The "Thumb"stone Blues

So last night Andrew and I had just gotten back from dinner at his parent's house, which is always quite an event. This Sunday, there were only 12 of us (yes, 12). It consisted of many things, among them being his mom's famous eggplant parmigiana (yummy!), a political conversation about what the new stimulus plan should or should not be, talk of a new band called Fleet Foxes (so worth checking out) and me flipping off one of his brothers in front of his mother.(If you are wondering, yes, a bit of wine may or may not have been involved but he did it first! I was only defending myself). I must make note however that after this event occurred, Andrew's mother looked at me and smiled stating, "you are turning into a Will!". I must say, I love his family.

I've gotten off track. So we had just gotten home and I was upstairs playing on the computer. Suddenly, Andrew comes moseying into the room; not running, not screaming, moseying...and I hear a quiet voice say, "I think I did something bad". My first thought , of course, strays to one of the animals, or that he knocked over something and a permanent stain now laid on the floor, but no. I look up and he has his left thumb wrapped in what looks like a bloody paper towel. I was indeed correct. It was a bloody paper towel.
I jumped up. "What did you do?"

"I was sawing wood and I cut my thumb pretty bad. I think I cut part of the nail off." So calm. So without emotion.

I rushed him into the bathroom and took off the paper towel to assess the damage. Somehow he had managed to cut the side of his thumb in three different places, plus the very corner of his nail. We washed it off really well in the sink. Of course, while doing so, Andrew starts making Donald Duck noises. I can only assume that this means it hurts. Then I told him to keep applying pressure, no peaking for 2 minutes and then we would check it again. I rushed around the house looking for the neosporin and a band aid (of which we had none of...band aids that is), however, I did find a huge ace wrap that I had used on my knee like 12 years ago. This will work, I thought to myself. "No peaking!" I exclaimed when I walked back in the bathroom. "It's not going to stop bleeding if you don't apply constant pressure and keep looking at it and squeezing it to see if more blood will come out!"

So we sat. And we sat. Then we sat some more. Several 2 minute periods went by. And all he could think of to say was, "I cut my thumb with the saw my mom got me for Christmas".

Bless him.

After the bleeding stopped. I applied a significant amount of neosporin on a cotton ball, placed it on his thumb and wrapped his hand up with the enormous ace bandage. Off to the store we went to get band-aids, Tylenol and the sticky band-aid tape stuff (yes, that's a technical term).

Once we get there, we see another one of Andrew's brothers (he has 6 plus 1 sister) who actually works there. When he sees Andrew's hand, he says "What happened to you?"

"I cut my thumb on a saw".

"What? Down to the bone?"

"No."

"Down to the muscle?"

"No! Just the skin."

"Oh, that's not so bad."

"Yeah. So where are the band-aids?"

Ah. Brotherly love.

His brother dutifully leads us to the section with the first aid supplies and leaves us to it. After some minor skimming of products and making the notation that "jeez! band-aids are expensive!", we settle for charlie brown and the rest of the peanuts characters (can you name them all on sporcle.com?), and some tape. We successfully make it out of the store but not before seeing another one of Andrew's friends. He works there as well. When asked what happened to his hand, Andrew replies so seriously as he side glances at me, she cut me. Of course, this sends a spark through my paranoia as I start wondering if his friend believed him or not. He says he didn't, but you never know.

Back at the house, we wait a little bit before un-wrapping his thumb and applying a new bandage (one that doesn't swallow his whole hand). While we are waiting, Andrew is kind enough to show me the blood spots he left on the floor as he meandered in from being partially slaughtered and I take note of the blood all over the sink. But I can't help but wonder, where is the saw? Did he leave it outside? Is it on the floor somewhere? Nope. It's in the closet. Somehow he found time between dripping blood all over the floor and coming upstairs to get me to put the saw back in the closet where it belongs. Tell me, does this make sense to you?

About an hour later, after watching some of the most boring Oscars EVER! We change the bandage. It looks bad. His thumb is really bruised and the skin is all crinkly (yes, another medical term). I apply more neosporin, 2 charlie brown band-aids and wrap it with tape. All done! Wait, one more thing for good measure. I give his injured thumb a kiss and look up at him lovingly. "I worry about you sometimes."

And so ends the story of the "Thumb"stone Blues.