Day One

Dave, my boss, likes to think he's a clever and capable guy and I guess that's why he thought it would be a great idea to host a dinner party called hash bash... all they served was a variety of dishes whose base was hash browned potatoes... very clever Dave. I was a little nervous because of all the prep work that would be involved... all the chopping, slicing and dicing. My twin Dexter, Dave's right hand man, liked to make fun of me, but he was always firmly grasping the knife... he was never in danger when the knife came down, I was. And its not like Dave was an athlete or anything with great hand eye coordination... he hadn't even played a video game since the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It was a crap shoot every time he brought the blade down.

When we got there and started to do the prep, Dave thought it would be a great idea to do all the knife work. Things were fine with the potatoes, but then we started to do a rough chop on the sweet potatoes. I started to shake a little when I heard Dave ask if there was a sharpening steel. He wanted to SHARPEN the knife, as if I weren't scared enough as it was. He sharpened knife and started back on sweet potatoes, which were harder than the potatoes and more difficult to chop. Then I heard Dan, Dave's co-host of the Hash Bash, ask Dave how to use the sharpening steel. What a D. Dave volunteered to show him and proceeded to sharpen the chef's knife again. I was not happy.

It was not thirty seconds later that it happened, the pivotal moment of my life and I knew my life would never be the same. The knife slipped and I popped out of my safe perch at the same time. I felt the blade dig into me. Dave jerked me out of the line of fire but it was too late, and I suspect he only did it so no blood would get on the sweet potatoes. I couldn't see it, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty. Dave had sliced into me half way down the nail and I was bleeding pretty bad. He applied pressure for a while but it was clear we were going to have to go to the ER.

Once I was Healthy

This is me*. I guess you could call me Pinky, cause I'm Dave's left Pinky. This was back when I was healthy. I mean sure, he never really took care of personal grooming well, always biting my nail, never clipping it... I could count on a fingerless hand the number of times he bothered to pamper me with a manicure, but seriously, did he even know the meaning of the word cuticle? I thought my life could not get any worse, but I was wrong... so wrong. At least I had my health.



* This is actually a picture of my twin Dexter. The guy that calls himself the brains of this operation never even bothered to take a picture of me when I was the picture of health. Now there may never be a picture of me that doesn't show some kind of deformity. Oh the Humanity.