"But I've got such lovely fingers," I wailed to the bike shop man as he drove me to A&E.
"Well, you used to," he replied.
"Where did you do it?" asked daughter Sophia, eyeing the massive bandage forcing the index finger of my right hand into the universal symbol for "I don't think much of you."
"Are you blind?" I asked, holding up a dressing bigger than a wool bale.
"No - where did you do it?" "Shoosh," I said.
"Excuse me?" she replied, offended.
"Shoosh Cycles - it's a bike shop."
She wasn't the only one who was bemused.
"I slammed it in the door," I told Tall Gorgeous Blonde.
"Why?" she asked. Sometimes there's no explaining things to a TGB.
When he saw the gruesome gash, seconds after I unaccountably mangled myself in his door, the shop's proprietor, Sarge - so called because he has seen some action and is himself covered in scars - said, "Oh, hell."
Crikey, I thought, if he thinks this is bad, it must be really bad.
"What's that white thing?" I said.
"That's your finger bone," said the doctor at A&E.
Instead of three bones in my finger I now have four, but then I did always like to have more of stuff than everyone else.
"It's lucky you did it this week," said Sarge.
On his bicep, a bruise the size of a rottweiler's head suggested he often dropped people off at A&E.
"We were planning to take that door out next week."
It's hardly Shoosh's fault, as I am the world's clumsiest woman, if possessing a particular, selective dorkism.
I can climb snake-infested Mt Sinai, in the dark, wearing jandals, without misadventure then cut a toe open kicking a little, round, concrete traffic pacifier the next day.
Unfortunately, this is my "I'll have that one please" finger, the finger I use to point at the heavens to indicate that, yes, from thence have I fallen.
The same digit I use to squinch the rubbish down into the bag, hold my coffee, apply eyeliner.
With it busted, I was good for nothing: couldn't do dishes, hang out washing, Nada.
Yes, I have another hand, but that's my gesticulation hand.
In a miracle of pity, Sophia started doing housework.
Does this turny thing start the washing machine? It occurred to me I should have paid some goon to snap a couple of fingers years ago.
Some people cope bravely with a disability, with me it's more a continuous wail of complaint.
This tends to alienate one's caregivers.
(I lost a significant amount of weight when I had a broken leg, as I couldn't get to the fridge and my long-suffering family deserted me for sunnier pastures.) This can be a problem when, for example, you need to do things better accomplished with two hands - like have a good scrub in the bath.
"I'm filthy," I slurred for help; cast in bed languishing under the influence of "the world is a beautiful place" painkillers.
Silence.
"Someone clean me!" I hollered winsomely.
Visions of seductive sponge baths floated in my mind. The economist was having none of it.
With an ice-cream container in one hand and a loofa in the other, dumping me in the bath he proceeded to scour my body in a manner that can only be described as industrial carwash.
Scrubbed red raw, even my eyeballs were squeaking.
The vigorous decontamination would have stripped the skin from a baby.
"If it's worth doing, its worth doing to excess," he said.
I was in shock. But very, very clean.
"What about shaving my pits?" I asked.
"Sweetie," the economist said gravely, "there are some things a man just won't do."
Ongoing: Madeleine Child, Sweet As - Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Wednesday, April 14: Back Benchers, TVNZ 7, filming live at the Robbie. Oooh, that Wallace Chapman ... looks and smarts like a poke in the eye.
Saturday, April 17: Underground, alternative, experimental ... my hairstyle? No! It's Feastock Festival 2010. 3 Fea St - "The most cosmic, rad, hip and happening time of your life".
Sunday, April 18: "Whalers, Jailers, Poets and More", Early Settlers walking tour. Aussies aren't the only ones with scurvy dogs for ancestors.
