slow weekend, sylvia?

welcome to the drama of my existence on this spinning orb. this is what it has come to. i'm posting on my blog about the splinter under my fingernail I WENT AND GOT REMOVED AT THE DOCTOR'S today.

good god.

[i also went to the southeastern world championship bull ride this weekend, but that was fairly low-key, albeit kind of fun in a wholesome sort of way. no gorings, just rodeo clowns, cold hot dogs (!), and my own bad timing -- i missed the two most successful rides of the night during bathroom stops for christ's sake. and yes, i remained steadfast in my lifetime commitment to NEVER RIDE A MECHANICAL BULL. EVER.]

as for the splinter, i would like to note that i only went to the doctor for this stupid splinter because my mother insisted. it was a depressing moment at 10:30 last night to realize that i had no close friends in the vicinity (my only one nearby was out of town, and it was too late to knock on my new neighbor's door with the bizarre request of "will you do me a teensy favor? can you pull this skin here on my middle finger back VERY HARD?") see, i think i maybe could've gotten it out with a third hand, but i didn't have one.

as it was, i tried and tried (see these online directions, I TRIED, OK??) to extract it myself in the bright lights over my bathroom sink with sharp tweezers and the scalpel-like edge of some old toenail clippers. i didn't have alcohol. i only managed to cut the nail down really far, and in the process, also cut down the splinter ... (btw, this was a FAT piece o' wood we're talking about here, not super-long, like a quarter-inch, tops, but as wide around as ... uh ...spaghetti? but more flat? does that make sense? don't ask how this piece of wood from my deck got under my fingernail on a sunday night. i don't really understand myself. i was just trying to get the dogs out, keep the cats from getting in ...) THE POINT IS, all i did to my splinter was make it bleed and throb profoundly. and auto-amateur surgery made me sweaty and light-headed for unknown reasons (when i told a friend this today, i assumed it was because i was a chicken-shit. he suggested it was more likely because i was holding my breath. what is it about tweezer operations that yes, requires the holding of breath??)

so. i waited for 1.5 hours at a crowded urgent care (quite happy reading this though, i must say) for my stupid splinter (and later paid $67 since it's january and of course i haven't met my deductible yet this year). i felt guilty for even being there. seeing people with runny eyes and obvious fevers and coughing up lungs i wanted to tell the lady at the desk that "really, i was only kidding. a splinter?? haha. it won't get infected! i HATE hypochondriacs! i've had ONE antibiotic in 18 years, one! i'll just go home now, ok?" but i was enjoying my book and honestly didn't want to deal with eventual over-the-phone-mother-wrath ("you SAID you were going to go to the doctor, why didn't you go? you WANTED to get an infection, is that it?"). so i stayed. the doctor took the ridiculous thing out in less than one second.

and i'm glad i stayed because guess what? i got a tetanus shot! i lied about this on my vaccination/immunization paperwork before grad school! i haven't had one since i was 11 when i ripped my knee on that rusty fence nail in alaska! (jesus, i am a clumsy excuse for a human being. it's a LONG list). so, i should've had my last tetanus shot nine years ago, i think.

this concludes the most boring blog post in the history of the universe. [my apologies to every single person reading this who has suffered from actual physical pain ...]