14th October, 2024
This one time, I got bitten by a stapler.
So basically, it was a chill, boring Saturday morning this April fools day. Dad and I went to get coffee… and we were just walking down the main street of Dub Vegas when this little old man with a red cape and a straw basket of staplers came running up, exclaiming that he was late for a crucial delivery.
He accidently hooked my foot, I tripped, he dropped his basket to try to catch me in slo-mo, all his staplers opened up, falling out of his basket, and I fell face first into the loose staples. I then gracefully got up, helped the man put his staplers back into his basket and continued down the road.
That’s when I felt it. I went to scratch my forehead, and this one staple had gotten caught in my hair. It ended up bent twice in my finger, pinning the skin around it down. Dad freaked out, and so I snatched a puffer off this little blonde kid and then stuck my thumb (and finger, so that the light would refract off the staple and send a light signal) out into the street to summon an ambulance, but all we got was a taxi. He drove us back to our car. I lost my coffee in my stomach.
So we were sitting there on those uncomfortable, squeaky chairs for four hours. I was trying to figure out whether they were uncomfortable so that people would leave if they didn’t really need the doctor, or just to annoy people, or because they’re plastic, or because I have stationary growing out of my finger. Dad went outside for a phone call. The little girl next to me was watching playdough tutorials on her iPad thingy, and I decided to ask what happened to her.
Me: “What's wrong with you?” Her: “I fell on the trampoline and hurt my arm.” Me: “Like, through it or... ?” Her: “No.” Me (a conversationalist): “Oh... okay” *crickets chirp* Me (Baby Wolverine): “I was playing with a stapler.” *holds up finger* Her: “I have safety scissors.” Humorous Me (Hypothetically): “Why are they playing cricket in the hospital?” Her: “What?” Me (Not really, though): “I heard cricket sounds.”
Anyway eventually the doctor called my name, I don’t remember if he pronounced it right, but if he did, that was the only thing he did right. He asked if I’d like for him just to pull it out or if I’d like it numbed with TWO needles. TWO! Two, two, two, two, two, two, two. Two. Got that? Two needles. Only two.
HE GAVE ME FOUR! And he didn’t even warn me! I hate needles, but I hated this doctor more. It could’ve been more because he had to put it in down near the knuckle (don’t ask me how it fit or where it went and why it didn’t come out the other side of my hand), and it wasn’t really numb up the top, just near the bottom. but I sucked it up (wow big brave girl saves the day when I’m laying there crying like a baby about a little jib-jab) and said it was good enough after four to pull out the stapler… being Asian he probably should’ve appreciated that I’m a National Martial Arts Champion (well, I got second once…) and not treated me like I was being an irrational baby when I said I could still feel my finger. I know the difference between a tingle and an ouch, evidently better than he knows the difference between two and four.
Moral of the story, staplers and doctors don’t bite, but kids do… and it doesn’t matter if they do because they’re all assholes anyway.