05/23/2021: Really, really “not in the mainstream”

My Catholic guilt meter has been running on high all during the pandemic: there has been so much suffering & I've been unscathed except for losing all my employment & social life & living alone with Bear while trying to hold on to my sanity. But, I feel better now because last night I had a pandemic related cleaning injury. My mom' s 1946 heavy-duty Singer sewing machine was at fault.

I'd dragged the machine out a year ago to make masks for nursing homes as part of a volunteer group. As of last August, the mask making efforts had petered out, but there sat the sewing machine, collecting dust & stuff on top of it. With masks readily available now & the CDC saying we mostly don't need them anyway, it was past time to put the machine away & start cleaning up all the other stuff. This was on my to do list for months. So, yesterday evening, I finally commenced.

However, the sewing machine had other ideas and handed me an injury. The machine is made of real steel, very heavy. The actual machine lifts up, then folds down underneath the cabinet to close it up.

As the machine dropped down into its slot, the spindle on top hit the back of my right hand really hard. Ouch! When I looked at my hand, the blood was gushing. There was a flap of skin pulled back. The spindle wasn’t sharp, but it was the force of the impact. I rinsed it in cold water, wrapped a washcloth around it and headed to the minor emergency clinic—it looked like I would need stitches.

The folks at the clinic were very nice, but I hadn’t been in a medical setting like that during the pandemic & was taken aback at the thought of all the germs lurking around, even though everyone was masked. There were only six people in the tiny waiting room: no room to social distance. One guy came in with a trash can & said he’d been throwing up for a week. Great. And of course, when they called the name of one young woman, I realized I knew her dad, but I didn’t know if it was the place to mention it. That’s Memphis: if there are six people in a room, you will know at least one of them.

They called me back to see someone pretty quick, and a nice young male nurse, Joel, who told me he was 35, attended me. Joel examined the wound. It really wasn’t that bad, but I’m squeamish. I couldn’t look at it.

Me: “Will I need stitches?”

Joel: “Well, your skin is too thin to stitch. Stitches would just make it worse.”

Me: “Damn. Must be because I take a lot of Excedrin for my back pain?”

Joel: “Well, your skin just gets thinner as you age.”

Me: (What I should have said, but didn’t: “Young man, if you say that to someone my age, you should follow it with: But you don’t look old. You don’t look like you’re a day over thirty.”

Me: “So, will you have to amputate?”

Joel: “No, we can save the hand. We’ll use glue.”

Great. I use a lot of adhesives in my work—maybe should I go home and get a glue stick or maybe some Gorilla Glue, since we are related to primates.

What a kick in the ass: I thought I was fairly thick-skinned, but come to find out, my skin is too thin to even support stitches. What if I get in a bad accident? I’m just going to remain in my house, pandemic or not, for the rest of my life, and I certainly won’t be able to do any cleaning–it’s too dangerous. Insult upon insult. I’ve worked as a free-lance set designer & museum & zoo exhibits designer & writer for the past 35 years, in addition to being a jewelry designer. But, when I applied for the pandemic unemployment as a gig worker last year, I was told I didn’t make enough money for it to qualify as work! Damn. As if all those long hours didn’t even exist. That $350 a week sure would have helped. It could’ve at least paid for the glue. So now, my skin is too thin for stitches & my life’s work doesn’t count as work. I guess I’m just fading away. I sure did bleed a lot though for someone who is disappearing.