Left Hand, Ring Finger
When I was in grade 10, a young 15 year old back in the day about 8 years ago, I lost a fingernail.
Classes were ending for the day and my best friend, at the time, was standing by my locker. She returned a magazine to me (I believe it was a rock magazine of some sort, Circus perhaps) but rather than handing the magazine to me, she quickly stashed it in my locker just as I had opened it and closed the locker just as quickly. Not knowing why the hell she did this I opened up my locker again only to have her close it again.
Me: What the hell? What did you do to my magazine?!
Her: NOTHING! Nothing at all…
Her: *the look of, “ohmygod, I am a deer caught in headlights”*
We then proceeded to push and pull on the locker door in a battle of strength. There I am prying my locker open with one hand pulling on the door, while my other hand is stationed at the base of the locker. My friend had a death grip with her palms pressed against the front of the locker pushing with all her might.
Before you knew it, with the strength of her pushing and the fact that she had her entire body pressed against the door, I had given up and went to remove my hands from my feeble attempt of holding open my locker.
Instead, I only managed to remove one hand, the right hand trying to open the locker door; my left hand was still partially leaning against the neighbouring locker with just my fingertips slightly over the crease that connects the locker door to, well, the rest of the locker.
The locker door slammed down hard on my ring finger on my left hand. A sound that I still cannot forgot.
I started yelling out obscenities as my friend stood there wide-eyed and in shock.
And I still remember the blackness of the blood that began to fill out beneath my nail. Starting from the cuticle and quickly making its way to the tip.
I cried. I screamed. I panicked.
My finger had begun to swell up twice its size and all that went through my mind was that I will NEVER be able to play guitar again. It was at this point that I feared that I would never be able to live out my Rock Star dream. (Please note that I was in a massive amount of pain, scared and in a MASSIVE amount of pain: I truly believed that if I lost my nail that the tip of my finger would flop around, hence why I would never be able to play guitar again. I completely blame the immense amount of pain that I was in for the simple fact that I did not stop to think that no! this is not the case! There is a BONE in your finger that will prevent it from “flopping” around!)
After my hysterical crying I went to the nurses’ office where they packed me up with ice and a band-aid, and sent me on my way.
The next day my nail started to push upward from my finger due to the tremendous amount of dried up blood that accumulated from the injury. Then “flop”. The tip of my ring finger went limp. It turns out that it was all a lie and that there really wasn’t a bone in my finger to keep it from limping on me.
HAH! Just kidding.
After the dried up blood pushed my nail off, my finger (still intact) was so horrid looking (seriously, there was no nail on my finger! of course it’s gonna look horrid!) that I had to put a band-aid on immediately. I never looked at my finger after that for a few weeks. Whenever the band-aid needed to be changed I got someone else to do it for me and I only started to peak underneath the band-aid when I knew that a new nail was growing in. Thankfully, you don’t feel a thing when a new nail is growing in from scratch.
Update!
Best Friend in grade 10: Somewhere in Calgary, maybe. She and AJ are no longer friends after a falling out in grade 12.
Locker: Still doing fine. I think. Hopefully being put to good use. Like storing school books. Or something.
Circus Rock Magazine: Collecting dust. Deep, deep in the bowels of a closet somewhere.
The Many Band-Aids used: Landfill? I don’t know… it seems fairly reasonable. Oh, unless it is covered in seagull feces. That too is reasonably possible…
AJ: Looking at her fingernails thinking, “When comparing my left ring-finger to my right ring-finger, the left ring-finger is actually shorter in length… damn the bitch that slammed my locker on my finger… I will forever be dubbed a freak.” She is still not living the Rock Star life.
Left Hand, Ring Finger: Livin’ it up as if it were 1999. Doing great and looking good. Still mackin’ male ring-fingers.
Classes were ending for the day and my best friend, at the time, was standing by my locker. She returned a magazine to me (I believe it was a rock magazine of some sort, Circus perhaps) but rather than handing the magazine to me, she quickly stashed it in my locker just as I had opened it and closed the locker just as quickly. Not knowing why the hell she did this I opened up my locker again only to have her close it again.
Me: What the hell? What did you do to my magazine?!
Her: NOTHING! Nothing at all…
Her: *the look of, “ohmygod, I am a deer caught in headlights”*
We then proceeded to push and pull on the locker door in a battle of strength. There I am prying my locker open with one hand pulling on the door, while my other hand is stationed at the base of the locker. My friend had a death grip with her palms pressed against the front of the locker pushing with all her might.
Before you knew it, with the strength of her pushing and the fact that she had her entire body pressed against the door, I had given up and went to remove my hands from my feeble attempt of holding open my locker.
Instead, I only managed to remove one hand, the right hand trying to open the locker door; my left hand was still partially leaning against the neighbouring locker with just my fingertips slightly over the crease that connects the locker door to, well, the rest of the locker.
The locker door slammed down hard on my ring finger on my left hand. A sound that I still cannot forgot.
I started yelling out obscenities as my friend stood there wide-eyed and in shock.
And I still remember the blackness of the blood that began to fill out beneath my nail. Starting from the cuticle and quickly making its way to the tip.
I cried. I screamed. I panicked.
My finger had begun to swell up twice its size and all that went through my mind was that I will NEVER be able to play guitar again. It was at this point that I feared that I would never be able to live out my Rock Star dream. (Please note that I was in a massive amount of pain, scared and in a MASSIVE amount of pain: I truly believed that if I lost my nail that the tip of my finger would flop around, hence why I would never be able to play guitar again. I completely blame the immense amount of pain that I was in for the simple fact that I did not stop to think that no! this is not the case! There is a BONE in your finger that will prevent it from “flopping” around!)
After my hysterical crying I went to the nurses’ office where they packed me up with ice and a band-aid, and sent me on my way.
The next day my nail started to push upward from my finger due to the tremendous amount of dried up blood that accumulated from the injury. Then “flop”. The tip of my ring finger went limp. It turns out that it was all a lie and that there really wasn’t a bone in my finger to keep it from limping on me.
HAH! Just kidding.
After the dried up blood pushed my nail off, my finger (still intact) was so horrid looking (seriously, there was no nail on my finger! of course it’s gonna look horrid!) that I had to put a band-aid on immediately. I never looked at my finger after that for a few weeks. Whenever the band-aid needed to be changed I got someone else to do it for me and I only started to peak underneath the band-aid when I knew that a new nail was growing in. Thankfully, you don’t feel a thing when a new nail is growing in from scratch.
Update!
Best Friend in grade 10: Somewhere in Calgary, maybe. She and AJ are no longer friends after a falling out in grade 12.
Locker: Still doing fine. I think. Hopefully being put to good use. Like storing school books. Or something.
Circus Rock Magazine: Collecting dust. Deep, deep in the bowels of a closet somewhere.
The Many Band-Aids used: Landfill? I don’t know… it seems fairly reasonable. Oh, unless it is covered in seagull feces. That too is reasonably possible…
AJ: Looking at her fingernails thinking, “When comparing my left ring-finger to my right ring-finger, the left ring-finger is actually shorter in length… damn the bitch that slammed my locker on my finger… I will forever be dubbed a freak.” She is still not living the Rock Star life.
Left Hand, Ring Finger: Livin’ it up as if it were 1999. Doing great and looking good. Still mackin’ male ring-fingers.
Labels: Story Time
posted by AJ at
11:08 a.m.
4 Comments:
Geez AJ, that was truly a cringe-inducing read. Like you, I have a morbid fear of fingernail-related injuries; they just freak me out for no good reason. Thankfully nothing like that has happened to me...yet.
And like you, I'm also still not living the rock star life *sigh*
The worst incident I can remember would be back in grade 8. I was in the girls change room, waiting for my friend to finish getting changed in the bathroom. I was standing outside the bathroom and the door opened and I went to lean in and see what was going on, my fingers holding onto the door frame (where the hinges are). The door closed, my fingers were still there. I just remember the pressure building on my nail from the closing door and I looked at my finger, didn't know what was happening. Then I started pulling my finger away in panick and ended up causing all around my nail to bleed and swell. I was told I'd lose my nail, but never did thankfully.
Hahaha! Oh man that really sounds painful!
I slammed my finger in a car door once and my nail turned black and then started to come off. It came off first from the bottom end so I'd go around flipping it open at people. Gross, I know. I was a teenager. We do weird things at that age.
So tell us about the falling out with the friend in grade 12.
Alex - Reading back on my post, I'm actually fairly disgusted myself. It brings back horrible flashbacks of black... oozing bloo... Err... I'll stop there! I, too, am glad that something like this hasn't happened to you. Believe me, it is NOT pleasant... plus it could crush any future hope of being a Rock Star!
Punk Angel - Reading that made ME cringe. I actually had a minor finger slamming incident over the weekend. It happened due to my own ignorance and I accidently "forgot" to remove my finger from the doorway before closing the door. Thankfully I was left with only a throbbing pain, nothing more.
Dawn - Okay, after reading that, I feel woobly. It's a good thing I'm sitting down or I'd fall over right now. I couldn't even do the whole flipping over of the nail! But, that may be because I'm not as gutsy and I get creeped out easily by... well, nearly anything! Up next, the story of the Falling Out.
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