What The Fork

This all happened two days ago. I say that as if days are even a thing anymore. We’re just living from tweet to tweet, at this point. Anyway, if today is Thursday, then the following events took place on Tuesday night.

Into the time machine!

Let me set the scene for you. I was in the kitchen making dinner. There, scene set. This dinner required about 35 minutes of meal prep. There were a lot of bowls and plates, who had been hired to hold food until I was ready to cook it.

Plates are just backpacks that never close and break when you drop them.

In the pan on the stove was some olive oil, minced garlic – which is a pain and three-quarters – and small balls of sausage. Not quite a clean slice, but not quite a meatball. A small ball of sausage. Like a pizza topping but bigger, but not too big.

Got it? Great!

Anyway, it was time to add some shrimp to the party. The shrimp had been thawing in a bowl. So, there I am, holding the bowl in my left hand, and tossing shrimp in the pan with my right.

The modern-day Emeril Lagasse.

When the last shrimp is out of the bowl, I must decide if I’m going to put the bowl in the sink, or if I’m going to put it straight in the dishwasher.

Well, the precedent I set with the plate of garlic, and plate of sausage, was that they went straight into the dishwasher, therefore bypassing the lazy option of letting them sit in the sink for no reason.

Sinks are basically a waiting room for plates. No one likes waiting rooms. It’s no-man’s-land. You’re not quite where you need to be, but it’s too late to turn back. We would all prefer a world where we go from the front desk to the back room, so I bestow that luxury upon plates whenever I can.

So, I go put the bowl in the dishwasher. Right next to the spot where the dishes go, there is an area for cutlery. There was already a fork in there, staring straight up at me.

AND THEN IT HAPPENED.

As I placed the bowl down, the fork attacked me. It stabbed me in my right index finger, right below the cuticle. I had to Google “what’s the area below the fingernail called” for that word.

I was in pain, but for a split second I thought, “it’s just a fork”. It wasn’t until I flipped my hand over that I saw blood coming out of me.

My high school English teacher always said that if we didn’t have a pen or pencil, we should bite off the end of our finger and write in blood. Here I am, 11 years too late on that.

There was nothing cute-icle about this situation. Chunks of skin had been displaced. Upon further examination, some of my skin was transferred to the fork in the dishwasher.

“IS MY SKIN SOME SORT OF TROPHY TO YOU!?!?!” is what I didn’t yell at the fork. Come on, guys.

This is the thanks I get for skipping the “waiting room” step in a plate’s life.

I went back to the stove and turned it off. That made me mad because there was something in the oven and I had timed things, perfectly, so everything would finish at the same time. Now, that wouldn’t happen because I had to go deal with my finger.

I basically got hit by a parked car. I realize this now. A parked fork. How pathetic.

I went to the washroom and put pressure on my stab wound. For a moment, I felt like an athlete. Like, “Hurry up and get me stitched up, so I can get back out there”. I never stopped thinking about how the fork threw off my cook times.

Still mad about it.

Some Polysporin and one bandage later, I was back in the kitchen with nine fingers ready to go to war. I finished making dinner and it was great.

Then I went to brush my teeth, and it was a disaster trying to hold the toothbrush with my right hand. A complete mess. Toothpaste and water was dripping everywhere. The toothbrush got slippery and I almost dropped it a few times.

I felt like a toddler, who had wandered into the washroom by accident. Like, someone better come find me before I put toothpaste on the toilet seat, and mouthwash down the vent.

I’m a pretty imaginative toddler, aren’t I?

Over the past few years, I’ve experimented with brushing my teeth while using my left hand, just for fun. Well, time to shine! Time to earn that contract! Show ’em what you got, left hand!

Nothing. It got nothing. Now I know why, when you make the letter “L” with your left hand, it is directed at yourself.

I washed my hands, shook some water off of them in the sink before grabbing a towel, and what do I see? Red water drops in the sink. I shake my hands again. More red water drops.

Am I wizard? Am I making it (toxic) rain?

Sadly, neither.

Some water had infiltrated my bandage. It must’ve snuck in during the changing of the guard. Pesky water and that dog! (Scooby-Doo reference).

So then I had to re-wrap my finger. This time, with two bandages. What an ordeal, all because of a stupid fork.

You don’t realize how valuable your index finger is until it’s on the Injured Reserve list. I can’t bend it because there are two bandages wrapped around the top.

It’s basically an inverted bowling pin on a diet.

Picture it…picture it…good.

As I type this, it’s uncomfortable to use, so I’ve subbed in my middle finger to hit the keys, while my index finger just floats in the air like a kite.

One thing I’d be great at doing is hailing a cab, or calling a waiter over at restaurant, because this finger won’t go down.

Unfortunately, we’re locked inside for the next 18 years (rough estimate), so I can’t even put my new superpower to use.

When I wash my hands, the top of my right index finger practices social distancing from the water. I don’t want a wet bandage. Who does?

As of today, my finger is healing, though I’m still missing some skin.

I think my new goal for this Social Distancing period, is to train my left hand to be better at doing things. Put a baseball glove on my left hand and I can catch anything you throw at me.

Tell me to brush my teeth with it and I turn into Chet – the “reindeer in training” from The Santa Clause 2. Completely uncoordinated and hopeless.

Google tells me that training my non-dominant hand will boost my brain power. Just what I need!

Perhaps, then, I’ll be smart enough to not get stabbed by a fork in the dishwasher.

The End.

I hope you enjoyed this (hopefully funny) story and were able to laugh at my misfortune. I’m just going to end this post by muttering to myself. Don’t mind me.

A fork, man. A fork. Not even a knife. A fork. Forks are vicious. We put them in our mouth? Are we a bunch of sadists? Well, at least it wasn’t a spoon. That would be even more embarrassing. 

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