A cautionary tale

As we all get ready to bid farewell to 2019 and welcome 2020, I just wanted to urge my human friends to be especially careful tonight! We all know it’s a dangerous world out there, and even more so on New Year’s Eve, what with all the alcohol consumption and other stupid human tricks. Holidays in general are fraught with danger. Just ask Mama C. She decided last week to get a head start on the festivities and took a good chunk out of her left thumb while attempting to make an apple pie on Christmas Eve!

She was using an apple corer, and it was proving a bit stubborn at performing its intended task. So she decided to coax it with a good right fist, hammer-style, forgetting that her left hand was somewhere underneath. Mama G, who was in another room at the time, was a bit startled when she heard Mama C cry out from the kitchen. “What’s wrong?” she hollered. Mama C responded with yet another painful, wordless cry. Mama G, who has a let’s-just-get-to-the-point style about her, rolled her eyes and headed out to the kitchen, figuring Mama C was overreacting to some minor mishap. She wasn’t prepared for the blood. She’s not usually good with the sight of blood, but she calmly fetched a first-aid kit and wrapped Mama C’s thumb.

They decided to sit on the situation for a bit. Well, actually Mama C was lying on the floor at one point, begging for some toast, because she thought she was going to pass out. Mama G obliged, and fed her the toast while she was stretched out on the floor. It’s a good thing she didn’t choke!

Mama C eventually went to the sofa to lie down. After about a half-hour, Those Two decided to take a peek under the gauze and see what was happening. Much to Mama G’s surprise, Mama C’s thumb promptly began dripping blood like a leaky faucet. Mama G went and changed her clothes and was ready to take Mama C to the hospital, but Mama C declined medical treatment, as the professionals like to say.

Well, I could document this story with gory photos, but I’ll spare you. That Mama G is something — no matter what the crisis, she’s never been one to pass up a photo op or a YouTube moment!  I’ll share just this one photo with you, of me watching over Mama C after the second bandaging attempt. I was pretty darn worried about her!

So was Mama G, but she now had to temporarily focus on other things: it was up to her to bake the pie that everyone was expecting the next day. She got rid of the “accident apple,” as she took to calling it, tossed that evil corer in the trash can, and went to work, making a very nice pie as Mama C recuperated under my watchful eye. Eventually the bleeding stopped.

Mama C decided to have her thumb looked at by a doctor several days later, because she was worried about infection, but all was good. It’ll take a while for it to heal, but she’s on the mend.

It was one of those “we’ll laugh about this someday” moments. In fact, Those Two already are, making jokes to the effect that Mama C is “all thumbs” when it comes to baking pies. For tonight’s festivities, they decided to play it safe and got takeout Thai food, and plan to spend the evening at home watching movies.

So be careful out there, and happy new year!