2004-06-15
your incident
You. You had quite an adventure today. Don't sell yourself short, it was exciting. Stuff happened to you.
It all started this morning at work. Not part of the incident but exciting nonetheless: Mikele showed that she has a soul. You have been very cautious around the twins, especially since that completely unecessary and stupid pep talk Mikele gave you new girls the other day.
You arrived tweleve minutes early, the other twin Nicole told you to wait a while until you clocked in. Then Mikele told you that you would only be doing the dishes today. You replied, "Ok." What else were you supposed to do? Say, "No, but thanks. I think I'll make little kids happy by serving them humongous ice cream cones instead. You stick your hand in that disgusting sink water. I'm no pushover." Don't even begin to conjure the lethal hypothetical consequences. Because you didn't say that, of course. You waited until the appropriate time to clock in.
As you were putting the bowls and cups away under the back counter, an older woman sitting next to who must have been her grandson told you that she has been waiting twenty-five minutes for her grandson's cheeseburger and fries. She pointed at the neglecting waitress, who happened to be Mikele. You took care of everything just fine, but you could see that Kellee was hurt. She had tears in her eyes. You couldn't believe what you were seeing. All you could offer her was what must have been conceived as your pitiful glances. She must have seen it that way. But that's not what it was.
It was a look of sincerity, a look of understanding. You had almost been there before. Her and her twin sister's subtle cruelties themselves had almost pushed you over the edge before. But here she was, muttering. "I was sure I put the order up on the grill..." speaking each word with such meaning. You didn't know what to say to her, so you just kept doing the dishes like she told you to.
Maybe the incident happened because you didn't use common sense. You just took a cracked capuccino cup out of the sink water. Hmm, the glass that cracked off must be nearby. Perhaps at the bottom of the sink? You only realized this nonexistant presumption to be true after you scanned the bottom of the sink for remaining utensils to be washed, seeing with your hands since the water was cloudy. Prick on your thumb. Pull back immediately and say ouch to yourself. Loud enough for Mikele to hear. Or see. Just like she did yesterday when you spilled that coffee on your hand.
It kept bleeding. She told you where to get the bandaids. This you remember. She helped to put one on, and squeezed your thumb. "Sorry if this hurts," she somehow said. "I need bleachwater," she calmly told Ashley. You thought that would be for your cut and didn't stop to think how unreasonable that sounded. "Oh yeah, you took that CNA course," you chuckled to her, remembering her powerpoint presentation in IT Essentials. She poured the bleach water on the counter to wipe away your blood stains. Oh, yeah. That's what bleach was for.
Your thumb was still bleeding uncontrollably. You could feel it pulsating but you weren't thinking of it. You were thinking of the vast area inbetween your ears. Your mind was far away. You couldn't hear what people were saying very well. Your head was starting to feel heavy, the room was getting a little chilly. You reached for your drink, Mikele still clenching your finger.
You moaned, "I think I need to sit down." Someone helped you, you probably couldn't have walked the five steps on your own. You were really losing it. She told you, "If you're dizzy, you should put your head between your legs." Maybe this was Nicole. It was one of them, couldn't think to distinguish which one. After a minute or so of that, you brought your head up. "Doesn't the thumb have an artery," you asked weakly. The twin squinted in space, thinking. "On the front of it," she replied passively. Your cut was on the back.
"I'm sorry about this," you told her, trying to sound really sincere since you were. "Some people can handle the sight of blood, some people can't. Now I'm gonna go wash up since everyone saw me touching your bloody finger." This one must have been Nicole. She had to return to cooking. You just sat there for a while, drinking water someone had given to you. Usually your observant enough to keep track of people, but not now.
But you did watch Ashley almost but regular H2O into a chocolate soda instead of soda water. She grinned at you because of your mistake.
"I think I can work again," you tried saying. "I don't know..." a twin said, "You look like you need to go home." Then you realized that you were drenched in sweat. How embarrassing. You wiped some off your forehead and walked back to clock out. An hour and a half later. On the way home later you also realized that you weren't able to split tips before you left. Crap.
You walked a bit dazily, gripping your thumb so tightly. You decided to stop in the antique shop and ask for help. You almost walked by, but decided to go in. The lady gave you the address to the nearest private practice near the old hospital and insisted you stop at the fire station on the way.
So you did, you incoherently explained your cut to the secretary, holding up your thumb wrapped in half-red stained napkins to show her. She rushed back to get a fire chief, he took you back in the fire station hangar area.
He applied two bandaids, did lots of paperwork on the incident. Said the cut was on the anterior side and a bunch of other medical-speak. You didn't know firemen were well-trained for this kind of think too. Said it was so small you could barely possibly consider stitches for it.
You looked up and noticed the big brass pull, twenty feet or so high. That is the pole the firemen slide down. How exciting. It was very cool in there, that was nice. Couldn't believe how faint you got, thought of the twins and how they had treated the whole situation. Weird. Maybe not, they reacted how they should have but it was still interesting.
The fire chief took your blood pressure. This is when you really began to think of your own realizations of how this pertains to your future. After all, you really wanna be a doctor. This is the future you've decided upon, adamently. Yet you can't even stay conscious through a little knick on your thumb? No, you decided, and even told the fire chief, it's not like that. You can still be a doctor. You only got queasy because it was happening to YOU. That was YOUR blood rushing through your arteries, all pouring out your thumb. If it had been someone else's, you could have dealt with it successfully, as you plan to do every day when you are older.
So you sat in that fire department, thinking about the strange events that caused you to be here instead of there. Your thumb will heal, and the twins will be themselves, whoever that may be. And that was your adventure.
leesah-likes at 11:17 p.m.