shooting out of my hand and the dogs wearing funky hats. That’s one for the gallery…
A dingo might have eaten your baby, but a Spaniel ate my finger. (Next year I guess I have to find new friends and invent a better story. This Spaniel shit is for pussies…)
Getting your finger bitten off...
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~ The Red Collar Report ~
