"As I Was Travelling To Saint Ives...."

     Tam was out of town for work (and vacation) during nearly all of October.  The first week she was away, I cut the tip of my left ring finger at work as the result of gesturing carelessly near a ventilation fan with a coarse blade guard.

     The wound was small but fairly deep, right across from side to side, and it wouldn't stop bleeding.  After an hour or more of bandaids, pressure and ice, I went to the company's Official Doc In A Box...which also happens to be a pay-for-plasma center, which I prefer to avoid.  Official policy calls for a manager to accompany the injured employee, so off we went and the doctor superglued the cut in my finger.  Fixed just about as quickly as it can be described, all better!

     There's just one caveat: you're not supposed to get it wet.

     Waterproof bandaids do the trick most of the time.  There's one exception.

     The curtain rises on our stage almost a month later.  My fingertip has healed.  It's Tam's first morning home, after having arrived sometime in the night and fallen asleep on the couch.  I'm in the office writing, having already awakened, made breakfast and coffee, and left a couple slices of bacon in the oven.  She's barely up, and has shuffled into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee and retrieved the plate of bacon.  She turned to get a sheet of paper toweling, and came to a full stop.  The silence was thick for fifteen seconds or more, then she called to me,

     "Bobbi?"
     "Yes?"
     "Why's there a rubber glove next to the sink with three fingers cut off?"
     I was a little distracted.  "Oh, that.  Yes."
     "No, why?"
     "Dog condoms?"
     "Ew, no."
     "An experiment?"
     "What?"
     "Um, for SCIENCE!"
     "No, come on, can't we just throw this out?"
     "Okay.  I cut my finger while you were out of town and I using a glove finger and a rubber band to keep it from getting wet when I wash my hair in the shower.  But they're not 100% water tight and they're hard to dry, so...."
     "I am throwing this thing away!"

     Heh. I guess it was a little disconcerting, at that.