of toothpicks, knives, and paper
Last Saturday, "nobody" (that would be my 16 year old daughter) left a small pile of toothpicks in my beige carpeting. I didn't see them when I was dusting and stepped on one and drove it straight in about a half inch into the underside of my big toe. These aren't the flimsy flat toothpicks...these are the substantial round ones. It wouldn't come out easily...my husband had to grab it and yank hard to remove it, it was driven in so deeply. There wasn't a good way to clean the wound other than to keep squeezing it to make it bleed, hoping the blood would wash out the wound. I then washed it and put some antibiotic ointment and a bandaid on it. And waited for it to throb.
Oddly enough, it never did. Sure, it was tender, and I didn't enjoy having shoes on that night, but I expected it to be really bruised, considering how deeply it was driven in and how inefficient my first aid felt. But I have to admit, I've had paper cuts that have caused me more anguish. Seriously.
It makes me wonder why some things hurt so much, and others just bounce right off us. Because the toothpick-in-the-toe story could also be a knife-in-the-heart story. Bad things happen, and somehow, we manage to breeze through with minimal ouchies. And then we get a little tiny papercut to the soul, and it feels like we're doing to die. It seems like it will never heal, and every move we make reopens it.
What's up with that?