Satirical Essay

And Then My Boob Exploded

A True Tale of Mayhem and Destruction

July 2019 will go down in history as my least favorite month this year, or most any year. It’s then that my boob exploded.

Let me back up to the beginning of the month.

July 1st. Off to clean the AirBnB house for the day. It’s a big house, the biggest one I manage. Beautiful, with big beds, bathrooms, hot tub, three bedrooms, three floors, 2.5 bathrooms. It’s a day like most days. Write, clean, do laundry, write some more, clean some more while the laundry dries. Listen to a podcast or two, or part of today’s audiobook.

Except on this day. The universe had other plans for me.

You see, I was setting up the kitchen to be a bit more organized. It was already a beautiful home, and I only just got the contract to manage it for the owner.

Managing AirBnb’s is what makes it possible for me to do what I love. I can manage to squeak by paying the bills and then spend my own time investing in the Bank of Susan — reading, writing, meditating, walking in nature, eating delicious food. It’s my version of Spike Lee selling tube socks on the NYC streets before he hit it bigger. Yes, he did that. He talks about it on a Split Screen episode on the Criterion Channel. I’m a founding member there.

Everyone has to pay their bills.

The home just needed a few more touches to bring it up to my standards. One of those things needed was a silverware organizer.

The drawer needed the organizer because the utensils were just all thrown in the drawer willy-nilly. Oh, I need to research that term, I apologize in advance if its etymology is derogatory in any way, it’s overwhelming these days, all the research I must do on the history of phrases. I really don’t intend to insult anyone. Sheesh, I could have googled it in the time it took me to write this paragraph. So sorry.

Random silverware is just one of those things that offends my sense of order in the world. Along with a million other things. I’m working on releasing those perfectionist tendencies. It’s a process rather than a transformation, at least for the moment.

Included in the Drawer of Mayhem was the store display tray, in the original box, of one place setting of the flatware.

Someone, somewhere, in the deepest darkest recesses of their protectionist mongering brains, decided that it would be a good idea to protect the displayed flatware from the masses who might possibly pilfer it.

Need I remind you that this is the logic that killed women in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire in NYC in 1911 and led to the formation of labor unions. Management was certain the immigrant working women were stealing garments on their work breaks, and locked and chained the doors. Fire broke out, women could not escape, and 145 workers died. Mostly teenage women.

That fire also led to Frances Perkins, FDR’s Labor Secretary, leading the effort for labor reform, including the 40 hour work week. I can only imagine what my story about my encounter with the Drawer might lead to. Anything is possible.

At any rate, this is what I found in the Drawer of Mayhem.

As you can see, these are cable tied to the cardboard box. And not those Staples variety lightweight cable ties either, the ones meant to help you tidy up all those skinny media cables under your desk. No, these are thick industrial strength ties, meant for big thick beefy tie-up jobs. The kind the cable man uses under your house, in those dark areas you never want to visit. This isn’t valuable sterling silver flatware by the way. Just average stainless steel. The cable ties are so thick, some broke free of the cardboard, as you can see. But the cable ties are NOT letting go of their precious cargo.

First off, I just want to say that I partially blame Frank Woolworth. You see, it was his original idea to get merchandise out of lockup and onto shelves where customers could actually touch the goods for sale. Up until the early 1900’s, that wasn’t possible without a sales clerk’s assistance. You walked into a store and someone assisted you with the merchandise, if you wanted to be all touchy-feely with it. You know, to see what the quality of the textiles was like for instance.

Okay, I’ll get back to Woolworth’s culpability in a second but I couldn’t take the noise level in my head any longer about willy-nilly, so here it is. Definition by Barnhart Dictionary because I trust that source more than most any other. And also because lexicographer and dictionary empire heir David Barnhart is my friend and he and his wife come often for dinner, and she and I are wine drinking buds. Well, they DID. His wife, and my long time friend Hollis, died this month. RIP Hollis. I will miss your satirical wit and irreverence.

I talked about him in this essay I wrote

but if you don’t have time for a whole other essay right now, here’s David:

So now — Woolworth’s. And the State of Pennsylvania.

If Woolworth had not allowed merchandise to be freely handled, and if the State of Pennsylvania had not also been complicit, then what would happen next would never have happened. Because merchandise would still be under tight control, girls wouldn’t be sitting around looking like models and viewing mail order catalogs, and I would not have sliced my wrist open.

Okay, I admit that’s a rough entree.

You see, I was determined to get this kitchen and Drawer organized. I had it all put together. The last bit was just to free the merchandise from lock up.

Get it disconnected from the cable ties. Just taking my lead from Woolworth’s.

I looked around in the drawer. There was a super duper sharp knife. It was a beauty. I don’t think I had one sharper in my own kitchen. It was probably the sharpness that made me believe it was the right tool.

You see, the package did not come with a special tool for breaking the flatware out of jail. There were no special instructions or warnings. Nothing said, “hey, you, the one thinking about using any old tool you can first lay your hands on — — don’t do that. Here’s a better idea! We’ve taken a page from IKEA and given you this really cool cheap tool to take the flatware off the packaging!” Or maybe some other warning, like, “The flatware attached to the cable ties was NEVER INTENDED to be set free. It is for display purposes only. Any attempt to disconnect cable ties from flatware could lead to serious damage of personal property or bodily injury.”

Nope. Nothing like that on the package anywhere.

And seriously, if you put actual flatware on display, isn’t that part of the 18 piece (or however many pieces) set? Is the purchaser not paying for that?

It could have just as easily been a nice photo from unsplash — free! — that got reproduced on the box.

But no. None of that happened. None of that was there.

I grabbed the knife. I started applying pressure to the cable tie. Yes, it slipped. And yes, I sliced my wrist.

Now I honestly have never had any suicidal ideations. No matter how many times my doctor asks me about it. The answer never changes.

I just never saw this coming.

Immediately after I tried to slice the cable tie, the knife kind of BOUNCED — yes, it BOUNCED — off the cable tie — and it really barely made a mark on the tie, those things are monsters — it rebounded and sliced my wrist. My ENTIRE LEFT HAND immediately went numb. The whole thing.

Pretty scary shit. You never forget a feeling like a hand or finger or limb going dead.

I immediately dropped everything, grabbed the wrist before blood could pump out, and yelled out “JESUS!!!”

In the moment, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Good thing I’d started meditating earlier this year. It made a huge difference.

I thought, gee, look at that. I could have yelled shit, or fuck, or any of dozens of other epithets, but look what came out first.

Those church folks from my youth would all have been so proud.

But those church folk were not here. I was in this kitchen alone.

I fumbled for my phone, and the power was not all that juiced up, but it had enough. I dialed 911.

I told them I cut my wrist. They asked me if it was an accident. Because that needs to get out of the way first, I guess.

They told me to sit still. How did they know I was pacing?

They told me to keep the hand raised above my head.

I was pretty glad they told me those things, as they were not what I was thinking about at all. I was pretty panicked about the whole thing. I just lost the use of my entire left hand! As the reality of that sank in, I did finally say SHIT. This will jeopardize my sailing class that’s supposed to start at the end of July!

They told me to unlock the front door. Good idea. In case I blacked out.

I started to feel a little nauseous. The people on the phone were so helpful and kept me on the phone talking.

The ambulance arrived in under 10 minutes. That was pretty amazing. They told me that they had been close by.

Every single medical professional that night asked me if it was an accident. I couldn’t stop laughing. It was the STUPIDEST of accidents. And the irony of it was that EVERY one in my kitchen who helps me as sous chefs, all get the constant drone from me about knife skills and safety. I’m thinking, I’ll never live this down.

You know how people sometimes say, “wow, that scared the shit out of me”?

Well, that’s a real thing. Once I got in the ER and settled into a room, I was up and down to the toilet a gazillion times. It was that scary.

Before they came in to inject an anesthetic and give me five stitches, a couple of nurses came in, took some vitals, and asked some questions.

At one point they asked, “what’s your religion?”

I said, “All of them.” The nurses looked at each other, as if to silently say, “okay, we have a cray cray here.” I immediately pre-empted their clairvoyant communications, and said, “God is too big for one religion, or for one sex! You can’t put God in a box”, which is something I’ve been known to say frequently, with mixed reception.

“Can we just say Christian? For the form?”

Wow, I thought to myself, that’s pretty presumptuous, but agreed, “Sure, why not. This is America.”

I should have just said, “No, put down Buddhist,” but honestly, I think I was still stuck on the Jesus prayer after the knife slice, and just wanted to hear some good news. Like, would my hand ever work again? Because I was really feeling like all doom and gloom. I wouldn’t be able to sail. I wouldn’t be able to write. For goodness sake, I do laundry and make beds for a living — how was I going to support myself, let alone have a single ounce of fun for the rest of my life?

I was feeling like this was it. The end of life as I knew it. And I didn’t do it on purpose, either.

By some miracle, not a single blood vessel was cut. But nerves were.

The entire month of July the hand and forearm were a seething mess of nerve issues — feeling like pins and needles, hot pokers stabbing, and weird indescribable mystery pains that would just come and go and pop up. Any little vibration was excruciating.

The pain in the hand and arm was brutal. It just didn’t seem to get better. If there was progress, I surely couldn’t notice it. I was beginning to resign myself that I would not have use of my left hand ever again. How would I even begin to reach my writing goals? All hope seemed lost. I was pretty depressed.

I told my sailing instructor about what happened to me. It was another miracle, in that they let me take the course one handed. And 8 weeks later I got my basic keelboat certification.

Calaif was a huge help. He came along to help me clean houses for a while. We’d clean, and he’d tell me stories about his parents, and growing up. He helped until my hand and arm functions could return. You know him from my Nothing in Common series.

I ever so slowly began to feel the pain go away. I started to write this article in August. I couldn’t finish it until now, the end of October. After a couple of months of learning how to function with dead fingers and a mostly numb left hand, I had to then re-learn how to type with fingers that don’t feel any sensation, just a dull vibration.

I joked the first two months, about how the middle finger was the one that was 100% dead. The others, just 75% dead. Is this the universe telling me I flipped too many people off? Or maybe, not enough?

It makes it hard to type. My progress at being able to churn out pieces went from 3 to 4 or more pieces a day, before the accident, to at best, 1 a day. Short haiku became my friend as I taught my dead hand how to type again.

The pain in the hand and arm was brutal all through the summer into fall. It just didn’t seem to get better. If there was progress, I sure couldn’t notice it. I was beginning to resign myself that things would never be normal again. Ever.

When I type the word “dreamers”, it comes out like “dramers”. “Words” comes out “wors”. “Either comes out “eithr”.

Any of the keyboard keys that my middle finger on the left hand would have to type, just don’t get fully depressed, since I can’t feel the keys on the fingertip.

This has the effect of slowing down my typing speed enormously since I have to constantly go back and correct words. So frustrating, since I used to have a high typing speed, 100 to 150 words a minute. That’s not possible now.

At one point towards the end of July, just feeling utterly hopeless, I came home from a long frustrating day of housecleaning, and then went for a long walk. I got home late. Went into my room to get ready for bed. Stripped off my clothes and bra, and wait, what? What is this sticky shit all over my chest?

Holy crap. Just when you think nothing else can get worse or go wrong? It does.

MY BOOB EXPLODED.

Okay, not a real boob. I’m a breast cancer survivor, and in 1995 had a mastectomy. I’ll tell that story REAL SOON. But for now, just know, I wear a prosthesis. This fake boob is made of this silicone stuff. And I guess it just served its purpose, reached its date for planned obsolescence, and the seam broke loose. When I took off my bra, there was all this silicone residue all over my bra, my clothes, my chest. And I mean sticky, like chewing gum.

Imagine if that had been inside my body. This is some serious shit, and women get seriously ill from this stuff. Luckily, it was just on the outside of me.

So yeah. July was not a great month. Not a fun month. It’s no wonder that the universe connected me with some really funny people on MuddyUm. After all that has happened, what’s left, but to learn how to be funny and laugh again?

Thank God for MuddyUm and this community. I don’t think I could have made it without you.