It seemed so innocuous at first. There I was last night, dutifully doing the many dishes that had piled up on my kitchen counter (though, deciding to do them at that moment was more a matter of obligation if I hoped to have a clean fork to use), some of which needed to be soaked in hot water to remove things stuck to the plates.

I let water run over the plates while I washed other things, and when I came to the plates, I found that they could probably soak a bit longer. But, being a bit impatient, I decided to just scrub with the sponge and then perhaps use my thumbnail a bit to remove the more stubborn bits of mashed potatoes that remained.

My thumb scraped across a tiny remnant, only it didn’t seem to budge. That is, until a piece shoved under my short thumbnail, and wedged between my nail and skin, like a giant potato splinter.

Ok, ow.

So I'm like, Oh My God, now what?! I turn off the water and put down the plate I was rinsing and ponder what to do. How do I get out a splinter made of potato? I imagine I can't use tweezers like a wood splinter, because it's too soft (although it was obviously hard enough in its current state), and probably a bit softer now that it had some more water running over it.

So I sorta press down on the nail right beneath the unwanted invader and, this is sort of gross, it kind of oozed out of my nail in a very unsplinter-like fashion. And immediately after it came out, the injury site bled some, which freaked me out a bit, though I rationalized that it probably means that there was no potato left inside to block the flow! So I suppose that's a good thing.

It only bled for a second though, and then I was just left with a throbbing thumb, which turned into a headache awhile later (probably from the adrenalin of omg, what do I do?!), but just to show you how hard-core I am, I finished washing and drying the dishes within minutes of it happening.

It doesn't really hurt today, unless I pretty on the area. I cleaned it as best I could, but hey, at least those potatoes were probably sterilized from the hot water and anti-bacterial dish soap. Though, if you suddenly see me with only 9 fingers, you'll know why.

Posted at 10:20 AM |

I know about those kind of dishes - did a whole load today too!
I wasn’t attachek by potatoes though ;) and as long as the potatoe hadn’t developped its own legs yet, I think you’re safe from infection ;)

1 | Posted by: Leonieke on October 07, 2006 @ 12:28 PM