If you know Jack, you also know that he is a stickler for safety. No matter where he is or what he's doing, safety is uppermost on his mind. All the children in the family, (and perhaps even some of the grownups), have gotten catchy little lessons (lectures) from Dad/Uncle Jack/Sweetheart/Mr. Safety.
So I was rather surprised to get a phone call from him today, while he was working at the church. "Um, Dear, I have some bad news for you."
Great. What did I do now? Casually, "Oh? What is it?"
Hesitation. "I need to go across the street."
Across the street is not generally a good thing when you are at the church. Across the street can either mean the public swimming pool, or the hospital. At the end of October, with temperatures below freezing every night, it's pretty safe to rule out the pool.
Across the street is where Mom had to go 2 years ago when she got food poisoning while she was at the church. To completely acquit the church, the food poisoning had nothing to do with the location. Mom imported her own nearly-deadly bacteria. After some hours, when she was too weak to resist, we imported her nearly-dead carcass to....across the street.
It turns out that Sweetheart, aka Mr. Safety, had been cutting on the wall with his knife. Despite previous lectures he had given on the subject, he was not wearing work gloves. Despite previous lectures given by every father on the planet when handing their son a pocketknife, he cut toward himself. It went something like this.
Cut. Cut. Cut. Hmmm, I notice that I am cutting toward myself. Perhaps I had better cut away from....Aieeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!
It was quite a gash. Thankfully, the slight slant to the angle kept it, barely, from hitting deep and important things like nerves and tendons. Nothing wrong with his clotting factor, either. By the time an hour was up and he got to see the doc, it was stuck so tightly that she couldn't open it even to check and make sure it was clean. Good thing he washed it while he had the chance!
A line of handy stickum, technical name of Dermabond, plus one band-aid, and he was back working on the church again, without even needing stitches. Oh, and a tetanus shot, cheerfully administered by the same nice lady that gave Devon most of his rabies vaccinations.
Being the loving, loyal, and above all HELPFUL wife that I am, I made him a special sign. I'm sure he will want to display it prominently in his office.
ACCIDENT FREE
FOR
0
DAYS
He can thank me later.
