There is a lot of work to be done with sheet metal when we're out on a job, and that's a source of cuts and scrapes. I'm not unfamiliar with tin, but my hands sometimes betray me when I'm not concentrating closely enough.
Righty: Hey, check it out! Shawn's thinking about what he's going to do AFTER he's done with this sharp piece of metal.
Lefty: You're right! This is a perfect opportunity for us to completely forget how to function!
Righty: Stupendous idea! Initiate "Butterfingers"
Lefty: One of my personal favorites! Bombs awaayyyyy!
Righty: Wait, wait! Lemme get out of the way first!
*slice*
Lefty: Oh. Ooops....
I need to remember to get more hydrogen peroxide. My one-quart bottle is getting pretty low.
Have you ever heard of convertible pants?
I was wearing them the evening that I played some flag football with my youth group. We were inside Pathway gym and having a fantastic time. I dove after a loose ball with gusto and landed hard on the concrete. The only thing that protected my knee from the full force of the floor was the pant zipper, which stamped itself into my kneecap.
That was a week ago, and my knee still bears the bruises. It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 12:26 which declares
"If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together." (ESV)
The verse is talking about members of a church body, but I'm using it literally since a single knee injury seems to make everything more difficult. Of the two hundred and six individual bones in my body, it feels like I've been bumping into things with just one: my right patella.
Of course, I only contemplate amputation briefly, because I've heard about phantom pain and that doesn't sound pleasant at all. "Hmm, I feel like my toes are itchy, but I have no toes. Guess I'll just have to let the itchy feeling drive me to insanity."
I could list other injuries,
That one time I lost my eyebrow due to a potato cannon misfire.
Smashing two separate fingers with a large hammer while nailing a tin duct piece today.
Fracturing a wrist while playing "Dare Base" when I was 15.
Nearly biting the entire way through my own lip when I hit that tree with the 4-wheeler at 13.
but I won't, because then I'd just be heaping even more evidence toward the theory that "Shawn is Certifiably Clumsy."
Think of all the nerve endings in our skin and way they constantly relay messages to the brain, giving instantaneous status updates on pressure, moisture, wind, and temperature. (Which, coincidentally, is quite similar to most Twitter users.)
That's cool and stuff, but you know what's even cooler? Coagulation. When your skin gets cut and blood begins to seep, your body instantly organizes your blood-clotting proteins, dispatching them to the scene of the accident. There are 13 separate coagulating proteins in your body, and they have to act in a precise order, as a team. Each protein is called a factor, and they're named Factor I through Factor XIII. If even ONE of the factors is low or missing, a clot can't be formed and you would quite possibly bleed to death from a paper cut. (If you somehow lived in a world that didn't have any band-aids.)
No sweat, right? There's plenty of coagulants to go around. NOT. If you filled a 55-gallon drum with human blood, the amount of coagulation proteins in that drum would equal one drop. Point to the nearest 41 people beside you. Between you and them, there's a single drop of miraculous blood-clottery. Of course, your body makes the proteins when they're needed, which is nice.
I frequently put my coagulants to the test, and they do pretty well. My hands and arms have several cuts that are healing nicely.
Wait, how did I get off on this tangent? I'm supposed to be whining and complaining about stuff!
Sometimes I get the sneaking suspicion that God allows me to get cuts and scrapes so that, in a roundabout way, I'll geek out about how amazing His creation is. God's pretty crafty about that sort of thing. Truly, only a Divine Creator could design and create the complex systems we take for granted.
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