A Paper Cut and a House Guest

Over my spring break, I decided to take Ari on a little weekend trip to Brooklyn, just the two of us. He could see his aunt and uncle and grandma, and I could take him to some museums, and we could have a slice. I booked a hotel room because the idea of staying in my sister-in-law's guest room was a little intimidating. They have a dog, and Ari's afraid of dogs, and I wasn't sure how he'd sleep in the same bed with me. So, I booked a room with two beds, and off we went. The things I remember about the trip were this incredibly painful cut on my thumb and . . . well that's kind of it. So this cut. Let us discuss. I don't know how it got there, but it was there before I drove to Brooklyn. I didn't have any time to put a band-aid or any antibiotic on it, but since it was the approximate size of an electron, I figured I'd be alright. Boy, was I wrong!

The Friday of the weekend I got on the road at about 4:00 pm. Ari and I were tucked into our beds in the hotel by 10:30, and I was happy. Except! My thumb hurt. And I couldn't go anywhere. Ari was asleep (success!) in the bed next to me, and I couldn't call the front desk to beg for Neosporin with pain relief without waking him. I thought about texting them, but didn't know how. Can one text the front desk? There should be instructions. I obviously couldn't leave Ari while I ran to CVS. I didn't even consider waking him. I may have been a little neglectful of my paper cut or whatever, but I'm no moron.

Unsightly scar

I went to the bathroom and rinsed it, but it still hurt. So I came back to bed and tried to sleep, but I couldn't because my thumb was throbbing, so I stayed awake and texted all my friends. Which required banging my thumbs into the screen of my phone. Duh. Eventually I fell asleep, and in the morning there was kind of a lot to do, so I had no time to stop at the drug store and then Saturday night was in the same boat, only it somehow hurt more! I wouldn't have even tried to text anyone that night, but of course someone started texting me, and then I got all into the gossip or whatever it was and couldn't stop. I do a lot of texting. This is because I am 13. My thumb was at this point throbbing so much I could hardly sleep at all. I tried everything. I held it under very cold water and then shoved it out the window, hoping it'd go numb. I looked around with my flashlight app for something to amputate it with, which I guessed I would do using tap water as a disinfectant. By the light of my flashlight app. One-handed. Luckily, all I found were candy bars and a corkscrew, and I'm not that creative. I slept a little, but I woke up because my thumb was throbbing, before Ari.

I'd planned to stop in Philly for lunch with a friend on the way home, and we hit the road fast because I knew when we got to Philly I'd have time to go to CVS. This was the only thing I was thinking. I'm surprised I remembered to bring Ari. I stopped at CVS before lunch and immediately started applying first aid to self at the table of the diner where I met my friend for lunch. I felt so instantly better I swear I started to levitate. Now, more than a week later, I have an unsightly scar.

When I returned home, I was folding laundry, because that is all I ever do, when I looked out the window and saw this:

Spider-man took a dive.

"What is that?" you may wonder. Why, it's a potty seat on the balcony outside my bedroom, of course! And why is it there? I didn't know, so I asked B. She had a house guest while I was away, and I thought it might have something to do with that. It was a new house guest, someone she wanted to impress. So, of course that required putting the potty seat on the balcony. Quickly! Before the house guest arrived. The house guest was staying in the guest room, where an enormous pile of junk sat in the corner, with Spider-man's prostrate body beneath it. He'd taken a dive for some reason. The pile was okay, but the potty seat in the guest bathroom had to go. I mean, I guess it doesn't matter. Ari doesn't need a potty seat anymore, but you know. On the balcony? What if it was nice out, and B and the house guest wanted to sit outside? What excuse would she contrive to go remove the potty seat? And what would she do with it once she was out there? Drop it over the side? And then, if the house guest noticed it sitting below on the grass, what would B say? "Oh! Fancy that! A potty seat in the grass! How did that get there?" I let my wheels spin about this, worrying somehow about a house guest who'd already come and gone and not seen the potty seat. Worrying in the past tense (past perfect? past conditional?), just in case B hadn't done enough worrying before the arrival of the house guest on her own. I was her worry back up, after the fact. Because that is so useful. That's what love is, yo: having her back.