When we built our house in 2000 we were both anxious to get in and push up our sleeves and make our mark on this house. And we did a lot. There is not one inch of wall space that doesn't have paint on it. My formal dining room was converted to a book room and bookshelves and doors were added because who needs two dining rooms?
We hung blinds and drapes. Beefed up baseboards and door frames. Went searching for thrift store finds and reinvented them with sanding and paint to give them a new look for our home.
We've added tile, and installed our own hardwood floors. (That was a job you can read about here, Boys Comparing the size of their wood. That title alone got me 46 hits and I was only two months into blogging. Oh, the power of sexual innuendo.) We built a fence and landscaped the grounds completely. And it only took seven years.
But one thing that has stayed true through each and every home project is this. Every single time we do something the Captain inevitably draws blood upon himself. Now, for the sake of full disclosure, I should tell you he is not a clumsy man. He is very careful and particular. But it doesn't seem to matter. When he is working at home, well let's just say, I have an emergency kit specifically for home improvement projects.
One of my greatest finds is a futon I have in my bookroom. (I don't know why we don't call it a library. I guess bookroom was what I called it when we moved in and it sort of stuck. Now that's what everyone calls it.) When we were moving from the last house the support 2X4 was broken in the back. (Okay, that's not how it happened. We had a party and a friend needed to crash because she had too much to drink and when we tried to pull out the futon we learned rather quickly that you don't use that bar as a foot rest to leverage the futon to fold out. But I like the other version better.)For about three months the Captain told me he would replace it. But there was a lot of stuff getting done around the house and this little project seemed to keep getting pushed back further and further on the list. Until July 4th of the same year. We were having a BBQ. Burgers and beer and mixed drinks. Which meant that some of our friends would be crashing for the evening. (Kelly's rule: If you drink at my house you don't drive home from my house. Everyone has to have a designated driver. No exceptions.) Suffice it to say we had a lot of friends crashing regularly. Hey, these are all ex-Navy peeps. Have you ever partied with Navy peeps?
That morning he decided to tackle the job at the last minute before the BBQ started at noon just in case we needed some extra sleeping arrangements. He had to drill (I still cringe when I type that word) holes into the wood. He laid everything out and was working in the garage while I was getting the last minute kitchen duties done.
About twenty minutes later he came in with a paper towel wrapped around his hand. At first I didn't think anything of it, because we hadn't fully learned of his propensity to hurt himself during projects yet. We had only been in the house since April and this was July. The biggest projects we had done so far was putting together all of our furniture and setting up the house.
"Do we have any band aids?" There was a whiteness around his mouth that I didn't attribute to pain for another ten minutes.
"Sure, honey. In the bathroom." Setting aside the pasta salad I was working on, I washed my hands and went to our bathroom to retrieve them. When I came out he was laying on the floor at the bottom of the bed holding his arm straight up.
Laughing, I asked, "What are you doing?"
Breathing deep he countered with, "Can you put peroxide on this and wrap it for me?" Things finally started to click together in my head.
"Wrap it?" The white paper towel is taking on the color of pink cotton candy and I can see a dribble of blood racing down the arm he is holding up in the air. Looking at the little mermaid band aids, I suddenly had no idea what to do with them. (By the way did I mention that I have a blood phobia. At the site of it I feel queasy and have been known to pass out.)
Sitting down on the bed I could feel those tell tale butterfly's take flight in my stomach and started swallowing in an effort to stave off the urge to hurl.
"Honey?" He lifted his head to see what was taking so long. Catching site of the band aid box he informed me, "we're going to need something a little bigger than that." He smiled in an attempt to smooth over the situation. I hadn't been successful in my attempt to hide my phobia from him. "Maybe some gauze and bandages."
"Gauze and bandages?" I sounded like a whispering parrot who was being stalked by something big and ugly.
"Yeah, I hit my hand with the drill. It's pretty deep. I need for you to clean it and wrap it."
"Is it bleeding?"
He looked at me as if I had sprouted a new head. "Is it bleeding?" Yes, that was disbelief you heard in his voice. "Duh! Yes, it's bleeding."
"Oh no," I moaned and fell backward on the bed as visions of a bloody hand danced in my head. "I feel queasy."
"You feel queasy?" Now he had moved to outrage. "You cannot pass out on me now!"
Trying to breathe through it so I didn't, I leverage myself up and tried to be strong for him. "Just breathe, just breathe, just breathe," became my new mantra. "Okay, let me see." I was proud of how strong my voice sounded. All he heard was the panic.
"Maybe this isn't such a good idea."
"You think?" It's good to know I could still be sarcastic when necessary.
Unwrapping the paper towel all I saw was mangled flesh and blood. And that was enough. Later he would tell me that I went ghost white even as my eyes rolled back in my head. Thank goodness I was already sitting on the bed, my fall was soft and cushioned.
Of course he was stuck sitting on the floor, bleeding profusely with no one to help him, wondering if he could in fact bleed to death from the hole he drilled into his hand. He did make it to the bathroom and was able to clean it out. Unfortunately, I came around to the sound of his cursing and screeching. Since we didn't have any gauze bandages we had to improvise and use something that he would not like me sharing here on the blog. But it worked.
So now I have shared my embarrassing failure as a wife. Thank goodness we never had children. Could you imagine?
1 comment:
my mom is the same way around blood, so imagine her horror when i fell off a swingset, bit through my lip, and had the swing (it was one of those bench ones) come back and slice the side of my face. faces bleed A LOT. buckets were needed. and eventually stitches.
good thing we were at the neighbor's house so they could help so all my mom had to do was breathe.
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