There Will be Blood

I am not oblivious to how mundane my blog posts can be. The reason for this is, obviously, that my life, itself, is very mundane but -- keeping in mind that we inhabit a world fraught with chaos and tragedy -- I thankfully embrace the mundane and hope to never become acquainted with its more challenging siblings on the wheel of life. In this spirit, I present yet another journey into the mundane…with a slight twist, of course.

Today's episode involves a blister pack of four small tubes of hand cream. 

I enjoy keeping such tubes at various strategic locations throughout my home...beside my bed, by the computer, on the kitchen window sill and in the car so I can frequently slather up to stave off the discomfort of what I refer to as "winter hand.” Armed with a free one day pass and the inability to resist the lure of a new retail environment, I put my legendary devotion to Costco aside and purchased this hand cream at the new BJs in the area.

It's catnip to me.

Once home, after wrestling the giant pack of paper towels into the garage and body-slamming the enormous bag of frozen blueberries into the freezer, I happily envisioned how soft my hands would soon be and began the process of attempting to open the blister pack so I could cream up as well as distribute the tubes to their appointed stations.

I know my way around blister packs. 

Pretty sure I could break in without any tools, I attempted to shove a finger between the cardboard and the plastic but this packaging immediately revealed that it had been designed by a sadist. I soon understood that I needed something sharper than my finger. 

The small kitchen knife I chose did me no good since when, after several tries which evolved from restrained manipulation to wild hacking, I realized that a slip would surely sever an artery somewhere in my body.  Moving on to a pair of scissors, I was also becoming very angry--unable to comprehend the reasoning behind such resistant packaging. It was only hand cream, not uranium. Who were they trying to keep out?

My scissors (surprise!) were pretty dull and it took many tries to pierce the tough plastic shell. The cardboard was also amazingly strong and, as I became more exhausted and my attempts were getting more and more careless, the tip of the scissor suddenly slipped and  -- in a neat "v" --  plunged into my right knuckle.

Completely ignoring the certainty that I needed stitches, recalling that I’d recently had a tetanus shot and entertaining thoughts of litigious vengeance, I continued to stab away at the blister pack until I finally gouged an opening into the plastic which was now getting slippery from blood. 

Once in, I decided it was time to try to stop the bleeding but the wound was pretty deep so, regardless of several paper towel (thank goodness there were so many rolls now in the garage) tourniquets, it continued to bleed off and on for several hours. 

When Seth got home, I greeted him with my hand in the air as I employed gravity instead of modern medicine only to have him say, “What now?” as this is my typical post hand injury pose. It’s no secret in the family that I am a danger to myself but since I was still conscious, he knew it wasn’t that bad.

The irony is that I didn't even want Aquaphor (way too greasy)! I wanted Eucerin (nice and creamy) but must have been confused by the bright lights and ambient Muzak (lots of Motown) of the brand new store. I am now stuck with four tubes of the wrong hand cream, a painful cut and hands that are still very chapped. But, mundanity be damned, I now can suggest a fool-proof way to transport uranium to the US government should the need arise.