Splinter Cells

To begin with, I'm in the process of hanging a hammock. Never mind that "hanging a hammock" would be a sweet expression for taking a crap, it's serious business. So serious, in fact, that I got a splinter today.

I was hauling up these two 10' posts, sans work gloves because I'm that hardcore/lazy, when I got a nasty splinter in my pinky. It went in across the face of the finger, and exited about a quarter of an inch away from the entrance. Oh it hurt.

But, being the total man that I am, I pulled it straight on out, leaving behind only a sliver of wood which hurt like hell. Not only that, since it broke off inside my pinky, there was no easy way to get it out.

I kind of felt like Rambo in Rambo III where he has that bullet wound in his side and has to light it up with gunpowder to kill the infection. Except my wound was in my finger. Otherwise, basically the same.

So with an old sewing needle and a pair of nail clippers I went to work slowly clipping away tiny bits of skin where the splinter went in until I could push a tiny bit of the wood out. After about ten minutes I was able to extract it. Big whoop, happens all the time right? Wrong!

Well, I mean, yes right that people get splinters all the time, but not right what I ended up discovering later on this evening. You see, I now only have one wound in my pinky; the entrance wound. Where did the exit wound go? I'm looking, I don't see it, I don't feel it.

I was there, I saw the wood sticking out clear as day when it happened. But now it's as if nothing happened but the one little piercing. I'd like to think this was an indication that I have a power. A secret, fickle power. I don't see how magically healing exit wounds could possibly get me out of a jam, unless maybe I was pinned to a wall by a spear, but it's something.

Oh, it's something.