That's a lot of blood

It all started off so innocently. I didn’t even feel a thing. I should have seen it coming, though. I already had about four other band-aids on my hands from before. Needless to say, the kitchen was never a safe place for me.  This time around, I was cutting horseradish. A seemingly mundane task. Just slice it up and you’re done for the day, I thought. My knife was sharp. It would be over in a jiffy.

As I pushed the knife into the root, I noticed that it wasn’t going in as smoothly as I’d expected. This stuff was pretty hard to cut. I decided to apply more force. And it worked. One, two, three slices. Easy as pie. And then came the fourth slice. It sounded much… meatier than I’d anticipated. I felt an itch on my left index finger. “Itch” doesn’t really cut it, though. It was more like a breeze, but it was a breeze in a part of the body I wasn’t even aware could feel that way. Sadly, this breeze was anything but pleasant. I lifted my left hand to see what it looked like. Or rather what it didn’t look like. It certainly didn’t look like a normal fingertip. It was as if someone had cleaved half of my fingertip with a knife. Which is precisely what had happened. Surprisingly, no blood. Yet.

Oh, there it was. Man, that’s a lot of blood. That is a lot of blood. I wasn’t even aware I had so much blood in me. Bright red, flowing like crazy, I was sure I’d cut through an artery or something. That was the first time I cut myself this bad. Having suffered a couple of burn wounds in the very recent past, I instinctively put my finger in the water. Big mistake. It didn’t hurt at all. No burning, to itching. It was just there. If only the bleeding would stop. Too bad I was too dumb to realize you can’t really let it all flow out under the water. Too dumbfounded to figure out anything by myself after standing in front of the sink like that for about ten minutes, I made my way to the living room. My wife was always smarter than me when it came to such stuff.

“Honey, I think I’m dying.”

“Oh wow. Okay, I guess this looks bad.”

“Yeah. And the carpet is all bloody.”

“Yes, that is a lot of blood. Just let me get you a band-aid.”

“I think we’ve run out.”

“You’re right. You really need to watch out more.”

“I know. I don’t wanna die. Please help me.”

“Shush. I’ll figure something out in a minute.”

And so she did. After a couple of minutes the bleeding was contained and all was well. From then on, I did pay more attention to what I do in the kitchen. Too bad there were so many other places in the house where I could easily hurt myself. But that’s a story for another time.