I've seen my share of pain. I remember at Sheridan College one classmate was passing the xacto to another classmate, handle toward the recipent, who jokingly quickly jerked it from his hand. He was driven to the hospital, blood dripping down to his elbow for a few stitches.

Last year a Project Manager at our office was on his way to a meeting and crossing the street at an intersection just outside our office. He was hit by buddy in a Uhaul truck who failed to stop at the stopsign and knocked him a few feet. Thankfully the only thing bruised was his ego...

and when I used to live downtown I would cycle to work everyday. One day on a rush to an early morning meeting with a major client I took a spill on some ice on a bike path. I went to the meeting anyway but with ripped pants and bloody knees. Embarrased but on time.

I heard a story at Portfolio Center that a student called the front desk from the Emergency Room after cutting her hand pretty badly. She was calling simply to say she'd be a little late to class. The instructor who answered the phone just said, "Okay, no problem." I imagine it's like that in wartime.

I've had plenty of the nastiest kind of paper-cut: the mat-board cut.

If you're squimish DO NOT read...

This story via my friend Scott...at a pre-press shop he worked at in the 80's. A guy whipped a piece of film out of the film processor...it whipped up and cut his EYE! Paper(film)cut to the EYE....

ugh. It ended up okay, it healed and his vison was pretty much unaffected. True story.

I have 2 stories, but only one unique tale. You see, I have done the Xacto meets flesh on two occasions but everyone has done that at some point. Its always near the end of an extended work period when you're tired and in a hurry. Not a good mix. I'm actually missing pieces of my pointer finger and thumb because when you're in a hurry you don't always get your fingers away from the edge of the ruler.... slice... blood.... start over.

The other was a bit more obscure, but based in the same circumstances. After pulling a typical agency 24 hour shift (typical for our agency, I don't know about everyone else), our team was tired, angry and on the verge of psychosis. We were almost finished with our boards and had yelled at the idiot AE and sent her away crying. I had 5 minutes to get the boards down to the delivery service before they left and I was on the run... well almost. I was headed down our creaky staircase, caught the boards on the rail/corner, turned, twisted my ankle, fell, and hit my head on the concrete wall causing a concussion. Clumsy yes, BUT I HAD A DAMN GOOD REASON! Sorry, I took more than a little ribbing from that one. But, the boards were ok and I got a couple of days at home to recouperate.

Now if we want to talk non-designing injuries, I have a boatload more. Like fireworks.

You make it sound so dramatic. I thought the X-Acto cut was a requirement for advancement. Hasn't everyone sliced their finger?

When I was about a year into my first job, I was trimming comps - we had to send 10 each of a couple brochures out to teachers for review (educational brochure). Cutting quickly. etc. etc. Didn't realize the tip of my index finger was overhanging the ruler (about a the size of a pencil eraser, at an angle). Almost sliced it right off, with a bit nail. Went home with it hanging by a flap of skin. An hour later, I realized the bleeding hadn't stopped and went in and got a fingerful of stitches. All is fine now. Of course it was right before my wedding, but I didn't care about those typical hands with rings photos anyway.

At my school, there were stories of the kid who sliced the end of his index finger off late at night. And the classmate who picked up the end with the Xacto - by stabbing it -and took it to the emergency room to be sewn on.

i'd don't remember any of my Art Center horror stories (well, there was a time that my painting fell on an instructor's Christmas tree...)

Most of my New York life has been in galleries. Hope that counts. We were having a large exhibition of American Paintings about three years ago. I needed to pick up a small, very valuable painting and bring it back to hang the exhibition.

I got to the collector's home and got out of the car. Cavalierly, i slammed the door as i got out and ended up closing the car door on my thumb. The driver started to pull forward and i went running down the block with my hand caught in the car door ... banging on the driver's window.

The collector was very understanding and helped me ice my bloody hand. I then wrapped the small painting... very very careful not to bleed on it. Then the car took me back to the gallery ... waited for me .. and finally to the hospital.

2 am. I was trying to finish a part of an exhibit, cutting to shape some foam core that had already been attached to the display structure. Down near the bottom, I was squatting on my heels, cutting away with an xacto when my knife slipped and plunged down, embeddeding itself the full length of the blade into my thigh. I sat there in shock, staring at the quivering xacto, still stuck upright in my leg, until a senior designer came over and shook me out of it and gave me a paper towel to sop up the blood oozing up though my pant leg. I think that must have been the sharpest xacto knife I've ever used - I still have the bloody blade.

Aside from the few xacto cuts and the occasional carpal tunnel issues, I've survived fairly intact (which is surprising considering I spent a few years at a letterpress shop).

While not a painful experience, one of my favorite stories is from when I was an Intern at 3M. I had to spend a day spray mounting 800 boards for 3M's legal team (going to court that week). I went through two cases of Super77. I had a crusty helmet of Super 77 on my head for about a week.

The worst part about an Xacto knife cut is that you always know a split second before that's it's about to happen, and it's too late to do anything. You sort of see your life flash before your eyes.

senior year 1993, finishing my thesis project (which was entitled "hair is important." it was a series of posters documenting people, their beauty products of choice, and the envirnomental effects of their purchase of said products). each poster was 18"x18" square, which meant i needed to trim 60 of the fuckers before the show the next day.

i managed to trim off about 1/16" of my right pinkie, and i actually did bleed on the work. it looked pretty nice, so i just wrapped up the finger, kept on working, and proudly presented 60 bloodstained images of friends with amazing hair the next day. god, i was delirious. my right pinkie is now noticably lopsided.

Stream-of consciousness digression alert!

In a previous life, I was manning a booth at an Art Materials Association trade show. The folks in the booth next to me were two big guys from New Jersey selling Pro-Edge blades, a fledgling challenger to Xacto's market niche. After talking for a while we dicovered some shared interest in music, and they told me they had been in a band together in the 80's, which turned out to be none other than The Misfits! I was awestruck to find I was speaking to Jerry Only and Doyle, and this was the business they had started after the band broke up.

Random, I know, but I figured some folks here might at least be vaguely interested in this little-known enterprise.

Paul, that's amazing.

But weren't they rich from their dad's machine shop or something? I know they came into the Misfits with plenty of dough from something their parents did. Something very New Jersey - machine shop, metal fabricators, something? So that makes sense...

From what I've read, it was their rich-kid jock attitude that drove Glenn to quit. Of course, who knows what really happened.

The story is cool, though. And funny!

About three years ago I decided to spend a long weekend with my folks and go directly to a design presentation at Pepsi on a Monday morning. My meeting was in the afternoon, and Pepsi wasn't too far from our house.

I had been hiding the fact that I was back to smoking from my dad as I knew he would be mortified that I had returned to the nasty habit. Problem was, though I wasn't going to smoke in his presence, or in his home, I still was addicted, and forgot that quitting cold turkey at your folks home was really, really stupid.

I spent the weekend withdrawing and the second I drove away and got safely out of distance of our house, I lit up. I spent the trip to Pepsi smoking like a chimney, but as the trip was not too long, I wasn't sufficiently nicotined up by the time I got there. I arrived early and was waiting in the reception area for my colleagues to meet me, but I still had the nasty urge. So I jumped up and cavalierly told the receptionist that I would be waiting in the parking lot for my associates to arrive. Well...I jumped too fast.

I hopped up, grabbed my bags and my brain played a trick on me. I thought the big, glass door in front of me was opened, and it wasn't. I walked face first into the glass door, rammed my glasses into the bridge of my nose and briefly blacked out. All right there in the Pepsi lobby. It wasn't till I came too and pulled my hands away from my face that I (and the receptionist) realized that I there was blood everywhere. A wheel chair was quickly summoned, and one of my colleagues raced me to the hospital. I had broken my nose and needed 12 stitches to stop the bleeding.

Nevertheless, the meeting went on (without me). I had two black eyes and a bruised ego for days. We still joke about this every time we go to Pepsi, "Deb...watch out for the door" and "Deb, be careful, the door is closed.

Moral of the story: don't keep things from the people you love and watch where you are going. Oh yeah, and smoking is bad.

Okay, X-acto horror story. Here goes:

At my college paper, we laid stuff out in Quark, but pasted up using a waxer & X-actos. Midway through my freshman year, I cut the tip of my thumb off. All the way. No stitches. However, I did a shitty job of skin paste-up, and the circular portion is still about 10 degrees off from the rest of my fingerprint.

Two quick family stories:

1. My great uncle was a pressman & got his arm caught in a press sometime back in the 50s. The first doctor wanted to amputate. The second doctor said "I can save it," and actually made it into a medical text for the surgery. Charlie could still play piano & accordian afterwards. Awesome.

2. Another uncle of some sort [great, removed, cousin, something] worked sorting big sheeets of paper & lumber. He actually wore his fingerprints away. After he quit the job & they grew back, he had different fingerprints. I thought this was cool & would make for a great subplot in a crime story.

Besides the usual Xacto/matte/glass cut injuries, I've done some pretty bone-headed ones too.

• Whacked myself in the balls with a t-square while cutting comps drunk (hello, immaturity, goodbye contribution to the species).
• Set my foot on fire while trying to photograph the ol' conceptualize-the-word assignment (my word was pyromania).
• Dektol splashed in my eyes when I turned around too fast in the darkroom.

I have to agree with Debbie too on the smoking mishaps. I was cleaning a silkscreen outside in the dead of winter with just a t-shirt on so as not to fume up the entire building. Now, the fact that I was just wearing a t-shirt was dumb enough, but I was also cleaning the screen with acetone and smoking at the same time. A teacher was going home and (god bless him) calmly suggested that it wasn't a good idea to smoke right next to the canister of flammable chemicals. I wasn't even thinking about anything but getting my nic fix. I'm sure all he was thinking about was how much stupider his students got as time went on.

hahaha....oh man Debbie. That is just hilarious. And awful. hahaha...I can just imagine you sprawled on the floor with black bags scattered about you...awesome.

Well I've trimmed the tip of my index finger so often that it has a permanent indentation there.

Ever wondered just how far you can cut and still have it grow back -- you know what I mean? Like what parts on your body regenerates beside your hair and nails?

In school, I once dropped an xacto knife, and it punctured through my shoe and stabbed the top of my foot. Before taking it out, I limped into the computer lab to show people the knife sticking out of my shoe.

And chemical-wise, I don't think I had fingerprints for a few years there. There was the Bistine, and photographic developing fluids, not to mention a semi-permanent yellow stain on my hands from stat developer.

Now this story is not so funny. Our class pulled all-nighters regularly. A few of us often joked about sleep-induced blackouts on the side of the streets while driving home. It was stupid. Until one promising design student in a junior class did fall asleep on the highway while driving home. She rear-ended a UHaul and was in a coma for 6 months. When she woke up, she had some mild, but permanent brain damage, and of course, never returned to school. Sad.

> You make it sound so dramatic.

I'm a drama queen.

> The worst part about an Xacto knife cut is that you always know a split second before that's it's about to happen, and it's too late to do anything. You sort of see your life flash before your eyes.

So, so true. And funny. In that split second you are also already making excuses in your head of what to tell the client — or the teacher, depending on when the accident took place.

I agree with Sam, mat-board cuts are horrible. Not as horrible as film-cut though, that sounds totally nasty.

I really have no horror story. Many, many small cuts over time, but nothing major. (Fingers crossed, knock on wood).

I have one story, related to my brother in law, he is an architect. In Mexico we have this glue called Uhu, pretty strong stuff (some kids use it to get high too, or so they tell me). One of the tricks to use Uhu effectively is to pour the glue into a syringe so that you can deliver the right amount of glue into the tightest spots. He was building a model and somehow the syringe ended up stuck into one of his fingers, amidst the chaos he managed to press the syringe's pressy thingie and delivered a nice amount of Uhu to his finger. He still has a little bump filled with glue.

I didn't think I had much in the way of a war story to contribute until Tan mentioned "sleep-induced blackouts"...

While I was attending school full-time, I also had a full-time job working as a typesetter/compositor for a financial printing company. It was a second-shift job: 4 in the afternoon until midnight. The office was in downtown Los Angeles, and I was living at the far west end of the Valley, a substantial commute even without traffic.

During "proxy season", the busiest part of the financial printing year, we were on mandatory 12-hour shifts, which turned my 4-midnight shift into a 2 p.m. - 2 a.m. nightmare. And the end of proxy season overlapped with mid-terms.

I almost made it. Got all my projects turned in at school, survived the exams in the non-design classes, and had 2 days left before my 12-hour shifts were over. That night, I'd been fighting to stay awake on the drive home. When I was less than 2 miles from home, I grayed out on a turn and crashed my Del Sol into the back of a Volvo station wagon that had run into a telephone pole about 2 minutes earlier.

Loud noise. Airbag smell. One hell of a rude awakening.

I walked away from the crash bruised and shaken up, but otherwise uninjured. The car was totalled.

I am in no hurry to push quite that hard again. Message received...

P.S.- I enjoyed an earlier post that mentioned a "crusty helmet of Super 77". Nice one!

Freshman year at Kutztown University. Late at night, project due the next day. No shoes on. T-square and an xacto knife. Drowsy. Tip of second toe cut off. Trip to student health center, open 24hrs. Student health center not open. Ambulance called. Wound cauterized. Roommate finds tip of toe a week later.

No extension on the project. C+

Ahhh...the sacrifices we make to be graphic designers. I swear that when I started to read this post, I started having flashbacks to 1994. I still hear about it from friends to this day.

Student health center not open. Ambulance called. Wound cauterized.

Wound cauterized?! Geez, do bullets stop you? Are you true grit? That's almost more skin crawling than the "film cut in the eye" story...

> The worst part about an Xacto knife cut is that you always know a split second before that's it's about to happen, and it's too late to do anything. You sort of see your life flash before your eyes.

I agreed with that statement until this last cut. This time...some moron taped a bunch of exacto knife blades (sticking up) to the inside of a drawer. I was cleaning out the drawer. Now, I have three stitches and little feeling in my left ring finger and no one in my office is fessing up.

I've cut myself with an exacto knife so many times, I feel like a pro. What's interesting about the exacto knife cut is the minute it happens you know if it's hospital worthy or not.

My major horror story was when I was riding my bike home from work and got doored. Ended up hitting a car that was idling at a red light. Don't remember anything until I came to with my head in helmet lodged underneath the running, idling car, my bike on top of me and lots of pain. I survived without any breaks. But the bruises were another story all together.

Oh, Debbie, that's the best story!

The most embarrassing....

Freshman year, industrial design foundation class, working in the "wood" work room. Tools, lots of tools. I had long hair as I do now. It was in a pony tail. Using the drill press. Head too close to the drill press, caught my pony tail. Wound up very quickly around the drill bit, head flung into the metal machine. Couldn't see or reach "off" button, scream for help. Laughing stock and "example" for years to come.

Ah, no one is immune to the X-Acto knife!! I think the worst is you cut yourself and don't notice until you see yourself bleeding. And then the pain. Oh, the pain.

Most of my horror stories is accidentally taking a huge whiff of spray glue, and accidentally spraying glue on my fingers when I was mounting my grad show items. Whee.

Spray glue = devil.

This one time, I was making a huge campaign presentation to the CEO of Phillip Morris. Just as the Marketing VP and I were spreading out the boards, I tripped over the aluminum table leg and smacked my forhead against the plate glass tabletop. My head split open like an egg, spilling my brains all over the table and, worst of all, right into the CEO's lap! Thankfully, the VP saved the boards. (And his job!) I actually died and, worse still, lost a honey of an account.

TGI fucking F.

It seems like taking the tip of one's finger is getting a bit common around here, so I'll spice things up by adding another dazzingly sharp instument to the mix.

I work with linoleum block prints a lot, and if you've never used one, a linoleum cutter is designed to perform a kind of cut>scoop>remove motion. One night while working on a particularly large sheet and placing the force of my entire arm into a cut I let my attention waver long enough for the blade to come up out of the surface, which presents a lot of helpful blade-slowing resistance. When the thing hit my finger it did exactly what it's supposed to do and neatly cut a groove of skin, scooped it up into the blade, and then tossed it away.

It's healed now, but it's not that pretty a scar. I named the cutter "Man-Eater" and have a lot more respect for it nowadays.

Man... I just had to cut out a bunch of signs with an Xacto knife for an upcoming trade show. I was sure that after reading all these stories today that I was jinxed!! Luckily all is well and I have no story to contirbute.

Another xacto story while in school: a classmate SAT on an exacto. There was blood, and stitches. And if she saw this she would still be mortified.

Here are a couple of non-X-acto related injuries (although I've gotten enough of them too):

End of freshman year in college, I was up all night preparing for some final critiques. I was so tired I fell asleep outside on campus for several hours. It should have been no problem, but I have light skin that basically doesn't tan. I ended up with sun-poisoning and blistered sunburns on my face and arms. Thankfully I was all done with finals so I spent the next 3 days in my dorm feeling sick and like an idiot.

A couple years later in college I was building a sculpture which incorporated some thin stainless steel sheet. If you think paper cuts are bad, try fighting with some hot glue to remove a misplaced piece of sheet metal, only to have it pop off rapidly and impact your chin. I still have a small scar there.

These days I do most of my design work on a computer, and I let the model makers hurt themselves.

Once, back in the olden days, we were experimenting with the aformentioned Uhu, to see if it could replace the waxer in our office. Unfortunately wax has a little slip, where Uhu does not and a piece of paper stuck to my fingers dragging my hand right through the waxer! With hot wax covering my crushed fingers I threw my other hand back in alarm, flinging my eXacto knife into the air! It came down and landed on my arm, nicking me badly and then bounced into our Compugraphic typesetting machine. I yanked my hand from the waxer, toppling it to the floor, spilling hot wax over my coworkers' toes, and lunged for the window as sparks from the ancient computer started to fly and light the wax, film, foamcore and mountains of paper behind me! I burst through in a shower of glass, just like in the movies, fell down the back steps and was landed on by my fellow fleeing employees.

And that is how we came to enter the age of desktop publishing: not by will or design, but dragged, kicking and screaming into the modern world.

Although I have never cut myself with an X-Acto knife (they terrify me and I am always SUPER careful with them), I do have a good screw up story. It was late night and the printer (Canon Color Laser Copier) ran out of toner. I followed the instructions on the inside of the door but somehow was not paying attention to what I putting in black toner sump and managed to pour an entire bottle of toner oil in. To conserve space, all the bottles of toner and oil, etc. were removed from their respective packaging. Everything was supposed to have different heads so that they would lock into place, and for some reason the oil and the black toner had the same head.

It ruined the printer.

Years later at another company the same technician came in saw me and pointed me to his apprentice and said "Hey, that's that guy I was telling you about that put oil in the toner sump".

And once, a colleague used spray mount to clean her monitor thinking it was glass cleaner.

Why does there have to be a "horror" story?

I bet you that any average everyday Carpenter or Mechanic face much worse everyday.

Please continue designing. Don't try and make the field of design out to be some kind of physically rough job. It's a great field and there is no need to try and embellish it.

Peace

mGee

Well mGee, the AIGA is considering awarding Purple Hearts to the most courageous designers...

First of all, I don't appreciate what you wrote here. Please don't refer to anybody here as self-centered. It's judgemental and misinformed.

Secondly, it's called humor. You know? Designers have some of it too. I know we are not putting our lives at risk every time we come to work unlike other folk — hence the funinness of the whole post. Feel free to laugh at it.

Humor via absurdity is the best kind in my opinion - take a (seemingly) safe occupation like design and cross it with physical peril... that's funny stuff. :)

I wish I had a story to share, but I've only recently earned a thumb cut with an xacto that merited a band-aid. Marian's story was priceless - if only someone could have captured that on film, her description was downright cinematic!

Sounds like some of us might need discount term life insurance. (What the hell is that?)

Many years ago I was working in pasteup at a newspaper. Amid the frenzy of pasting up the front page, I put my exacto knife down on the edge of the table and shifted the page. The page slipped under the knife, flipped it up and it landed in my right foot. It actually looked pretty amazing sticking out of my foot like that. Then I pulled it out and finished the page. With a new blade of course. I gained a lot of respect in the production department that night. :)

All X-acto knife stories aside (a few to my name) - I have to tell you about my dear friend Erin. Yes, Miss. Erin was working on her thesis (I beleive this was the night before the show) She was gluing a large poster to sheet metal which was then screwed onto a large sheet of wood so she could have a magnetic board. Long story short - she sprayed this ultra adhesive - professional strength glue right in here eye. It was so a slow-motion moment - looked like a fountain - but moving upwards instead! I spent a good part of the night with her head on my lap - flushing it out!!

> discount term life insurance. (What the hell is that?)

We have to start thinking about the future.

If you are squimmish, please skip this comment. These are (big) pictures of my wife's finger after she cut it helping me out with my portfolio. The first photo is right after we took off the bandage and the two other photos are right before they took off the stitches.

Seriously, don't look if this sort of thing makes you hurl.

If this is too revolting, please say so and I'll be happy to take it off.

Holy crap! She loves you!!

Savage!

And you chronicled it with photos? Dude.

Well I admit I probably would have too. But remind me not to ask when Bryony gives birth to your first kid...

My left hand has been to GD war.... The first cut has te best story. It was at my first job. I sliced my index finger with a brand new blade (of course!) while cuttng mat board. We had a clinic on site, so I went up there with my dripping finger, only to find that they were moving the clinic to another space and no doctors were around. So they drove me over to the ER. I had sliced through a part of the nail. So the doctor is clipping it off ever so gently before stitching it. He looks over at the male nurse who was washing an elderly woman's hair. She had fallen down and cut her head. So he says" Hey Shane, after all those years of training, you're doing hair and I'm doing nails!"

But it gets even better... the next day, I come in all bandaged up and the &%^$#! AD feels that it would be a perfect day for me to clean duratrans plex, which requires getting your hands all wet and dirty! There was a huge fight over that. He had cut his finger not two months before. That man had no brains.

One more good one... not an injury, but greatly embarassing. I was talking away to a coworker and grabbed what I thought was glass cleaner. (those industrial glass cleaner cans feel exactly like guess what kind of can?)

Do you know how LONG it takes to remove Super 77 from a 20" monitor? If you answered 2 hours and a supreme Bestine-induced high, you are correct!

I'd say that in my time....I've had more blood and tears come out of meeting areas than the mat room.

Jesus God. That is why I couldn't hack med school.

True love, definitely.

These are (big) pictures of my wife's finger after she cut it

No "several years later" pics of the scar?

>No "several years later" pics of the scar?

Surprisingly, it's pretty much back to normal.

Something I forgot to mention, these "photos" are actually scans. This happened pre-digital-camera era.

This thread reminds me of days almost forgotten, I don't even own a printer anymore, let alone do paste-up.

I am not sure if X-Acto has been around in the UK as long as in the US: all of my paste up accidents were with Swann-Morton scalpel blades, from lovely hermetically sealed packages.

I was in Drawing Comp class last year at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. I had gotten to class early and wanted to begin on my drawings. I lifted up my bookbag and slammed it on my lap to get my pencils. My exact-knife went through the bottom of the bag and into my leg. When I jerked because of the pain, the exacto knife twisted and took off a nice chunk of my thigh. The knife had part of my flesh on it and I was bleeding through my pants. I could hardly walk to the provided nurses office on campus. The nurse told me that she would like to give me stitches but there is not enough skin to stitch up. So I had to patch it up for a few weeks and I have a nice scar on my leg.

Colbalt blue gouache in my eye. It was like looking through fuzzy glaze for a week. I can only compare it to a donut dropped in a hair salon.

So, the Mrs. is at it again. This time she got a ganglion/cyst in her ring finger, right where the palm of the hand meets the finger. We think it is because of her extreme use of the mouse and Wacom Tablet. We discovered it three weeks ago and it grew each and every day. Last thursday they had to remove it surgically. We are quite gross, so here are some pictures:

X marks the spot

Lovely bandage work after surgery

The good stuff

The good stuff — now up-close

for those who are questioning my state of health, I have to say I am well thank you. It will be a couple of weeks before I can break dance again but oh well... the holidays are around the corner, lots of fun and hopefully some rest will have me back in shape in no time.

you two are having way too much fun posting pictures of stitches on this thread. i bet you stay up late and watch that creepy surgery channel too. eww.

Not ANOTHER mouse-related ailment to fear! Please explain. What is it? What does it do?

Ganglions are cysts filled with clear, jellylike fluid. They develop from a tendon sheath or the lining of a joint. Ganglions are the most common noncancerous soft-tissue bumps on the hands and wrists, but they can also develop on feet, ankles, knees or shoulders. (from WebMd)

In my case it developed right at the base of the finger, the spot where you hand never leaves the mouse (al least in my case). It started as a little ball, slowly growing until it reached the size of a small-medium grape and was turning out to be a bit painful. Hence, it had to go!

Brent, we know you never miss an episode of ER, should we tape it for you over the holidays?

> Brent, we know you never miss an episode of ER, should we tape it for you over the holidays?

If you prefer we can send you a tape of the surgery� of course I'm kidding, we didn't tape it.

that's it. no more cookies for you.

ouch. now that i can't live without.

mmm...

...how 'bout some of these?

interesting, i don't know if i'd want them but if that's what you're into ... it does fit into that er/surgery motif you've got going. again, eww.

reaching the end of the adventure. the stitches are now gone!

happy holidays!

Well I am 16 and in high school. I was staying after in my mom classroom because we where having a meeting. Well we took a survay for the school. and I went to go get the door. You know cuff it like. Well the boy who came out of the do didnt know I had it in my hand and he kicked it shut. Yep the big metal door shut on my hand. Of coarse I was in shock and I and didnt realize it till I turned around and everyone asked why I had blood on my face and they asked what happened. Then My mom called the Ambulance and I had 8 stitches on the out side of my middle finger and I also had 5 on the inside to hold it all toger. and My ring finger got ripped out from the bed up and they had to slid it in so it would just grow back and I had 2 stiches in that one. By the way you cant numb a nail bed. So I felt the whole thing. it hurt so bad and the worst thing is that I cant feel the whole top nuckle up on my middle finger. Oh and did I mention that I am right handed and it actually happen on my right hand about 2 1/2 weeks ago. and I still am in pain and I ran out of pain killers in less than a week cause they only gave me 10. And I had to take one every 4-6 hours. It sucks. thanks for listening.
Katherine