Today was Veterans Day, so Keith was off work, thank God. If he hadn’t been home, I’m not sure what would have happened. I was stapling some sheet music into little books for my music class students, and the stupid stapler kept getting all jammed. So I was trying to fix it and suddenly my thumb hurt, and I looked down, and I had somehow completely stapled a staple into my right thumb. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt that bad, but something about seeing the thing in my thumb, and imagining the little prongs bent inward like they would be in a piece of paper, except under my skin: I PANICKED!! Like full-on, crazy-lady, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” over and over and over and over again, hyperventilating PANIC. (Not proud of my reaction, by the way.) The kids were all in the room, and I was so freaked out that they were starting to freak out too, especially Claire. Keith actually LAUGHED when he saw it, and said something idiotic like, “It IS kinda funny, you have to admit…” To which I screeched, “Not YET it’s not!” and continued to hyperventilate. He thought I was gonna pass out, and so did I! Finally, he got me calmed down enough to convince me that he’d done this to himself many years ago, and that he could extract the staple from my thumb. I was thinking more like “Let’s go to the ER!” But he insisted that he could do the job. He quickly located a pair of tweezers, and within 20 seconds (with me continuing my lamaze breathing), the staple was out. A little bit of blood, and then within another minute, I couldn’t even see the puncture marks. Weird. It certainly seemed a more violent injury in my head for it to already be invisible.
So tonight before bed, Claire and I were pillow-talking, and she said, “Mom, you didn’t say ‘O my gosh.'” I knew just what she meant, and I apologized to her both for freaking her out and for using the Lord’s name in vain like that. And then I slipped out, “Hey, I’m kind of amazed I didn’t cuss!” And she gave me this REALLY strange look, like I’d accidentally leaked a grown-up secret word. She immediately demanded,
“Cuss? What does that mean? I’ve never heard that word!”
She’s 8 stinkin’ years old and she doesn’t know what cussing is. I’d say “Plan: Shelter the Children” is working out just fine. (That IS a joke.)
The Cash Clan 
Ahhh!! You stapled your thumb?!? That totally weirds me out! Shudder, shudder!!!!
Did I tell you about the time Ryan told me “Dylan said the F word! Dylan said the F word!” I momentarily freaked out until further investigation revealed the F word in question was “fat.”
WTFat? I can’t believe you never told me that story! HIlarious!
WTFat. Hee, hee.
It was Keith’s actually. I was laughing so hard at your story about the boys and read it aloud to Keith, and he said, “What the fat?” He got his dad’s gene for instant wit. Takes me a few beats to come up with stuff that good.
Yowsers, I get chills (not the good kind) picturing it!!
And BTW that Plan, sadly, is being carried out in our house too. Maybe we can mourn together..
Hi Mer! Yeah, we’re not really doing that on PURPOSE per se; but it might seem that way to outsiders!! I actually laughed my head off when I had to define “cussing” to her. The other day, I said “I swear…” on the telephone to someone, and when I got off, she looked at me with TEARS IN HER EYES, like I had just slapped her in the face or something! What in the world???? I told her I’m FAR, FAR, FAR from perfect and that I slip up sometimes (and sometime a LOT) and say things I shouldn’t. Man, it’s really convicting though! Ouch.
Tears in her eyes? How sweet and gentle she is.