Recently, I completed a trauma first aid class and during the slideshow of casualties with flesh pulled off muscle and bone, there was a photo of a finger missing its skin. Apparently, it’s a very common injury for first responders on the border where people regularly climb over fences. I was reminded that at the beginning of summer, my parents visited me and when I returned them to the airport after driving them around for a week, I discovered my wedding band had squished. Apparently, a common response to tightly gripping the steering wheel, which is itself a common enough response to parent visits.
So, looking at the red finger projected onto the classroom screen, I began to pull at my own ring. Stuck! And the more I twisted and tugged at it, the more my finger swell. After the session, I ran to the restroom and lathered my ring finger in soap and pulled again, fearing the worst. But, once again, my fears were unwarranted. Ring removed! Finger free! Skin stayed stuck! Success!
The next day, during self defense training, I let loose on the dummy more than anyone else, I imagined it was just me between an attacker and my kids, and I open palm hit and elbowed and hammer fisted the rubber dummy as hard and as fast as I could, so much so that the other groups paused to watch me wail away and afterward I had to bend over to catch my breath, and get a bandaid for my fist where I had broke the skin beating the dummy and everyone praised me, but honestly, despite their clapping, I felt kind of ridiculous.
If I wanted to pretend I knew what I was doing, when everyone was giving me the impressed nod and thumbs up (except I should note, my wife, who was giving me the spousal wtf, dude), I would have told everyone not to strike at the dummy’s face, but to strike through the face, aiming for behind their head, like you could punch through it. And I would have told them that Bruce Lee taught me that. Just like I’m adding to my bio that I study fiction under George Saunders and Chuck Palahniuk.
Or maybe the upcoming move is hitting harder than I realize and I redirected my worry into the dummy’s face, neck, and floating ribs.
A quick lol aside, I was wearing my kitten stamp t-shirt and the guy who began the chant of my name, he mistook me for someone else, so began crying out another participant’s name, not mine. I tried to correct him, but I was out of breath, so I hit my chest and said my name, but in the moment, “Wil” sounded suspiciously like wheezing.
Meanwhile, over at George Saunders’ Substack, they’re talking about a Tolstoy story that begins with a quote from the Gospel of Matthew1 and ends with suicide or murder. (It has two endings! I’m not a fan of either!) but in the course of discussion and debate, well, this happened:
A day later and my eye is fine, my son feels loved, and I need to bid you adieu to go pack some suitcases. Anyhow, the Tolstoy story reminds me of this quote, and despite my current distaste for quotes, I’ll end this quick note with one:
“The joke, of course, is no matter how cruel or multi-pronged the attack, suffering through it will always be better than doing nothing, or feeling nothing, or being nothing. Existence trumps oblivion in every actual or imagined instance.” - Notlad Liw, from The Somewhat Collected Sayings
““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ “But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”
Matthew 5:27 - 30 NKJV
That dude calling you by the wrong name while you were in the throes of beating a rubber man into oblivion reminded me of a thing that happened to me in college. I was in an acting class that made us do weird exercises designed to help us tap into emotional extremes. I was partnered with this guy, who in the heat of the thing started calling me Colleen over and over again. Needless to say, I was disappointed that our exercise went south. And the real Colleen was extremely confused. 😂
Are you getting your ring fixed?