Near Death

I have a friend, named Ben, that I haven't seen in ages. He moved back East a while ago to be near family and hasn't come back. (I know - come back to Utah? JEEPERS! ) We were well nigh inseparable for a while there, and were room-mates several times.

Why am I telling you all of this, O gentle reader?

I ALSO have a couple of scars on the back of my right hand, just below my pinky. One of them looks like a bass-clef, sort of, and the other does its best river Nile impersonation. If you will bear with my rambling for a moment, I'll take you back to the fateful day it happened...

Both Ben and I hated washing dishes, and after being room-mates long enough we figured we couldn't pawn it off on the other, so we tag-teamed 'em. I'd wash, and he'd rinse or whatever.. Went pretty fast, really, but I digress...

So there we were, one dark night, washing and rinsing away and bullshitting as we always did. I had my hand in a tall straight-sided glass and was getting that hard-to-get stuff at the bottom. A small circle of the glass broke out while I was swishing my hand back and forth inside the glass, and instantly I had a huge gash on my hand.

Of course, my hand is sitting in very hot (and sudsy) dishwater, which did its magic and pulled damned near every drop of blood out of my body (ok ok, so not every drop, but a LOT of drops..). Instantly the dish-water was a soupy dark red and I become very light headed.

Ben, who noticed before I did, did an honest to goodness tarzan AAAHHHHHHHH scream and yanked my hand out of the water.

For about half a mili-second he kept my hand over my head, hoping to slow the bleeding and then he really busted into action:

1) Pulling me away from the sink and instructing me to keep my hand OVER my head to slow the bleeding.
2) Running over to the top of the fridge (scant feet away) to grab a loaf of white bread
3) Jamming his hand into the loaf and coming out with a fist-full of white bread
4) Cramming the bread, all in a wad into my mouth (which felt incredibly dry in my weakened state..)
5) Giving me strict instructions to chew the bread and it would keep me from passing out..

I might add that chewing the bread turned into me opening my mouth and closing my mouth about ten times, each time with a huge wad of bread falling out.

6) Rushing into the bathroom and quickly returning with a roll of toilet paper
7) Yelling at me "HOLD STILL, YOU'RE LOSING BLOOD FAST, YOU'RE GONNA MAKE IT BUDDY"

Everyone knows that blood loss causes loss of hearing (.....) so I was thankful that the guy standing inches away was yelling into my ear.. It almost made me forget that I was dying!!

8) Frantically wrapping an entire roll of toilet paper around my hand so that it looked like a mummified soccer ball.
9) Grabbing me, and flinging me over his shoulder to carry me out to his truck while shouting "KEEP IT ABOVE YOUR HEART!!!"
10) Driving 90 miles an hour (!!!) down to the insta-care and carrying me inside, finally propping me up just inside the door to wait for care.

Phwewwww!

Sensing that I was clearly on the very brink of death, they rushed me back to Punky Brewster meets Pippy Longstocking..

She had pink and blue hair in huge pig tails, black and white striped nylons, short shorts (pre-yowwwwwwwwwww), and boots that looked like witches shoes.

Seriously.

Many stitches later, I was back on the way home, occasionally pausing to cough up some white bread.

I still have those scars to this day, and if anyone asks me about them, I usually reply that it was a grizzly bear attack or barracuda bite.. whatever tough and manly tall tale I can come up with.

Why? Well, because I'm just not sure anyone would be the real story. ;)