A Little Sliver of Drama

I grew up watching
"General Hospital" when I was a little girl.
My mom had to watch "her shows" every day
at 3pm, Eastern Standard Time.

I don't remember the show being about surgeries,
but more about the hospital staff's love lives.
And seriously,
those people lied their heads off most of the time
to each other!
So if someone were to ask me what I learned most
from watching "General Hospital",
I'd have mostly likely said,
"how to look someone in the eye and lie them."

But then came along "ER"--
and alot of action revolved around
"the O.R.",
and then "Grey's Anatomy" with Mc Dreamy, McSteamy,
and the whole HeeHaw Gang--
so you KNOW I learned alot about medicine from that show!
Right.
So all of my tv-watching had prepared me for yesterday:

The Caboose got a sliver at school.
That's the first thing she showed me when I saw her:
"Here, Mom, look it's way deep and it hurts so bad. It's my writing hand. I can't answer the phone. I can't make my bed or my homework!"

I looked at her little ring finger,
and you could see it was way down
under her fingernail.

"What do you wanna do about it? I asked.
Do you want me to get it out
or
do you want me to show you
how to get it out?"

"You! I can't look at it."
She stood squeezing her finger so tightly
that it was now red and swollen
and she is bouncing on her toes
and shaking her hand.
Channeling Dr. Bailey,
I pulled the hydrogen peroxide outta the cupboard,
and a sewing needle and tweezers.

Her bouncing got frenetic,
and every time I was ready to get serious
and pry the sliver out,
she'd say,
"Just a minute! Wait a second! Not yet!"
then the tears started coming--
"I'm just a little girl! I'm a chicken! It hurts so bad!"
(Me and Mr W had to turn our heads away so she wouldn't see us grinning.)

So I have to calm her down--STAT--
the Boofus comes into the bathroom and says,
offering his hand:
"You can squeeze my hand as hard as you want, Ari."

She tries, but it's not doing it for her.

Mr. Wonderful comes up,
and says,
"Sit on my lap. I'll hold you while Mom gets it out."--
which, I thought, was very O'Malley of him.

She sits for a second and gets up unsatisfied.

"Can't you just cut my finger off?! It's killing me!" 
( I am so not kidding, she said that. lol)

I pour a little hydrogen peroxide in a little cap
and tell her to soak her finger in it--
hoping that whatever is stuck down there,
will swell up a little,
to make it easier to fetch.

Ari liked soaking her finger,
it even calmed her down so that I could talk to her, Izzy-style.

"Sis, it's just a sliver. A splinter.  And this isn't going to be the last splinter
you're going to get over your whole life.  N' if it were Me, I'd want to remove it
myself.  So here, take this needle and pry it out on your own.  You can do this."

"But it's going to hurt!"

"It hurts anyway, we gotta get this sucker out so it stops hurting! 
So let's think about this. Do you want the pain to stop in a moment or do you wanna go to bed
with a sliver in your finger?"

She looks up, nervous and says she doesn't think she can do it.
I assure her she can about 400 zillion times.
When she removed her finger tip from the hydrogen peroxide,
she could plainly see the sliver under her nail.
We used the nail clippers, clipping the nail down pretty good,
and could just see one end of the sliver exposed.
"See! There it is!"

The whole Master bathroom O.R. erupts in joy!

She takes the scalpel, er, needle and cautiously slides it under the sliver--
IT MOVED!!
"You're Doing It!
Keep going!"

"You guys are making me nervous. Shut up, Joe."

Right then, at that moment,
I knew she was going to live another day.
She had this--
she would live to tell the tale of
"The Giant Sliver".

As she pried a little more,
the virtual thorn in her side finger
popped out.
Really, it just popped right out;
and she collapsed onto the counter,
worn out by the mental exhaustion
and physical fatigue
she had been enduring close to 5 hours,
Mountain Standard Time.

With her little noggin on the counter,
her brow wet with perspiration,
her voice was weak but inspired,
"I did it, Mom. I did it."

And thus we see,
like sand through the hourglass
so are the Days of Our Lives...