Having a recent medical MOT, the doctor recommended that I should review my diet in order to bring down my ‘slightly high cholesterol’. I took the advice to heart (literally), binning the the deep fat fryer and buying a Mandolin to slice up piles of vegetables.

Calling in the local shop to stock up on carrots, onions, parsnips and chocolate, I returned home. My theory about the latter is that, if I shave the chocolate, I can pace myself consuming chocolate shavings over (say) 3 days rather than 3 bars over 1 day this would cut down on my saturated fat whilst avoiding any chocolate withdrawal symptoms. Yet to be proven.

I removed the Mandolin from the box taking out a surprising number of parts. It looked pretty easy to assemble but I followed the instruction manual, just to be sure. Before long, I had something resembling the picture on the box! Grabbing a cucumber out of the fridge, I operated the device. This resulted in very impressive uniform cucumber slices. With a bit of adjustment, I could thicken and thinnen the slices. I’m sure ‘thinnen’ is a word and if not, it should be. Having achieved my optimum thickness of 3mm, I sliced the remainder of the cucumber. I was wondering why the last slices were a watery red colour when it hit me. Unfortunately, I failed to observe the safety warnings in the manual and sliced the end of my finger off. I didn’t feel a thing but now, it was beginning to sting. Not having a catastrophe plan for this, I resorted to running it under the tap but the red flow wasn’t stopping.

Just then Pam came in and observed my predicament, before looking a bit queasy and sitting down. She soon composed herself and took charge.

“Right, that looks really bad. You need to go to hospital”.

“Can’t you break it to me gently, like ‘I’m sure it will be fine but just to be on the safe side we should check it out to make sure you don’t get cucumber blight or something.”

Unapologetic and undeterred, she continued. “Don’t be soft. I’ve no idea where the local hospital is. Do you?”

Fortunately, I’ve had no cause to visit and suggested “It’s not a problem I can just search on my phone.”

I resorted to searching on my phone but was daunted when I remembered that I use my fingerprint to access the phone and mine was somewhere on the kitchen counter. I thought that if I can find my fingertip I should be able to use it to open up my phone. We both commenced searching in the general vicinity of the machine.

Just then Mal came in the door and so I asked if he knew where the hospital was, showing him the glowing finger. It reminded me of ET strangely. However, he took one look at my finger, turned pale and slumped in the chair uttering an assorted selection of expletives.

“Got it” said Pam, flicking over a cucumber slice with a knife. “You need to take that to the hospital so they can sew it back on”, getting some ice from the freezer in a plastic bag.

I placed the finger on the fingerprint sensor and after a little manipulation, the phone sprung to life allowing me to search for ‘hospital near me’. Noting the postcode, I placed the fingertip in the bag and we left for the hospital with Mal still slumped in the chair, moaning. We briefly considered taking him along but then, maybe because we thought he’d recover soon or maybe it was because he was a generally unpleasant person, we left him, placing a cup of sweet tea near him.

I’m having finger problems typing this Blog. I’ll reveal the full horror of the traumatic A&E visit in the next blog. Not gory, just scarring but not in a medical sense, at least not a physical injury sense, just disquieting, well more than that, more like, what’s the word …… Anyway, it’s in next weeks blog.

… Oliver Sudden

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