My left hand had a very bad day (and it wasn't so great for the rest of me)

I'll start with the happy ending: My hand is still attached. My heart is still beating. I didn't suffer any nerve damage and I don't think the scar with be bad. Oh, yeah: And we have a new dishwasher installed.

It all started Saturday morning, when my brother-in-law Larry and I began what we thought would be a fairly simple task: Installing a new dishwasher. We had actually installed a dishwasher in the same spot not long ago, when I had to remove then reinstall our old dishwasher while replacing the flooring. It wasn't hard.

This time, though, we had to deal with slightly different hose outputs and inputs ... and the jerry-rigged nature of our setup created some, well, complications. We ended up replacing copper tubing with threaded-metal hose. And while getting the latter into place, I brushed up against a live wire (I thought I switched off the right part of the electrical panel, but ... not so much). This was an unusual experience. It hurt, for sure, but once I saw that my hand was intact, I was intrigued.

Cheryl was the one who noticed that the shock scared away my blood. But soon my pale hand re-pinked and the shock became a funny story.

Then it came time for me to open the packaging of some additional threaded-metal hose. Didn't see any scissors, so I did it with a sharp, new steak knife. And the knife cut through the packaging, then plunged into the flesh between my thumb and forefinger. I knew immediately that something bad had happened. I went into the bathroom, washed away the blood, and I knew that it was ugly. People get grossed out when I say this, but the wound looked like a puppet mouth, and big enough to hold a nickel. I could see the layers of my skin, deep into my hand.

Amazingly, there was no nerve damage and very little bleeding. Really, if you're going to plunge a knife into your hand, this is the way to do it. In fact, there was so little bleeding that I thought I could get away without a trip to the ER. You know, that costs real money!

But Cheryl talked me into it, with help from the consulting nurse that I dialed up on the ride over. Cheryl says the nurse probably thought we were drunk with all the laughing going on. But it was kinda ridiculous.

I'll cut to the chase: We went to a doc in the box in south Federal Way and got excellent -- well, fast -- service from people who seemed as amused by us at the absurdity of the situation. We were in and out in something like 20 minutes, and though the doctor seemed unaware of how to use the dermabond pen. I could have gotten a stitch, but instead I got steri-strips coated in superglue.

And a good story to tell.

P.S. Larry finished the dishwasher installation.