I Feel No Pain

A few summers ago I was sitting around on a Saturday morning and didn't want to.

It was a beautiful summer day and I wanted to get out on the lake and drink. I called my friend HoneyBee, picked her up and headed out to our family boat. Of course, we had to make a quick stop at the store.

Two cases of beer -- and a couple of limes -- secured we drove to the dock, hopped on board and set off. We cruised for a few minutes and then I stopped the boat, planning to just laze around, float with the wind and drink.

She asked me to hand her a beer.

Me: "Sure. You want a lime."
HoneyBee: "Hell yes."

On board our boat we had a knife that had been taken advantage of in the numerous drinking excursions we held every summer. I took out the red knife and pulled out the lime. I halved it, quartered it and was preparing to cut the last section in half, but the knife just wouldn't make a clean cut. So I applied a little more pressure.

Holy Shit, I thought, I better be careful or I'm going to--

SHWHIP

While failing to cut the lime the knife didn't seem to have any trouble cutting through my middle finger. I immediately dropped the knife as blood started pouring. Not wanting to bleed all over the white leather of the boat chairs or the beige carpeted floors, I held my hand overboard. Seemingly never ending drops of blood spewed forth into the lake's blue waters.

Me: "Jesus, it looks like a fucking episode of M.A.S.H."

HoneyBee sprang to action and grabbed a roll of paper towels. She peeled off a few, handed them to me and went for the first aid kit as I held the sheets of Bounty to my finger and applied pressure.

The blood quickly soaked through the paper towel.

Me: "Get me a tampon, and be quick about."

Instead she handed me a Band-Aid that I applied to my fresh wound.

HoneyBee: "Shit, do you want to go in?"
Me: [In a moderate amount of pain] "I don't know. What are you thinking?"
HoneyBee: "Well, it's up to you. Totally."

I looked down and the blood had already soaked through the BandAid.

Me: "Shit. I think I'm going to need stitches. Fuck."
HoneyBee: "Let me see it."

I peeled back the Band Aid and managed to wipe the blood away. HoneyBee agreed, I was going to need sutures.

HoneyBee: "If you want to head in, it's no problem."

I considered it. On one hand, no pun, I was bleeding profusely. On the other hand it was a beautiful summer day, the sun was beaming, we had a cooler full of beer and there was a beautiful blonde n a bikini on board.

Me: "Well, let's just wrap it up and we'll see if it stops bleeding."

We put another Band Aid on tight, took a few sheets of paper towel, wrapped them around my middle finger and taped the paper towel onto my finger. HoneyBee grabbed us two beers, sans lime.

Throughout the afternoon we drank, bathed in the sun and, from time to time, inspected the status of my wound. Oddly enough, as I continued to drink the once-searing pain emanating from my left hand subsided. After awhile the wound closed up and I really thought I wasn't going to need stitches.

HoneyBee: "You ever had stitches before?"
Me: "No. Never."
HoneyBee: "It hurts. It hurts like a motherfucker....It's no fun at all."
Me: [blank stare] "You should be a nurse."

For four hours we stayed out on that boat, slamming beers and laughing about memories, some recent and some from our times in high school and even before. Finally, it was time to head in.

Back at HoneyBee's condo we had a few more drinks before she had to run off to attend a bridal shower. She instructed me to wait for her, as she wouldn't be gone for long. I drank some more and watched a horse race. Finally she returned home, and we talked for a while longer. At this point my finger was all but forgotten.

A few hours later I decided it was time to go home. Once I arrived back at my apartment I went into the bathroom and slowly started peeling off the paper towel and then the Band Aid. As soon as I pulled it off the wound opened up again and started gushing blood.

Shit, I'm going to have to go to the fucking hospital.

Now, I'm not a huge pussy or anything, but I don't seek out pain. I wasn't looking forward to going, but I also wasn't keen on dying because I sliced my finger open trying to cut a lime for a beer, refused to get it treated and bled out. (Although, honestly, that would be so me.)

At this point in the night it was about 11 p.m. Reluctantly I poured myself into the car and drove the five minutes to the hospital, a hospital that I had heard numerous rumors about, as many compared the level of service and care on par with what you would receive in the former Soviet Republics.

After a 10-minute wait I was escorted back to a bed behind a curtain, where I was told to remove the haphazard dressing I reapplied at my apartment. The first nurse took my temperature and my pulse and blood pressure and eventually skirted off and told me to wait.

Another nurse enters. We banter back and forth for awhile and I chuckle here and there. She takes one look at my wound and declares, to my chagrin, that I do not need stitches, but that it can be glued.

Awesome.

Nurse: "So, how much have you had to drink?"

Oh. About that....

I laughed.

Me: "Um. Not that much."

She chuckled and sent me on my way.

I still have the scar.