The trifecta of Stupid, Self Administered, Totally Unnecessary Injuries

Many years ago, when I used to work outside the home, a co-worker and I arranged to meet at the Des Moines International (ha,ha) airport at the ass-crack of dawn to hop a flight to Pennsylvania for a completely boring and probably unnecessary business trip.

I got to the airport first and watched Christa stagger up to the ticket counter all hunched over. She had been making a pot of Kraft’s finest mac and cheese for dinner the night before and spilled boiling hot water all over her stomach when she tried to drain the noodles. Her midsection was covered in burn ointment and bandages.

“Seriously”? I thought to myself. First of all, who eats that for dinner past the age of fourteen, and second, what kind of a dumbass spills boiling water all over their own stomach? I couldn’t imagine how that kind of accident could happen unless it was 2:00 AM and you just got home from the bar.

That is, until the other night. Granted, I was making shrimp linguini with a fabulous butter basil sauce, and not Kraft macaroni and cheese, but boiling water is boiling water. It doesn’t matter if you’re cooking noodles or lobster, that water is hot.

I wasnt’ paying close eough attention to what I was doing. Plus, Matthew was following me around the kitchen and I was multi-tasking and trying to hold up my end of the conversation when I momentarily lost my concentration and splashed the boiling water on my stomach while attempting to drain the linguini. It seeped through my t-shirt and suddenly the fact that my tummy is un-tucked was the least of my problems.

I pulled up my shirt and realized I had a couple quarter sized second degree burns on my stomach. I grabbed a dish towel, ran cold water on it, and pressed it to my blistering skin. Dave googled “what to do when your dumb ass wife burns her stomach with pasta water” and told me to put some Neosporin on it and cover everything with a band-aid.

What’s remarkable about this incident is that it was the second food-related injury I’d given myself in as many weeks.

I was re-heating some Mexican lasagna because everyone in my family told me they liked it last time I made it but when I made it for dinner again, everyone hated it (really? really guys? Cause you all liked it last time and frankly you can have Kraft mac and cheese from now on for all I care).

Anyway, I decided that I would eat the leftover lasagna for the next couple of lunches because I thought it was pretty good. You know how, when you’re microwaving something and you’re supposed to make sure you stir it well so there are no hot spots? Yeah well, I didn’t do that very well and burned the hell out of the roof of my mouth.

I decided I’d better go see my neighborhood drug dealer, AKA Liz, the nurse practioner who works at the walk in clinic at the grocery store up the street. She told me our mouths have more germs in them than, you know, the other end. Wow, I’ll be the first to admit, and I think everyone who knows me would agree, that I’ve got a dirty, dirty mouth but until now I thought we were speaking figuratively and not literally. I firmly believe jamming a sharp tortilla chip directly into the burned spot on the rough of your mouth qualifies as a torture device (and also indicates you may be a bit of a ‘tard).

When Dave saw the back of my leg he freaked out. “Oh my God, what did you do?” “What?”, I said, as I spun around and tried to get a good look at the back of my leg. “Your leg is covered with a bruise.” I felt a bit guilty as I’d just returned from woofing down margaritas, chips, guacamole, and salsa at a Mexican restaurant with Louise and Bobbi and I thought for a moment I’d had a MARI (which for you sober types stands for mysterious alcohol related incident). But we were pretty well behaved (for the most part) and I’d probably done more damage to my morning weigh-in then my liver so I knew I hadn’t done something stupid. Usually when I have a MARI I can at least remember some sketchy details about how I got hurt (broken toe – coffee table – spring of 2006, swollen bruised knee – wiped out on XR-100 trying to show off – summer 1989, fell down stairs and broke leg at bachelorette party – fall of 1996 – wait! That was Trish’s MARI. And it was at a party celebrating the fact that I was about to MARRY someone and isn’t that funny! Hello? Hello? Is this microphone on????

Where.The.Fuck.Was.I?