A Lack of Tactility

Normally I have only some imaginary malady to blame for my lack of transmissions. This time however, I got a less ethereal excuse. My right thumb is whacked! That's my VTR trigger! It began back on my birthday when I joined some friends for a life-affirming mountain bike ride. Barely a mile into the woods, I chose a relatively flat expanse to execute an I.E.D., better known as an Involuntary Ejection Drill. Yes, with so much as a warning lamp the bike's front tire bit hard into the muck and sent my silly ass flying over the mud-encrusted handlebars. Very soon after, I began losing elevation and while the slow motion memory of it is all 'tuck and curl', I've come to realize I did what they always tell you not to do when engaged in terrestrial descent: I reached out to break my fall. How else to explain the throbbing I feel in this most intrinsic of digits?

That was eight days ago. While I didn't let it slow me down on the job, it's only because the lens I now sling weighs the same as an empty shoebox and not due to any semblance of managed care. I do remember making gored woodchuck noises the first time I grabbed my gear on Monday, but when you twist random incidents into ninety second stock operas, you ain't got time to bleed, er, bitch. So I went about my less than merry way, waiting all the while for my right thumb to go back to opposing again. It has not happened. Sure, I can move it again, but it still feels like I tried to stop a forty four year old father from cartwheeling down a hill - which is what I did. Now after treating the whole hand to a few nocturnal bourbon-wraps, I've perused a websites and figured out what exactly I did to my thumb. Medically speaking, I janked it.

Thus, I broke down and bought one of those Velcro thumb and wrist numbers from the nearest drug store and swaggered around the joint like a pro bowler. Eventually the pharmacist asked me to leave and I would have to had my sixteen year old returned with the pickup. I tried to text her, but with a hinky thumb, my attempt to use hip cyber jargon failed and I fat-fingered my way into a lengthy discussion with the good folks at a Papa-Johns in Fuquay-Varina as to why I was repeatedly ordering sixteen cheese pizzas. Anyhoo, when I did get home, I conferred with my private nurse, the same wise and ravishing creature I've been married to for more than two decades. A veteran of many a weekend ER shift, she looked down at the considerable lack of carnage and promptly told me where to stuff it.


Actually, she pried herself away from the salad she was making long enough to make sure the extremity in question wasn't detached. Upon finding it whole, she shrugged toward the medicine cabinet before turning her attention back to the bag of croutons she was insisting I keep my one good hand out of. I did as told, lassoing a half-filled bottle of Ibuprofen that I actually kept track of for more than a fortnight. Now whenever I mention my thumb hurts (pretty often, I'm told) she asks me if I'm taking my medicine. When I mumble a response, she cocks that one eyebrow up and gives me the same look she gave me when I told her I was thinking of applying at that local first TV station. What can I tell you? She's of heartier stock. Me, I'm an American Southerner of Irish descent. I don't bottle up my feelings; I foist them upon others - most often in wheezy, purple verse.

Is it any wonder she sent me to my room?