Dear Mrsatroxi,

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Hey folks.

There’s a pretty picture I took. (In France! Damn French flowers, being all prettier and stuff.) Maybe it will help get you through your Friday.

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Summertime, and the grass is growing.

I haven’t mowed a lawn in close to twenty years. I have a very good excuse. The last time I used a lawnmower I lost part of my hand.

I was a young teenager, using antique equipment and not much common sense. Succeeded in scaring lots of people nearly to death and embarrassing myself silly. I lay in the hospital, grubby, smelly and unshaven, covered in blood and shuddering from shock, counting the shots the nurses were pumping into me as I waited for a surgeon. (I lost track after 13.) They washed my hand, and it was the oddest thing feeling icy water splash on my arm, but not feel it on my hand. I waited some more. They were trying to find a qualified surgeon, and of the two in town, one wasn’t answering his phone. Then, my savior arrived. My Doctor, tall and handsome in an old-fashioned rugged kind of way. He was human and funny and terribly, almost impossibly, kind. He was beautifully dressed in an evening suit with a sparkling white dress shirt, and I was deeply ashamed at the ineptitude that took him away from some important event. The hospital was in the middle of a remodel, and there was not a single surgery room open for me. In a corner of an ER outer room my Doctor sat down with his back to me and put my hand back together while he held it across his lap. Looking back, I am shocked by my own calm, my courage, if you will. I never cried. I even joked a little, and managed quite a bit of self-depreciation. When my Doctor had finished with me, I was horrified at seeing his previously immaculate shirt stained with my blood. I had never felt so guilty in my life.

Later I had to go back for more surgery for my hand. It was trying to regenerate a little, and it was not going well. I needed tissue removed and some things moved around a bit. Surgery was scheduled with my Doctor and I was fine. I don’t think I got nervous back then. The callow of youth. They prepped me for surgery and strapped me to a table, wheeled me into an actual operating room with stainless steel walls and ceiling. A nurse came forward and said, “This is going to hurt,” and shoved a sewer-pipe sized needle into my wrist joint. Red hot sizzling pain took away my vision and I was covered in cold sweat and tried to come off the table. Now I knew why I was strapped in. Two hot fat tears slid out of my eyes and into my ears. They left me alone. I couldn’t stop shaking. My Doctor, my previous savior, my human, came in and just… started cutting. It felt like he was pinching off each of my fingers with pliers. My ears filled with tears and I couldn’t stop shaking. When something metal started scraping my finger bones, a sob I couldn’t stop tore out of my throat, and a nurse peeked over the curtain at me. “Why are you crying?” She asked, a little condescending she seemed at the time. “Because it hurts,” was all I managed to get out before my throat closed up. Suddenly I was very important. “Why didn’t you say anything? I’m almost done!” My doctor barked out, rising above the curtain, but I was too busy crying to answer. The nurse ran out, and my doctor wiped up my tears with cotton gauze. Then the nurse came back with another one, and they gave me another shot. And a blanket. And when they started sewing me up, the new nurse stayed with me and held my free hand. When he was finished, my doctor said he was sorry and awkwardly patted my shoulder. I never saw him again.

So, no, no lawn mowers for me. Don’t you wish you had such a good excuse?