Those Fatal Accidents Can Kill You

I think I should make it a goal to watch my husband more carefully when he is out cutting and hacking away at the lawn. After having conquered the yard this past weekend he informed me that there was a moment during the process when he thought his life to be over. He showed me his wounded neck and commenced with a story so funny that I gave up trying to maintain a grave expression and laughed feverishly until I thought I would lose consciousness.

While handling the weed whacker a stone or small chip of something was hurled at Sean’s neck by the spinning-line-trimmer-of-doom. One moment he was somewhat happily flaying the jungle grasses in the back yard (I say “somewhat” because he loathes this chore) and listening to his iPod, the next he felt something pierce his throat at the speed of sound and, he believed, lodge itself into his esophageal passage. Being the calm and conscientious person that he is, my husband was instantly convinced that the hour for his passing had come.

Though half demented from the excruciating pain he was able to formulate a plan of action in his mind to up the odds of his survival. Immediately dropping the trimmer he purposed to make his way toward the house in order to collapse in front of a window, thereby increasing the chance that I would look out and see him lying, gravely wounded, in the grass. (As he hadn’t actually mowed the grass yet, this probably wouldn’t have done him any good because I feel quite sure that if the baby had gotten away from me back there, with the grass as high as it was, I wouldn’t have been able to spot her upright body over the top of the grass let alone his prone form).

As he stumbled through the tangle of crab grasses and fescue and dandelion weeds, he recalled to himself the annals of fatal weed whacking accidents and found little consolation that his name would soon be added to this elite list. Because, he informed me later, people generally die from fatal weed whacker accidents. Who knew?

This is where I get a smidgen fuzzy on the details. I think Sean must have found the courage to actually feel his neck and subsequently realized that not only was there no gaping gash, but there wasn’t really even any blood, because he just turned around and finished up the yard work before coming in to regale me with tales of near-death and further excuses to forgo mowing the grass completely. I do think that the blow to the neck may have caused some temporary impairment though since he didn’t come directly to Nurse Mommy for a pat and a kiss and Band-Aid. The poor brave soul. Maybe it’s because I’m not a very good nurse; with me it’s more like a “you’re fine” and a shake of the head and a Band-Aid. Better to keep on mowing.

Attached at the Thumb: How I Almost Became a Siamese Twin

One of my son’s gifts this Christmas was a large play rug complete with roads, railways, hot dog stand, police station, fire house, etc. As I vacuumed it this morning I noticed that some of the binding had come loose in one corner. I was afraid that if the binding became too weak the colored threads that make up the pattern of the asphalt and buildings would unwind and the rug would be ruined.

I didn’t think that the hot glue gun would be the proper tool to remedy the potential problem and duct tape was right out, so I headed into the kitchen and rummaged through the junk drawer in search of the super glue. It did not occur to me during this time that super glue would dry quickly and bleed up through the fibers of the binding thread.

So there I was, a very few minutes later, saying a very fervent prayer that God would sever the thread from my increasingly sore thumb; I had applied the glue to the rug and pressed the split binding back into place, and I was stuck. Fast. I was afraid that if I yanked my finger away from the rug I would take the binding with me making the attempt to fix it more than futile; or I would leave about twenty layers of skin on the edge of the carpet as I could already feel the glue-chemicals gnawing away at my flesh.

For a moment it seemed that my only alternative would be to roll up the entire mat and take it by my attached thumb to the kitchen where I would need to cut it from my body like an unwanted growth with a pair of scissors. But God heard my prayer and the super glue relinquished its hold upon my thumb, leaving only a few precious layers of flesh behind. Perhaps, in the interest of self-preservation, I should invest in some nice, safe craft glue.