I cut myself

Kitchen lesson 1: don't be an idiot

So I'm at work and I'm cooking and shit and I run out of jalapenos on the line, so whatdoIdo? I go get a big ol' can of jalapenos and try to open it with this shitty old can opener. And it's busy so I don't really have time to think about how that can's getting cut, I just need jalapenos out of there, NOW! Customers are waiting for their "Irish" nacho that needs the jalapenos with its tomatoes, black olives and scallions. (red, green, black, green, always with scallions on top cause they look all nice and delicate)

So later when the rush dies down I go back to the can to get it flattened and recycled. It's empty and rinsed out and the bottom is still intact. The top circular lid is still connected to two points at like either end of the circumference. Shitty can opener.

So what do I do? I try to rip the lid off with my bare hands. Stupid. Bullshit. I'm thinking back on it now and kicking my inner self for such a dumb move. I'm pulling on this fucker as hard as I can, and then Khara walks in and says hi and that's when the lid came off, and I didn't see the exact point that sliced my palm, but my palm got sliced.

What does Khara do? She helps me out with bandaging up my wound in the bathroom. It was awesome. If you're reading this, Khara, you were a lifesaver. Thank you.

The lower pic shows a part of my upper thumb that got cut off, but didn't really bleed. It was just this red dot that also was a new addition (or subtraction) to my hand.

Ah, gad.

So after that, I go back to cooking with some extreme bandaging on my hand with a glove over it. The bleeding stopped quickly. Believe me, people, I've given much thought to food contamination. I wouldn't have gone back to cooking if I thought there was any chance of any bodily fluids interacting with the food.

You see where that cut is? Right near the webbing of my right hand, my good hand. Every time I would grab something even slightly heavy, like the fry bowl for example, I could feel the hot shooting pain rockets of my hand trying to heal itself amid this stupid body controlled by a boy who tries to rip jagged metal lids off of big metal cans, trying to lift stuff with said hand. That's my cutting hand, too. I hold the knife with that hand. Trying to slice 11 slices off a baguette had never been slower or more painful.

That's what you get if you cut yourself, though. You've got pain, and you've got to deal with it. When I got back to the line to resume cooking, I called my coworker and got his voice mail. My cell battery was dying, so I just put the phone aside and didn't hear when he called back. I was too busy trying to cook with a pain thunderstorm in my brain. So when he called the restaurant to tell me he would close for me, I was instantly relieved.

He couldn't get there for another few hours, so for however long that was (felt like for-fucking-ever), I was constantly looking at the door to see if he happened to be walking in when I happened to be looking at the door. And every time I did it, I told myself, "Stop it. Stop torturing yourself. Cook. Wash dishes. Work. You've dug your own hole, now climb out. He'll get here when he gets here."

I had finished cooking all the food for the time being, and moved on to the dish pile that was steadily growing. My head was full of pain noise. The dirty dishes were laughing at me as I wrestled them onto the dish tray. Then behind me I hear, "Hey, man."

It was him. Joel St. John. Suited up and ready to go. Saint be praised. I offered to stay and help him with the dishes, but he said I could just leave, and I was like, ok I'm gonna leave, and he was like, ok, and I was like, cool, and then he was like, bye.

There's a small consolation I can take away from this. The act I was engaging in, the act that got me cut, is one I can easily avoid in the future. Now if it were a knife cut, I'd feel stupider. Knife use is necessary for my work, and if using a knife gets me cut, then what the fuck am I doing in a kitchen? My knife use is responsible and I don't often cut myself with knives. The last time I did I had to have eight stitches in my left thumb knuckle. I now cut using the left-hand claw and it's treating me well.

Thank fuck I didn't have to go to the hospital.