Attack of the Coathangers

My oldest daughter has the grace and good fortune to be a true Yankee Doodle; that is she was born on the Fourth of July. The shared birthday is the start and finish of her similarities to Ron Whatshisface from the Tom Cruise movie. Speaking of which if anyone saw the episode of, “Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, where the guy put on the Ron Whatshisface costume and pretended to be a war hero in the strip bar, that shit was funny.


Anyway, as yesterday was a Holiday and her Birthday all together we had friends and family coming over to eat our food, dirty our carpets and drink our booze in the afternoon. Around noon as I was cleaning up the yard, trimming hedges, feeding fishes and the like I looked at the grill and thought, “Hmmm, I haven’t taken the cover off that thing since October, maybe I should take a peek before having to cook food for my loved ones on it.”

Its a good thing that I did as a fucking pack of squirrels had co-opted it for a vacation home and acorn storage repository. Obviously I had to scrub away any trace of rodentia detrialis and with a scrub brush, a grimace, some industrial strength Lysol and love in my heart I went to work on that motherfucker like Superfly Snuka on the Iron Sheik. Inside, outside, the grates, the lines, the handles and finally the internal super-structure where all the grease and nastiness do creep drip by drip. It was during this juncture that I discovered something of value to pass along to you.

Y’know the silver grease deflector in the middle of the bottom of a gas grill, the shiny thing? Yeah, that son of a fucking bitch has a razor sharp edge to it, as I found out when it cleaved off the tip-top of the tip of my middle finger on the left hand. So to frame the scene, I’m covered in grease and other grill filth, bleeding profusely, the hose is running, and my plasma is ruining my socks. Not a good situation. I headed inside screaming for the Mrs. to come to my aid, “DEAREST I HAVE BEEN UNDONE, ATTEND AS YOUR HEART DOTH ORDER, ATTEND TO THY MATE!!!”, (as you can well imagine at this point I had lost a lot of blood). So down she raced and with an exclamation of either, “AVAST MY BELOVED, WHAT FOUL FATE HAS RENDERED YOUR DIGIT THUSLY, or, “Jesus Christ what have you done now”, (I can’t recall which exactly), she washed, applied pressure and a clean dressing, (Bounty paper towels wrapped with masking tape), and dispensed first-aid and a smooch to calm my nerves.

Not having the necessary supplies to staunch the bleeding we headed to Target to stock up. My finger was still layered in the homemade and very large wrapping, now turned a deep stain of red and starting to drip here and there. I got a few stares as I waltzed through Target but when you’re fabulously and magnetically attractive like I am that sort of thing is as common as needing to fart in Church so I rolled with it. We got our supplies and a chocolate bar and headed back to the Mansion on the Hill as the guests were anon.

My madre’, who is a nurse, was soon to arrive and she examined my depleted digit and declared it, “gross”, and, “pointless to go to the hospital for a stitch as there’s nothing there to stitch together.” She butterflied it up and zip, bam, bing I was at the accursed grill with a latex glove and tongs of fury. Those ribs were putty in my 9 and 6/8 hands.

My mom is a pretty cool character about injury; I guess working in an E.R. for a few years will get you that way. My Pops came rushing into the house one time claiming that he had hit an artery with a power drill, (I come by this kind of thing naturally), and she couldn’t help but laugh at the little fountain of blood spewing from his index finger. He survived. I have prepared a visual representation of our respective injuries above, I hope my finger scars up as nicely as his did.

The situation got me thinking about my family’s propensity for injury coinciding with celebrations. At my seventh birthday party my, “friend”, Gary, (who posts here occasionally), couldn’t catch me in a game of tag using conventional methods due to my catlike reflexes and explosive accelaratory capabilities so he punked out and tripped me, knee-first, into a brick used as a birdbath border. 16 stitches and several hours later I watched him break my birthday piñata while I had to sit, lock-legged and mortified, in a lawnchair. At times I can still feel the tears…DAMN YOU GARY!!!!!!!!!!! (We’ll discuss this at length as we’re vacationing together next week).

Two years later on my birthday I was trying to shave the little blobs of plastic off the bottom of a pair of G.I. Joe ski boots, (the blobs clicked into the skis which I had lost rendering the boots useless unless they were, as intended, deblobbed), with my brand spanking new Cub Scout knife. Of course I was strictly forbidden from doing dumbshit things with the knife, (like boot deblobbing), so after I sliced my thumb wide open I needed a plausible explanation for the wound that didn’t involve the knife.

To this day I still have to hear about, “the coathanger that jumped out of the closet and attacked me”. At the time it sounded better in my head than it does now, (or then to my parents who were wide-eyed at the combination of blood and stupidity pouring out in their living room). Nine stitches. End of party.

My mom broke her leg on a family trip to Colorado. I have been to the Nags Head E.R. twice on vacation and my brother once got bit by a rat and had to get rabies shots on my birthday, (he was a continent away but still, he could have called between injections).

My beauteous better half inflicted an injury on her finger very similar to my latest on New Year’s Eve a few years back, (with 40 people on the way over). On a Satanically evil and disastrous trip to Maine over a 4th of July some time ago the lovely daughter reared back to take a mighty breath, (to blow out the birthday candles y’know), and toppled backwards off a picnic bench, landing squarely on her head. That put a damper on the festivities.

I can’t wait for Christmas, maybe I’ll get shot in the face or penis.

The show on Friday should be interesting what with the gaping wound on the mandible. How will I play guitar? Will my electric twanger be awash with gore?!?!?!?

Tune in to the Velvet Lounge on Friday and see for your own damn self.