[aunt_helen]

1.) My first month of college, I was late for class and trying to finish up a project first thing in the morning on my dorm room kitchen floor. To save time, I decided to prop the cardboard I was cutting with an X-Acto blade upright and saw through it, instead of making multiple scores the way you should. In my haste, I'd propped the cardboard on my thigh instead of the floor, so when the blade went through, it poked into my jeaned leg a little - or so I thought. I didn't feel anything, but I stood up and instantly felt warmth at my foot. I took down my pants and saw a 1/2-inch hole in my thigh that was spurting blood out in a fountain, in regular sprays that matched the rhythm of my heartbeat. The entire inch of blade had gone into my leg and hit a major vein.

I freaked out, put a wad of toilet paper on my leg, and ran to the nurse's office in the building. It was closed. So I walked about ten blocks to the building my class was in to explain that I was going to be late, then walked back and waited at the office until they opened. I have a scar and an indent in the muscle today, and if I press on it it's still sensitive, a dozen years later.

2.) Fast forward about three years, my senior year of college. I was walking home and had a backpack on with pockets on the back, full of pens and drafting supplies, and my trusty X-Acto. I'd learned by now to keep the plastic cap on the thing, but it must've fallen off, and somehow the blade had poked through the pocket material and wedged the knife vertically, sticking through into a separate pocket, in which I kept my apartment keys.

Several blocks from my building I was waiting at a crosswalk and reached into my bag for my keys. My thumb hit the X-Acto and the tip popped like a grape. I pulled my hand out and blood flowed down my arm, pooling on the pavement. This being in Manhattan, there was a substantial crowd of people around me waiting to cross the street, all of whom watched with me as my arm became more and more bloody. I just sort of shrugged and grinned, and for the rest of the year I could follow the trail of blood drops I'd left on that last two blocks home.

3.) Two days after I'd graduated and school had ended for the year, I was the last person still living in the dorms, and I was up late working on some project. Cue the X-Acto, which by now I was *very* wary of and cautious with. I was using a straightedge to make cuts and the blade skipped over the metal edge and sliced my left index fingertip almost completely off. It was hanging by a little piece of skin. No one was around, and so I wrapped my hand in toilet paper (not recommended) and went across the park to the all-night A&P to buy band-aids. The cashier stared at me when I went to check out, holding a huge bloody wad of TP on my hand and buying band-aids. He told me I should go to the hospital, and I had to admit it seemed the thing to do, since I was bleeding so hard the band-aids were slipping off my finger as soon as I put them on.

I went to Beth-Israel and waited two hours behind a man in a wheelchair who'd pissed himself, watching urine drops hit the floor. When they put me in a room to hose out my finger into a big plastic yellow tub, they left the door open to the waiting room, so everyone could watch me cry and shudder. It was about three in the morning at this point and I left with six stitches in my hand and a huge bandage. Since it was two days since I'd officially ended school, I was no longer covered on my dad's health insurance, and I had to pay the $660 bill by myself. I ended up taking the stitches out myself weeks later with a suture removal kit my mom brought home from work.

I am VERY careful with the mighty X-Acto nowadays. Three times's the charm.