Eah, I Don't Need it Anyway

So I am now a partial digit closer to primate status. It's not going to hinder my piano playing, something that I have no intentions of doing, or my pathetic two finger typing either, thank you. My hitch-hiking finesse will always be considered edgy, so what the hell. Opposable thumbs, skomosable thumbs.

My job has me working over in my own satilight kitchen. I cook for the few,the select, the mucky mucks. The alumni who are invited back so the company can solicit contributions, eat in my dining room, as do a few relapsers, or follow up seminar attendees. Some of the easily reconized guests also eat there, as not to draw unwanted attention from fellow abusers. I have been trained to treat these people like everyone else. Everyone who has been born with a silver spoon in their mouths that is. These patients stay anywhere from four days to a month. I see them for lunch and dinner. We become close, only I am with them for more meals than most familys spend together now a days. Including my own. I know who is the vegetarian that secretly sneaks the lard filled donuts, who is on the high protein diet and who likes sweet onions on everything. I get lots of hugs goodbye on Saturday nights, before they fly away, back to their real lives, Sunday morning.

Last week I was finishing up after dinner and trying to close the place for the night. As I was shutting everything down and putting everything away, the large industrial sized plastic wrap roll stuck it's self together so I lost the clear end on twenty four inch dispenser. Being the handy girl I am, and wanting to get out of there bad, I whipped out my trusty razor thin pointy tipped fillet knife to pry the first couple layers apart and create a new edge. Suddenly, with out warning, the swinging door from the dining room bursts open and Jerome C, also known only by me as Coconut Dome Jerome, due to his sparsely covered round old brown head, yells, "Hey! Sister Love! Got any paper cups in here?" I was standing with my back to him, so Jerome had not seen the glint of the blade as it smoothly sliced through the difficult plastic and the tip of my thumb. "Umm let me check the back room", I answered heading out the back door grabbing a handful of paper towels from the dispenser on my way, as I head for the store room numb with shock. My hand does not really hurt bad but there is much blood pouring from it. I dare not look closely at it, scared to open the toweling to have what ever I just severed, fall on the floor, so instead I search for the first aid kit. I pull the kit off a high shelf and cross the hall to stick my head into the back kitchen door where Jerome is still waiting for his dang cup. "Sorry Jerome, I got nothing", I tell him and he kindly leaves to allow me to bleed to death in private. I am nothing but a good bleeder, being on the meds I am on. I once sliced my finger taking my food processor blade out of my dishwasher and spent the rest of the day on the floor, napping in front of my kitchen counter, in my own warm mess. I know disinfectent is my friend so I open the swabs as best I can with one hand and my teeth and instantly saturate the already damp swab with blood. I then bound mythumb with gaze and put on a plastic glove. I am calm as I walk across the floor, dripping blood as I go, and phone the main kitchen. "Basil? (My managers real name is Brian but he reminds me of Basil Faulty, the bumbling inn keeper from the British comedy Faulty Towers.) I cut myself here" "Where?", he askes. "The satilight kitchen", I answer stupidly. "No where did you cut yourself?" "My thumb." "You need help?" Basil askes me. No I need a new finger, But I still do not feel pain so I answer, with much bravado, "No, it is just going to take me longer to clean up." "OK, I will fill out an accident report for you when you come in tomorrow to sign." "Ok, thanks." I hang up and realize my glove is already filled with blood. I change my glove and grab my jeep keys and head over to Basil's office.

"Basil can you bandage my finger so it will stop bleeding?", I ask as I walk into his office, "I can't do it tight enough one handed to hit the pressure point", as I hold up my hand and start to remove the new glove filled hand. "STOP! STOP! The chicken livered Basil yells, not wanting to be witness to any gore, I am taking to straight to the nurses station."

The poor nurses there only see people battling skin bugs and shakes. They wrapped my thumb up big as a watermelon and sent me into the emergency hospital in town. I bleed through the two inches of gauze on my way in. Damn Basil let me drive myself too. Being polite, I waved the nice elderly gentleman in who was having chest pains in before me. I had no pain. So as not to scare anyone, I sat and waited with my hand above my heart, tucked out of sight behind my ear against my neck. My white chef's uniform is now permently stained down the back. With a full moon the E.R. was busy.

The only thing that hurts now is my pride. Plastic wrap got the best of me. I wonder if my thumb tip will become my phantom appendage, and I will go about doing the things I did before I "lost" it like some amputees. I had heard of a lady who would roll out of bed in the morning and fall, after having her legs removed, because she momentarily forgot there were gone. If you do happen to catch me standing doing nothing with a blank look on my face, don't worry. In my mind, I still have that one thumb up my ass.