Name:
Location: Vienna, Virginia, United States

A graduate of Dartmouth College (2005) and Washington and Lee University School of Law (2010). These are my personal blogs, and the musings expressed on them do not reflect the positions of my employer. They do reflect my readings, thoughts, and aspirations, which I figure is good enough.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

One of these things is not like the other

So there I was, on Saturday, at the Virginia Scottish Games, when this burly Scot came up to me and rumbled "Oy! Have ye ever tried the caber toss?"

"No," I told him, "although I think I've seen people do it."

"Come with me then, and we'll make ye a man" he said, in a voice that did not allow argument, and led me to a large log which would ultimately be the target of my masculine endeavor. (Boy that sounds wrong - please no one quote me out of context)

I then hefted it, straightened it up, and got ready to heave, not noticing the large splinter that stood out from the bottom of the log, near my left middle finger.

The next thing I knew . . .

Ok that's not what happened. What happened was . . .



There I was, in the living room, playing MVP Baseball 2005. I've been getting thrashed by the Yankees, but in the last two innings I've plated 4 runs to get to within 2.

It's now the top of the ninth, and Mariano Rivera is on to close the game. He gets David Eckstein to pop up. The next batter, Larry Walker, manages a bloop single to shallow left. So with a man on, Albert Pujols strides to the plate, already with two home runs on the day.

I run the count to 2-2, and Mariano unleashes a wicked cutter that runs in on my hands. I swing, and shatter my bat. The ball goes flying out to center, but before I can tell if Bernie Williams can make a play, the rumble in the controller tears the controller out of my hand. I'm so startled, I lurch out of my seat and fall down, not seeing the nail that sometime between now and five minutes ago imbedded itself in the floorboards in front of me. . . .

No no . . . , that wasn't it.



I'm sitting in a Japanese restaurant, sipping some sake critically, when all of a sudden this blonde in a yellow motorcycle suit comes striding in, dragging a woman who I've seen in the restaurant before behind her. It's Sofie, who works for the synidicate that runs the area. The blonde has obviously put quite a beating on Sofie, who stumbles beside the woman and falls down to her knees, eyes level with the business end of a large katana the blonde is wielding in her left hand.

Most of the patrons, knowing trouble when they see it, vacate the premises posthaste. The blonde comes to a full stop right next to me, with Sofie between us.

I sit quietly, not moving, waiting to see what is about to go down. The steel in her left hand glints menacingly.

The gang that runs the restaurant out of the back rooms pours out of the sliding paper doors at the top of the staircase, and in a show of strength, gather at the top of the stairs, brandishing an assortment of weapons and yelling wildly.

The obvious leader of the gang, a woman in an elaborate kimono, walks out calmly to the head of the pack and crosses her arms. In response, the tall blonde flicks the blade, and almost instantaneously, Sofie's arm is severed at the shoulder. She falls in a spray of blood, screaming in incoherent agony.

As I stare at the fountain of blood shooting from what remains of Sofie's arm, I notice that I too am bleeding. The lightning-fast move seems to have sliced open my finger. Reflexively, I staunch the bleeding with my napkin, and watch as woman steps forward to deal with her adversaries. . . .

Ok fine.

I was making guacamole, and when I went to pit the avocado, the knife slipped out of the pit and sliced my middle finger open. I managed to spray some blood on two of the kitchen walls, and it wasn't very pretty. Jen had to drive me to the emergency room, where it took five stiches to close it up. It's still not very pretty.

It's rather embarrassing, since I'm usually the one that has to remonstrate her about proper vegetable cutting technique, and I've expressed incredulity in the past regarding how anyone could possibly mess up guacamole.

But now I can tell people that I know what it's like to have cold steel in me. Perhaps it was not Hattori Hanzo steel, but hey, I'll take what I can get. I'm at least lucky I didn't sever any arteries or cut to the bone, or anything like that. No, I just managed to nearly slice the pad of my left middle finger off.

It's damn inconvenient to type, considering the entire left side of the keyboard has all of a sudden become a chore to operate.

Obviously I should have just ordered pizza.

I was at the Virginia Scottish Games on Saturday though. But I didn't do the caber toss.

1 Comments:

Blogger Wm said...

I am deeply sympathetic about accidentally cutting or otherwise injurying yourself. For avacados, don't try to peel it. Sink the length of the knife into the flesh then roll the avacodo over the plade such that you have a longitudinal cut the circumnavigates the avacado. Put the knife away. Take two hands and TWIST the avacado along the cut line. One half will have the pit and one one. Take a teaspoon and dig out the pit. Take a tablespoon and dig out the avacado flesh. If the avacado is sufficiently ripe, it will come away from the skin with little ado.

1:27 AM  

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