A Tale of Two Digits

Every family has their sayings, their inside jokes. One of our favorites was born on a Christmas Eve sometime in the 80s. It was late, possibly already Christmas, and we had the normal amount of last minute Christmas hustle going on. In those days Bellevue Square was open until midnight, and my dad and I had a tradition of hanging out until the bitter end, sometimes panic shopping, sometimes smuggly watching the scene unfold from the benches beneath the clock. And then, at home, there was still wrapping and stockings and all of it. I was running around like the Mad Hatter and tripped on one of the heater vents in the kitchen, just enough to slice the top part of my toe. I freaked out, and wondered aloud if I needed stitches. My mother, a former ER nurse, loudly announced: WE ARE NOT GOING TO THE ER ON CHRISTMAS EVE. And so our verbal tradition was born.

via GIPHY

You can substitute almost anything for “Christmas Eve”: Thanksgiving, in Hawaii, Christmas morning, during a pandemic….during the super bowl…. 

Mostly I blame Martha Stewart for what happened. You see, there has never been a super bowl before, in the history of all of my life, where I was a competent cook. But during COVID I’ve become a pretty decent chef thanks to the Marley Spoon boxes. Not only am I cooking, but also trying foods I’ve never had, or typically despised. So the fact that I offered, and wanted, to make meatballs was a really big Acton deal. 

Stupid parsley. 

I knew it was a bad cut because there was a small piece of my finger still on the knife when I set it back down on the cutting board. Don’t freak out, it was a small piece, but nonetheless very much detached from my person. I grabbed paper towels and ran into the living room to control the panic. Which, and I’m totally going to toot my own horn here, I absolutely did. I knew we weren’t going to the ER (see above proclamation), so I just had to calm down so mom could fix it. And maybe the calm is what did us in? I don’t know, but it was a gusher. I mean through the paper towels, and the next ones, and dripping down my hand. At one point I was like - is that my blood all over the floor like an actual crime scene? And that’s when mom called it - we have to go. 

 I AM NOT GOING TO THE ER ON SUPER BOWL SUNDAY. IN THESE CLOTHES. FYI, this statement was largely ignored. 

Blah, blah, blah zoom to the ER, excellent staff, decent experience, some cool technology to ebb the bleeding, and all was well. While three nurses were huddled around my finger (slooooooooow night at Providence) I saw a picture flash onto my watch. A picture of my bloody finger. I glanced up at mom, who was holding her phone, sitting in the chair in the corner. And it is SO unlike my mom to take a picture, and then group text it, especially while my wound was being sprayed with some sort of torturous disinfectant. I mean, honestly. We were in the ER! I was missing a portion of my finger! And I had just found out my socks were navy and my cropped pants black! 

As it turns out it was not a picture of my finger. Whilst we were attending to my emergency (I think the British accent adds a little something here) my dad went and sliced off part of his thumb on the mandolin. IS HE COMING HERE? Those were most definitely my first words upon hearing the news. I mean honestly, how embarrassing would that be? It’s a small town!! Beds 5 and 6 reserved for Acton meatball triage… 

Luckily, because it was a gusher, I was given lots of extra supplies to take home, and mom was immediately able to get to work on digit #2. And then make dinner. 

I’m not sure what the moral of the story is here, but I’m thinking next year we’ll be back to frozen snacks at halftime, and I’m pretty sure my mom would hop on a plane out of here if it weren’t for a global pandemic and all that. 😉