You never realize how important it is until it's permanently disfigured

By now all of my friends, sadistic though they may be, know about my new body transformation. I mean, we all need to lose weight (well, everyone except Meredith, you evil size 0 ... bitch! I love you!) but let me tell you, cutting off pieces of fatty flesh on the end of your finger is not the way to do it.

I'm sure the ER personnel thought I was on something the way I was laughing about said injury. When I went to the doctor two days later to get checked on (to make sure it wasn't infected), she just said they didn't know me. Shoot, the gal who works the front desk came in because she wanted to see, and she busted me taking pictures of my finger. I laughed and said, "Really, it's for my sadistic friends on Facebook."

In reality, it could have been much worse. I could have cut the whole thing off, thereby adversely affecting my ability to count to nine. (For those of you who don't get that, because of my stubby thumbs, which I have now learned is a generic disorder that I share in common with Megan Fox, I am only able to count to four-and-a-half on each hand.) And there's even an upside - intelligent though I have been called in my life (though I beg to differ), the biggest struggle I've had is keeping left and right straight (stop laughing, dammit, you have your faults too) and now I'll always know my left hand because it's got the mis-shapen index finger. No more holding up my hands to figure out which one makes the "L" - which tells the whole world I'm trying to figure out what everyone else knows without a second thought.

Silver lining aside, I have learned there are a few things that have been a little difficult since my finger has been bandaged up like I have Hulk hands ("you won't like me when I'm angry").

• Writing - seems sort of obvious, right? Of course, a question I always get is how the hell I cut my left hand if I'm left-handed. It's because I cut with my right hand. Let's thank my babysitter when I was little for that one, she taught me to cut, and always handed me scissors in my right hand.
  
• Opening the car door - again, sort of obvious. It's easy enough to work around, but it's sort of awkward to open the door using my stubby-ass thumb and middle finger, while my index finger sticks out like I'm a retard who doesn't know what finger to hold out while drinking tea.
• Buttoning my jeans - hence why you've seen me in sweats the last few days (if you've seen me). The good news is I have two pairs of jeans that are way too big, so I don't have to button and unbutton them to get them on and off.
• Making a fist - it's not the injury that affects this one, it's the bandage. I'm unable to bend my index finger because of the bandage. So I can't event threaten anyone effectively until this bandage goes away. It's just not as effective to go, "Don't make me poke you in the eye. I'll do it too!"

I thought I'd get a lot more questions from people when they saw my finger all bandaged up, but I've receive very few questions. Which is fine, no one likes telling a story where the moral is, "Don't be a freakin' retard, and you'll be okay," at least not when the main character of said story is yourself.

You know what's really funny? I can't wait to get this bandage off my finger so I can start sewing again (cause you know if I sew right now, I'll sew the gauze right to my quilt). Of course, all of the projects I've got in queue are sewing, not cutting, though eventually I'll have to do that again. My poor index finger throbs at the notion. And my checkbook shudders at the thought of another $100 trip to the ER.