Thanksgiving Idiot

I wasn't going to post about this, but I figured it's a good lesson to everyone out there. Learn from my idiocy!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and dinner was at my place. My hubby's uncle said he was coming at 4pm, and I know his family tends to eat early. Now, I learned a thing or two about etiquette, including how to set a formal table, how to fold napkins into interesting designs, and how to time all your cooking so that everything is hot and ready when your guests arrive. I turned off the stove, put everything on the table, and was ready to go two minutes before 4. Then Matt's uncle was an hour late. Then he decided he wasn't hungry and wanted to watch a movie. So we watched Fantastic 4 since he hadn't seen it. By the time it was over, it was 7:30 and dinner was icy. So I decided to toss it all in the stove and warm it real quick, that way it doesn't have that microwaved dryness about it (dry turkey, yuck!)

My logic was, the stove had been off 3.5 hours, it was cool (no heat when I opened it), so I just grabbed the casserole dishes and turkey pan and tossed them all in at once. No gloves, no mitts.

Folks, I don't care if that stove has been off all frickin' day, put a glove on!!!

Typical, I was in a hurry, and my hand hit the top grill of the stove. Ouch, hot, no pain, kept loading. It wasn't until I finished putting the dishes in there and started the stove up that I looked to see how bad the burn was.

Still no pain ... because there was no skin!

It looks a lot better today. Just to gross you all out and show you to always ALWAYS be careful, I should have snapped a picture of just how nasty that burn looked.

My index finger isn't too bad, some melted skin and a blister. My ring finger was spared injury by hitting the stove with my wedding ring (the stone was big enough to deflect it, don't worry, the ring is not damaged). However, my middle finger has a long gash like I got attacked by a Doberman, and about three centimeters of that is burned through the dermis, deep and white! That means 3rd degree. It's small, so I'm not going to the hospital unless it continues to be a problem, but you can see the different skin layers as the burn moves out. There was also a long section of melted skin that just fell off eventually. Yeah, nasty.

I ran cold water, but it didn't hurt, so idiot me figures I'll be fine, and I have a guest to entertain. I put Neosporin on it and a band-aid and just waved it off with a laugh. But then...

Y'know, I burned myself this bad once before. I should have known it was coming. Still, it's a shock when a part of your body which feels fine at the moment suddenly feels like it has been submerged into a vat of liquid metal. There I was, trying to keep conversation going and cut my turkey, when all my brain knows is the fires of Hell and they are concentrated into my left hand straight into my middle finger like I'm whoring Satan's mistress or something. I excused myself, hid an icepack in my lap napkin, and avoided anything I couldn't eat one-handed. Once dinner was over - almost crying by now - I ran to my bedroom, took the strongest painkiller I could find, and fell asleep with an icepack sitting on my hand unsuccessfully attempting to quench the flames.

Moral of the story: never assume a stove is cold. Always examine burns as soon as they happen. Even if there is no pain, keep that cold water running on it. And most important, entertaining your hubby's uncle is not as important as caring for a 3rd degree burn.


Thought for the day:

If your motto is "Live and Learn," prepare to have 911 on speed-dial.