My near-fatal finger splinter

(743 words)

I gave a doctor the finger and Obamacare paid for it!

I had a life-threatening splinter deep in my right hand’s middle finger; the Digitus Me’dius, to you fans of old Roadrunner cartoons.

I wish I could contend it was a steel splinter from an ax-wielding mishap or a fragment from a bullet I tried to catch between my fingers.

But, no, the wound was wicker in origin.

Yes, the fabled fabric of the pharaohs. Wicker has been found in the pyramids and throughout the palaces of European royalty.

I had some under my ass when I was sitting at our kitchen table — and let’s thank God for a moment I was wearing pants or this story would be on a more adult and graphic veer.

I reached down to adjust my position and felt a sharp stab on the palm side of the upper knuckle in the finger angry motorists rely on to articulate road rage is about to bloom.

It was so small I couldn’t see it without a squint. I went to look for some tweezers, but couldn't find any.

Looking back, I should have just gone for the hatchet. Just lopping the damn finger off at the knuckle would have really bolstered my manly bona fides.

But the stub would have been unsatisfactory.

You don’t want a short middle finger. You want a long one. Like “E.T.” long. When you give someone THE finger you want emphasis.

I mistakenly thought it would work itself out. A week later I tried to dig it out with a sterilized needle. That hurt.

The operation left me so woozy I decided I couldn’t type any more that day and went downstairs to the Tin Lizzy and proceeded to get woozy in a more agreeable fashion.

And the tiny wicker splinter continued to fester, throb and ugly up. It was soon looking like the skies do when you see tornado-ripe storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

Clearly, I should have gone to the doctor right away, but despite the pain, I was really enjoying myself.

When people would casually ask, “Hey, how you doing?” I’d without explanation raise my middle finger.

I did this with friends, waitresses, mechanics, librarians and most memorably with little Lucy’s Sunday school teacher.

Giving someone — anyone — the bird is always a very liberating feeling. 

People these days are on such hair-trigger alert, I felt like I was conducting some sort of civics lesson.

It was like me saying, “Things aren’t always what they seem. You initially thought I was expressing malignant hostility. Instead I’m conveying a pain I’m feeling of which you are unaware. Many of us are hurting in ways that are sometimes unseen. Let this be a lesson in how you and I go forward in our dealings with our fellow man.”

Ideally, that would have been the reaction, but most people seemed to think I was just being an asshole, especially Lucy’s Sunday school teacher.

So I headed to the Med Express where I was pleased to learn I was out-patient of the day.

Everyone loved me!

First of all, I had an interesting wound. It was by then all swollen and pussie so they were really happy to see me.

Second, I asked them lots of questions about their typical hypochondriac patients and my questions gave them a chance to unload on all the people who mistakenly believe they’ll live forever if they see the doctor every time they come down with a case of the hiccups.

Third, I led them to believe I was one tough son of a bitch.

Splinter? I wasn't going to let that slow me. The only reason I’m here is because all the other kids on the school bus would faint whenever I waved bye-byes to my daughters.

I kept up the tough guy pose right up until I began begging the nurse to bring me a juice box so I wouldn’t pass out.

I’m not kidding. The doc really did a number on my finger. He gouged a hole so big I actually wound up needing stitches.

For a splinter!

I’m stabilized now, thank you, and am due to return next week for stitch removal.

I just thought you’d like to know what’s been going on if you see me over the next week and I for one reason or another give you the finger.

Or what’s left of it.

Related . . .

Bird watching in Mr. Rogers Neighborhood

The story of my webbed toes and other human deformities

I am becoming left-handed

A profane discourse on barbers and bartenders

In praise of profanity

I have no middle name (and how F. Murray Abraham got his enigmatic F.)

(704 words)

We’re immersed in so many complicated TV shows right now I sometimes have trouble keeping all the dense plots straight.

It happens with “Walking Dead,” “Justified,” and “Dexter,” and it happened again last night with “Homeland.”

We were catching up on the second season and I found myself trying to remember if Brody’s good or evil, if Carrie’s on or off her meds, and just how long I was going to have to wait before Brody’s luscious wife Jessica decides it’s time to take off all her clothes and make me momentarily forget all my other troubles.

Then something happened that completely derailed my train of thought and sent my mind off on a good long graze.

What happened?

F. Murray Abraham appeared on screen.

So I stopped thinking about the other plot details and began wondering what the F. stands for.

Fred? Franklin? Forrest? Felix? Floyd?

As soon as the show concluded I looked it right up.

Turns out it stands for  . . . nothing!

It’s just F.

It’s true. I read where he was born Murray Abraham and just thought the name was too ordinary to make an impression so he “framed it” with the enigmatic F.

That’s not all I learned. Turns out Murray Abraham was born in 1939 right here in Pittsburgh. He's outstanding at his craft and won the Oscar for best actor in 1985 for his role in “Amadeus.”

You can now bank on it that one day I’ll forget our anniversary, my children’s birthdays and the five times in five hours I’ve been reminded to bring milk home, but I’ll never, ever forget that the F. in F. Murray Abraham is meaningless and that the dude was born in Pittsburgh, the F. City of F. Champions. 

I suppose I dwell on initials more than most folks because I have no middle name.

I’m simply Christopher Rodell.

So if I have a monogrammed sweater it looks like I’m an ardent fan of the Colorado Rockies when, in fact, I’m wholly indifferent to the Denver-based ball club.

Our parents decided against giving us middle names because they both loathed theirs. Mom was born Rachel Mae; Dad, Paul Russell Rodell.

I’ve always felt it was very unfair of them. If that’s really how they felt, then all they had to do was name me something besides Christopher Russell or Christopher Mae Rodell.

And, you know, Christopher’s not the easiest male name to lug through life, either. Many juvenile friends still call me with Chrissy because it rhymes with Sissy and they hope it’ll make me feel less like a real man. I’m not going to say the cruel taunting makes me actually feel less like a real man, but it does sometimes make me burst into tears, which is fine because I keep reminding myself it’s okay these days for a real man to cry.

But I am chagrined at not having a middle name.

Cody or Clint would be cool because then I could be C.C.R. — and I love Creedence. And Christopher Arthur Rodell would have some automotive zip.

And I don’t even need the whole name. Consider Harry S Truman.

Careful readers will notice what looks like a typo in his name. In fact, his middle “name” is merely an initial.

His middle name is S.

Or, actually, his middle name is S

Harry S Truman has a middle initial but no middle name. Turns out it was not uncommon for people of Scotch-Irish descent to bestow single letters for the middle names. It’s in character with a people renown for thrift.

To me, his name always sounds like a nickname given to him by old Army buddies with whom he used to shower: “Here comes that hairy ass Truman.”

With S Truman and F. Murray as my inspirations, I’m now wondering if it’s not too late to give myself a dandier handle.

I’m thinking Chris T Rodell. Internet search engines would inevitably recognize it as ChrisT Rodell.

Jesus! Christ Rodell!

I believe it would lead multitudes of new eager readers seeking bloggers with messianic credentials.

And that’s as good a place as any to conclude a post that began wondering just what the F.

Related . . .

It’s time to sell hurricane naming rights

When north Dakota and south Dakota are different parts of the same kid

On Easter, let’s resurrect the name Judas

Random thoughts on tears, guns & middle names

Death to Gaddafi

I do not consider myself the bloodthirsty sort, but when CNN broadcasts angry mobs executing Col. Muammar Gaddafi I’ll TiVo the kill.

Like I do with favorite sporting moments, I’ll likely watch it a bunch the first few weeks, then maybe once a month, then maybe once a year on the anniversary.

It’s something I may savor with a glass of cabernet.

He was the first contemporary tyrant I ever hated and you never forget your first.

He was always in the headlines for horrific and bloody mayhem when I was a young newspaper reporter in Nashville and Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

To me, he is a Founding Father of state-sponsored terrorism. His money and menace were behind the 1972 Olympic killings and a string of deadly bombings throughout Europe in the 1980s. His bombs blew up discotheques, and machine guns paid for with his oil money slaughtered dozens waiting to board airline flights in Rome and Vienna.

He was an avid supporter of Iran when it held American’s hostage and later when it went to war with Iraq when Saddam Hussein was a key Middle East ally of ours -- and my how times change.

Ronald Reagan tried and failed to kill him with bombing raids in 1986, strikes that killed 45, including Gaddafi’s adopted daughter, but did nothing to deter him.

Then he and his henchmen were behind the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing of Pan Am flight 103 when it was 31,000 feet over Lockerbie, Scotland. The explosion killed 259 crew and passengers and 11 village residents upon whom the thousand pound chunks of debris without warning rained.

Two of the victims were local girls, Elyse Saraceni and Beth Johnson from  Greensburg’s Seton Hill College. The pair were returning from Europe to spend Christmas home with their families. I contributed coverage of the funerals and local outrage over the killings that remains unavenged.

The recollection of those poignant holiday losses still galls.

His body count may or may not be as high as Osama bin Laden’s, but his deadly aspirations have always been the same. 

That’s why I’ve been mystified by the change in Gaddafi’s stature over the last 10 years.

Admittedly, much about U.S. foreign policy mystified me over the last 10 years, but I’ve been most surprised about the shift in attitude toward Gaddafi by the people I count on to know better.

It was summarized thusly by David Blair, diplomatic editor of the prestigious Daily Telegraph in London. Here’s what he wrote in 2009:

"In his four decades as Libya's 'Brother Leader', Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has gone from being the epitome of revolutionary chic to an eccentric statesman with entirely benign relations with the West.”

Revolutionary chic? Eccentric statesman?

Now, I’m not versed in the deft, polite ways of diplomatic conversation, but WTF?

This is not some colorful and benign leader with quaint and idiosyncratic ways. This is a homicidal madman.

The revolution in Egypt was a euphoric triumph. What’s happening in Libya is compelling for more base reasons.

There will be no apologies, no trial, no exile to some cushy Mediterranean splendor.

This ending is preordained.

We’re witnessing the fruits of four decades of bloody repression ripen in real time. We have the opportunity to watch every step as determined mobs advance to an inevitable end that will make squeamish diplomats turn away.

Gaddafi’s vowed to fight to his last drop of blood.

It’s the one public utterance he’s made I wholeheartedly endorse.

Hope you like hell, you son of a bitch. There's a seat saved for you.

The TV has become the penis

Readers who enjoy vicarious woe are in for a splendid couple of weeks because a wave of woe is crashing upon me.

First off, car trouble. The very day I sent in the final payment on my 2007 Saturn Vue, I had to spend $783.57 to fix something that sounded vaguely pancreatic to me.

I understand as much about vehicular mechanics as I do human organs like the pancreas. I have no idea what my pancreas does, if I need it or how to fix it when it stops functioning.

So when the mechanic starts talking about degraded idler arms and mevotech drag links, I start nodding like a chicken in the rain and just get out the checkbook, once again wishing Dad had steered me into a garage instead of a golf course when I was growing up.

Then during the hottest week of the year our air conditioner broke. My HVAC guy said it would take $650 to fix it, but he had a better idea.

“You could get a new heat pump that’ll improve the efficiency of the whole system. I can get you a really nice one for $5,900.”

So now I have to hope for extreme winters and summers so we can realize rapid savings on our electric bills. A pleasant mild day when the furnace/AC unit idles will mean the expense is going to waste. I’ll only be happy when it’s Nome cold or Hell hot.

Then -- and this is the only misfortune that caused me to shed tears -- our 3-year-old 50-inch HDTV popped and went black while my wife was home alone watching. The repairman said it would cost $1,235 to repair the $1,500 behemoth, a foolish calculation when new ones could be had for less.

To me, it was like the day I heard John Lennon died.

I couldn’t believe it. I felt anger, denial, remorse. I wanted to lash out at the person I blamed.

That was my wife. She’s always hated the TV for the very reason I’ve always adored it. She thought it was too big.

Can you believe it? A TV that was too big? I try to avoid cliche profanity, but WTF?

Her hatred stems from my cunning subterfuge the day we bought it in 2007. We agreed on a nifty 42-inch set. Then the second she was out the door (conflicting schedules meant we’d taken two cars) I said to the salesman, “Okay, now I want you to give me eight more inches.”

It’s become impossible for a man to talk about TVs without it sounding sexual. That’s because televisions have usurped the penis as the way for men to prove their masculinity.

We boast about our inches. We talk about how it throbs with 2M 1080i pixel resolution and 100,000:1 lagoon contrast.

A big TV has become the true measure of a man.

It’s true. Right up until the moment he unveiled his breathtaking 56-inch HD monster, we all made fun of our one buddy behind his back for being such a nerdy poindexter (shout out to Ron Shannon, Latrobe, Pa.!)

So it’s not a metaphoric stretch to say the TV’s blindside destruction felt to me like a real kick in the nuts.

Call it Val’s revenge. When she insisted the new TV be no greater than 42-inches, my emasculation was complete.

I argued in vain that I was going to advance all the furniture three feet to compensate for the TV’s shortcomings.

So you see, it’s been a season of unrelenting dreariness for me.

Then on Thursday, finally, some really great news that makes up for all the despair.

My wife and kids left me.

Hallelujah!

Not for good, that would devastate me. I’m pretty sure.

I’m home alone while she’s taken the kids to spend four days with her sister and her five kids.

Talk about a two-fer for me!

I’m truly overjoyed by their absence and again left to wonder how the three people I love more than any others can make me so happy by leaving me all by myself.

So it’s beer for breakfast and donuts for dinner and I’m taking the new TV to Daddy Boot Camp.

I’m going to watch all the violent and profane things I can’t enjoy when the girls are around. That means “Hot Fuzz,” “Shaun of the Dead,” “Midnight Run,” “The Big Lebowski,” and the four-disc best of from the HBO classic, “The Larry Sanders Show.”

And I think I’ll give the nudist thing a try. Yeah, it’s a pleasant day. I’ll shuck the duds and watch TV in the buff.

Of course, I’m sure I’m in for some poignancy amidst my revelry.

I’ll be longing for those eight inches that aren’t ever coming back.

And, to be clear, I’m talking about the old TV, the only measure that matters.

x x x

Tweet of the Week @8days2amish: "There is no punishment too severe for the llama farmer who names any of his livestock Dolly."