Where's My Free T-Shirt???

At least one or two nights a week I stay late at work. Mostly because I am trying to get organized. Sometimes I prepare some pre-orders and generally I try to clean up the mess of others.

Now most nights are uneventful. Except sometimes I get to verbally abuse some drunk who wants me to sell them alcohol at 12am.

"Hey the lights are off, the door is locked, latest anyone is allowed to stay open is 11pm, we close at 10, oh yea and the lights are off and the door is locked. What part of closed do you not understand?"

The only chance I'll open that store after business hours are when friends or family are coming by or if the Hawaiian Tropic bus breaks down in front. So it's slim to none that some random will ever make it in.

So this night was different because something really, really, exciting happened to me. Around 10:30pm I was planning my attack for chores. We had some breakage building up and I decided to conquer that. Working fast I will admit I wasn't paying attention, I reached into a broken beer box. When I took my hand out...

A) There was a cockroach on it.
B) I was bleeding.
C) My hand was stuck to something.
D) There was a leech attached.
E) Spiders... EEECK!
D) All of the above.

Sad thing is all of them are true at one point during my illustrious career, but this time my hand was drenched in blood. My own blood this time. Now I've cut myself before at work, fights, you name it, but I have never seen this much blood from my own body before.

I rush over to the bathroom to clean it off so I can inspect it. Uh Oh! The back of my hand toward the side of the pinkie finger was sliced about 2 inches in length. About half an inch wide and deep enough for me to scream, "Oh Shit!"

Off I go to the emergency room. We all know how much that can suck when all I have is a bloody hand and am not a priority. After about an hour they finally took me in. I ended up with 13 stitches. Not too bad. The doctor said I was just millimeters away from my tendons and nerves. LUCKY!!! Speaking of the doctor, this brings me to my next point.

After I was done being stitched up. I came to a realization that emergency room doctors and strippers are quite alike.

First off, after the spot you, they talk you up like they actually care.

"Hey, how are you?" "What happened?"

Then they ask you about yourself and what you do. How long you've been doing it and so on. Killing time before the next song comes on to dance to or in this case when the supplies come into the room.

Then they get to work. Telling you about their lives and how it correlates with yours. They try to find similarities to make you feel one with them. They look you in the eye most of the time.

Then when the song is over or the stitching is done. They get up and go. No goodbyes, no phone numbers no nothing. Weren't you my best friend for the past 5 minutes??? It's either pony up for another song or lacerate your other hand for me or I'm moving on to the next customer.

They don't even acknowledge you when you are leaving. Trying to say a quick thanks. Nothing. Like you didn't exist. It's very sad.

I didn't even get a free t-shirt. :(



Anyway, here's a picture of my hand the next day. Don't look if you might be a bit squeamish. I don't think it's too bad. Trust me, it looked a lot worse when it happened.


p.s. Kiki, what am I doing wrong???