Splinter and Knothead

Who, for those of you heathens who are not up on your cartoon trivia, are the niece and nephew of Woody Woodpecker. But also put on an appearance in our house this evening. We got home after our dusk bike ride, Elena was in a cheery mood but no sooner than we were in the door she started complaining that her finger hurt. 'Matthew hit me on my finger' I'm thinking "Sure he did, and it didn't hurt all day until we walked in the door at home. In the words of Bill Cosby "RIGHT"" So I offer up the usual offputs, 'You don't need ice' 'You don't need a bandaid' -- cursory looks showed no swelling and no blood, it couldn't have been *that* bad since there was no accident report. (this would be the part where Knothead is in full effect).

An hour later Elena is STILL complaining, so, aging fellow that I am, I run my glasses down the bridge of my nose and take a closer gander at her finger tip. Hmmm, a little red and angry looking, with what looks like a scab across it, but not quite. Drumroll please as Splinter enters stage right. OK. Elena is right, her finger hurts. Not because Matthew hit it, though tender as it is that probably smarted a bit, but because she has a splinter. We'll take it out. Tweezers? Check. Pin? In sewing kit. Sewing kit? In box waiting for shelves. Which box? Dunno. Follow 5 minutes of fruitless pin searching while keeping pots on stove with dinner from boiling over. Reasoning behind pin? I usually use a pocket knife to get my splinters out, but thought the knife blade might be a bit psychologically much for Elena. Well. No pin, so out came the Leatherman (later referred to as 'that scratchy thing'). A little scraping and slicing later ("Daddy! Don't cut off my whole finger" Daddy -- aka Knothead -- trying not to do just that as he bursts into laughter, cross eyed, with his glasses at the end of his nose. "Trust me, I'm a doctor") we had the splinter out, neosporin and a bandaid on. Post op patient and owy seen here:



Note entire finger still attached. Operation declared full success. Post op celebration with Sheperd's Pie.

Forget TV, it's all right here -- porcidal maniacs that chop 'em up and put them in the freezer and surgery on the fly, sans anesthetic.