One recent Saturday night I decided to stay home and go to bed early. I did this in the name of accomplishing great things on Sunday, a day that’s usually devoted to glorious slothfulness. I began by watching Booty Call on VH1, which covered important topics like the history of the thong and the current popularity of low-rider jeans. While highly educational, the fact that I was watching Booty Call by myself on a Saturday night soon began to make me feel like a perv, and I switched to In Search of America with Peter Jennings. In Search of America was all about how Frito-Lay is trying to get people in other countries to eat potato chips, and a desire to eat fried potatoes must’ve lodged in my mind, because I woke up the next morning intent on making home fries.
    I was trying to remove an eye from a potato when my plans abruptly changed. The knife, a brutally sharp little Wüsthof, broke the skin of the potato and suddenly plunged all the way through. I knew instantly that I’d used my left hand as a cutting board, but for a split second I thought “well, maybe I just gave myself a little nick.” That notion was dispelled by the unlikely amount of blood pouring into the sink, the volume of which made it increasingly clear that I was not going to get out of this with a Band-Aid and an aspirin. I was certainly upset that instead of home fries I’d made Filet O’Hand, but it appeared that all my fingers still worked, so my initial concern for my wound was soon replaced by chagrin that I was going to have to spend a sizable portion of my productive Sunday getting sewn up. I’ve had enough experience with emergency rooms to know that if your limbs are all more or less attached and your breath fogs a mirror, you’re going to sit in the waiting room until the Red Sox win the World Series.
    As it was Sunday morning, there must have been an ebb in the city’s general calamity rate, because the Mass. General ER was mercifully empty. I still had to go to three different desks to sign forms (fortunately, I’m a righty) but within a half hour a nurse shepherded me into an operating room. She looked at me and shivered, which I fancied was disgust at the goriness of my injury, but I disappointedly realized that the air conditioning was just cranked up too high. She then asked me when I’d last had a tetanus shot.
    Observation No. 1: When you’re asked when you last had a tetanus shot, the correct answer is always “yesterday.” Observation No. 2: If I ever open a hospital-themed bar, the tetanus shot will be a signature item. “Round of tetanus shots over here!” I can see it. The IV-tini will also be huge.
    Soon a guy named Jose came in to stitch me up. Jose was a medical student from Costa Rica. As he began to shoot my hand full of lidocaine, he casually remarked, “Gee, my hands aren’t shaking. They usually shake. Must be because I went out and had a few beers last night.” So Jose, who had to work a 24-hour shift in the ER today, went out on the town last night while I stayed home like a namby so I could have a productive Sunday. What a loser am I.
    As Jose pulled my palm back together I began to feel bad for myself, so I asked him to tell me about people who were worse off than I was, which always makes me feel better. “Well,” said Jose, “there was a guy in here the other day who had conjunctivitis so bad that his eyes were bleeding.” Hey, I’d rather have a bleeding hand than bleeding eyes any day! Jose went on to chronicle a few other recent cases that made me appreciate how minor my boo-boo was. Put it this way: At least all my bones were still neatly tucked inside my body.
    My new scar will intersect with another zigzag of stitch marks that are the result of a bike mishap I had when I was 6 years old. If I go to a palm reader, her first conclusion will probably be “You are very accident-prone.”
    In the meantime, I’ve got six sutures in my hand. I’m not supposed to get them wet yet, which makes showering an endeavor. I can’t carry anything with my left hand. If I straighten my fingers I feel a bolt of pain. In the grand scheme of things, my little laceration was no big deal, but I believe in learning from my mistakes. If I don’t go out next Saturday, I’m watching Booty Call. *