Lightening the mood.

This happened a while ago, but I thought it would make for a funny story.

So I was making dinner. Rigatoni with broccoli and turkey sausage and homemade garlic bread. Mmm. When I cook, I take myself way too seriously, wearing an apron and everything. (That's for you, Peter.) I'm like a little girl with her Easy Bake Oven on Christmas Day. Anyways, you get the point. In my head, I'm fucking Julia Child.

Okay, so I'm opening this package of turkey sausage and it's frozen, so I use a knife to pry the packaging off. I think to myself fairly clearly, "I'm going to cut the shit out of my hand if I do this." And not five seconds later do I stare at the package of sausage with my knife sticking straight through it into, you guessed it, my hand.

For a minute I just stared at it in disbelief, even though I told myself this was going to happen. Not until I saw the bright crimson of my own blood did I actually manage to do the one thing I'm good at.

"MOTHERFUCKER! God damn it, $%^**&@!#^&*!OhshitOhshitOhshitOhshit. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck."

Blood in the sink, blood on the floor, blood on my fancy shabby chic apron.

After calming down enough to actually remember what to do in a situation like this, I grab a towel and press down hard, thrusting my hand over my head and grabbing the phone with my other.

"KATE! I just cut the HOLY HELL out of my hand. What do I do?"

Calmly she replies, "How big is the cut? Is it deep? Is the opening ragged? Has it stopped bleeding?"

"I don't know. I don't want to look at it."

"You have to look at it."

"No."

"Yes."

"Just tell me if I need stitches."

"Well how big is it?"

"I don't know. Ohhhhh Kate, it huuuuurts. Ow ow ow owwwww."

"Can you see bone?"

"Oh Jesus, now I'm really not looking at it."

"Well, I gotta get back to work. Call me if it doesn't stop bleeding."

So much for having a sister who's a nurse.

After about five minutes of pacing my apartment imagining having to get on my hands and knees to find an errant finger or two, I peer under the blood soaked towel to see a tiny incision about a half an inch long.

"That's IT?" I think to myself in amazement as I shuffle to the bathroom to look for a Band-Aid.

After the initial wave of relief washed over me, another wave of embarrassment rolled in.

"Wow, I'm a huge pussy." I would later tell Katie as we sat on my couch post dinner.

The moral of this story is that no, you are not Julia Child. You are an idiot. With a knife.