"Oh, boy. I've done it good this time."

Today, I'm put in mind of a classic Jerky Boys skit, in which our protagonist makes a prank call to a hospital emergency room to seek advice. Why? Because his hand is all "numb & sting-y" after the firecracker he was holding went off in his hand. Said firecracker being about the size of the cardboard tube in a roll of toilet paper. Once the emergency room staff has finally convinced our caller to get to the emergency room ASAP, he lets slip with the coup de grace before hanging up with: "honestly, I'm not even seeing any fingers here!"

It plays out pretty funny on the old tape I've got, but it sucked when I hurt my hand in the workshop this morning. And it wasn't quite as bad as all that, thank God, but I was pretty upset for how stupid and preventable it was. Suffice it to say that one should never attempt to clear out a suspected clog of shavings from the ejection port of a wood planer when it's under power. It was so similar to injuries you always hear about this time of year with snow blowers, that I kicked myself as soon as I had my wits about me for letting it happen at all. Stupid stupid stupid.

I won't put any photos of the injury here to protect the squeamish (namely, me) and the lovely and venerable Mrs SmileMoon was very kind and wiped down the work area after the event so I wouldn't have to deal with it, not to mention that she's the one who cleaned and dressed the injury for me in the first place. I know, I know, I'm a great big baby. [Our unspoken agreement is that I'll always take care of the barf in the house, and she takes care of all the blood. I would've wiped down my own, but she got to it before I could.]

This probably won't effect the day job very much, except that I may take a couple hours to consult with the good doctor regarding some sort of follow up. The blade definitely got to within a couple millimeters of the bone, so it looks like there'll be permanent nerve damage, but at least it's just the tip. In the long run, I've spent time with woodworkers with much worse to show for their workshop accidents.

Oh, and in case anyone was keeping track at home, it was indeed the same hand with the carpal tunnel syndrome. Aye carumba!