Zucchini and Rice
I was alone, chopping zucchini in my kitchen when it all began. Just to make things clear, I already knew, before it happened, that I could be somewhat of an idiot. An honest recollection of my past has forced me to accept the fact that I can be a total idiot.
So there I was, standing in my tiny studio apartment’s kitchen, buck-naked, still dripping water from a recent shower. That’s one of the few perks of living alone in a space barely big enough to store your earthly possessions, you get to walk around as naked as the day you were born, and somehow, this helps to counteract the symptoms of claustrophobia that such a tiny apartment can induce.
I guess that all of this happened because I love to play sports. I’m in my late twenties, and by now, my boyhood fantasies of becoming a professional baseball pitcher have vanished, but I take solace in the fact that I’m a weekend warrior, and I can hold my own against non-professionals in and around my age group on the basketball court.
In my latest effort to add to my dominating weekend warrior basketball abilities, I decided that for a week straight, I would pretend as though I were left handed, in order to increase my ambidexterity, thereby strengthening my left handed hook shot.
It happened real quickly, on day one of my ambidexterity experiment. I was listening to the soothing sounds of rice boiling in water and slicing some zucchini to put over the rice, cause I hear that vegetables are healthy and what not.
Somehow, the knife slipped, and then I yelled fuck three times: the first time to expel my disbelief, and the second two times in order to quell the throbbing pain that extended from my right index finger into my temples.
I looked down at my hand and what I saw was amazing. The entire front digit of my right index finger, nail and all, was sitting in a small pool of blood on my chopping block, leaking blood into the carefully arranged pile of diced zucchini.
The color of my blood seemed fake. It was too clear, too thin, and not quite bright enough – it lacked that distinctive gooeyness that every horror film features. Could it be that Hollywood had lied to me?
My mind refused to accept this reality, and continued to stress that if this experience were real, then my blood would look a lot more like the blood one finds on an episode of “Law and Order” – my mind persisted in trying to somehow convince me that what appeared to be my detached finger lying in a pool of blood was actually a hallucination. I decided then and there that my mind could be a real lying piece of shit.
The throbbing pain in my temples increased in direct proportion to the volume of my curses, as I stood there in my kitchen, buck-naked, dripping shower water and blood onto my kitchen counter and floor.
My wound needed to be bandaged, but being the environmentally conservative asshole that I am, I don’t buy paper towels or napkins; I use a dishtowel instead. But I had no dishtowel at that time, for it was involved in a rigorous spin cycle in the washing machine of my apartment’s laundry room.
I cursed my lack of good luck as I looked out from the tiled floor of my kitchen to the vast stretch of perfectly clean, security deposit contingent carpet that covered the rest of my apartment’s floor. The doorway looked about one mile away, and at the rate my finger was ejaculating blood, there was no way I could make it to the door without spilling blood all over the carpet, and I really wanted to get back that full security deposit.
Thin, clear, fake looking, but carpet-staining-nonetheless blood continued to beat a rain-like rhythm at the base of my feet as it plopped to my kitchen floor. And I just stood there, like an idiot, trying to formulate a battle plan.
I scanned my kitchen several times, seeking some sort of device to contain the leaking blood from my severed finger. During my third scan, I found a solution.
Using my left hand, which now, ironically, had become my dominant hand, I quickly peeled the skin from my last remaining banana, and then I inverted eons of ape-man logic and tossed the delicious banana into my trash, and instead kept the peel, which I wrapped around my finger.
The peel was surprisingly tight and effective at subduing the viscous flow of blood from my finger.
With my finger safely wrapped, I resorted to an age-old tactic in physical pain management; I began to ignore the physical pain by mentally feeling sorry for myself.
I cursed aloud at my wretched luck. I realized that I’d always have to explain to every new person I met the story of how I lost the top of my right hand index finger. I thought about how every time I ever went to shake anyone’s hand, I’d have to explain the story. I pictured women turning me down for dates because only an idiot loses a finger attempting to improve their ambidexterity, and no one wants to date an idiot.
My self pity next allotted me an odd sense of self-loathing pride as I pitied my new disposition and imagined myself as the king of the handicapped and dispossessed – no one was worse off than me now! All of my so-called white man’s burden had been graciously lifted from my guilty conscience with one ill-fated swoop of a knife.
“FUCK!” The pain suddenly switched back from nearly non-existent to utterly intolerable, and again, my mind resorted to the nonsensical word that is “fuck” to deal with the pain. Despite this pain, my overly analytical mind began to wax intellectual on the complexities of why certain words fly out of our mouths when feelings become too strong to simply remain contained in our minds.
Why do men yell at televisions when their sports teams are doing poorly? Why do women scream out strange combinations of words and phrases during sex? Why do babies make up strange multi-syllabic words that don’t sound like the real words of their parents’ indigenous language? Why do dogs bark? Why do—
“—FUCK!” The pain brought me back to reality the way you suddenly come to after whacking your head on a low ceiling.
I looked down at my right hand and mused at the fact that the banana skin was proving the color wheel of my youth to be correct; the yellow and red were mixing together to successfully create the color orange.
I realized that the peel would soon become ineffective, so I ran into my closet, and threw on a ratty, loose fitting pair of sweat pants, skipping the underwear drawer due to the complexities of opening it with only my left hand.
I next awkwardly pulled my least favorite sweatshirt over my head because I didn’t want my blood to stain anything I actually liked to wear.
Then, looking at my bare feet, I realized that I was completely screwed because it was thirty degrees outside, with a light frost sticking to the roads, but there was no way I was going to be able to put socks or shoes on my feet with only one hand.
I cursed aloud as I silently listed all of my problems in my head: My banana peel bandage wasn’t going to last much longer, it was cold as all hell outside, and I had no socks or shoes on. But there was more! I also had no car, no health insurance, and no idea where the closest doctor or hospital was.
A new series of self-loathing realizations entered my mind. I was a total fool. I was completely screwed. My finger was cut in two, the tip of my finger was going to rot, and without health insurance, this hospital visit was going to set me back years on my path to achieve some semblance of financial security.
But none of this mattered; no amount of future financial difficulties could possibly outweigh my desire to reunite my separated index finger parts.
Wearing the hideous magazine subscription free gift sweatshirt and the tattered pair of stretchy sweatpants that barely clung to my hips, I grabbed my keys and the tip of my finger, and rushed out of my apartment door.
I slammed my door behind me, panting and mumbling a mantra that sounded like the incoherent ramblings of an angry, drunken hobo. As I locked the door and turned to exit the building, I saw my new, hot neighbor from across the hall approaching me.
I experienced a moment of utter terror, as I realized just how pathetic I looked. I nevertheless attempted to give her a cool, comical gaze that she could interpret as “Hey, Baby. I’m just a cool twenty something bachelor with a wee little injury that needs some quick attention. Why don’t we cruise over to the nearest hospital together, and then laugh about things over a drink after they fix me up?”
Unfortunately, what she saw was a fully-grown man, clutching an orange banana peel in his left armpit, with tears in his eyes, dripping wet hair, and two bare feet. This same, pathetic man was wearing a truly un-hip sweatshirt, which was three sizes too big on him, and loose sweatpants that sagged at the hips and dragged beneath his bare heels.
I stood there like an idiot and stammered. She returned my incoherent attempts at communication with a well-intentioned, but very fake smile, and then she quickly entered the safety of her own apartment. I realized that I probably looked like a meth addict who desperately needs his fix.
I prayed for a time travel machine that would allow me to go back in time and kick my own ass for attempting to cut the zucchini with my left hand, or at the very least, for the ability to go back in time and get fully dressed, shoes and all, before I attempted to cut the zucchini.
Realizing that time was of the essence, I hurried down the apartment hallway to the front lobby, deciding it would be best not to stain the apartment hallways with blood.
My mathematical mind began to calculate the many economic blunders I had committed that afternoon, and I was embarrassed by the fact that my mind chose to emulate a television commercial in this process. Cost of a hospital visit to re-attach mutilated finger: ten thousand dollars. Cost of security deposit to pay for blood soaked carpet in studio apartment: two hundred fifty dollars. Cost to pay for steam cleaning for blood spilled in common areas of apartment building: one thousand dollars. Cost of forfeiting any chance of hooking up with new, hot neighbor: priceless.
I got to the lobby of the apartment and noticed that my banana peel bandage had become a work of homage to Jackson Pollock featuring every hue in the range of yellow to red.
I reached the lobby and stared out beyond the double glass doors and into the icy landscape that lay beyond. I realized that with wet hair and bare feet, and it being as cold as it was outside, it would be foolish to enter those elements in my condition.
There was no way around it; I needed some assistance, but the only person I could think of to ask for help was my new, hot neighbor from room four oh six.
Prior to this moment, I had often daydreamed nifty scenarios in which my new, hot neighbor and I would run into each other in the hallway, and after some small talk, decide that we were perfect for each other, and then quickly proceed to consummate our mutual affection in her apartment (We paid the same rent for our rooms, and I wanted to see if her apartment was the same as mine, or if I was somehow getting ripped off…).
But my current dilemma featured the opposite scenario. This was not a happy go lucky chance encounter with room for coy small talk. This was a desperate moment.
I imagined the conversation in my head.
“Hi, you don’t know me, but I live across the hall. Well, I’m normally not an idiot, but today, I sure was! I am right handed, but today, well, I decided to try and use my left hand to cut some veggies, and I accidentally cut off the tip of one of my fingers. Do you know where a hospital is? Do you own a car? And if the answer to both questions is yes, then can you please drive me to said hospital while I try my hardest not to bawl like a little child on the way there?”
I stood there like a true fool, clutching my banana peel hand in my left armpit, my left hand shaped as a fist, ready to knock on her door, already regretting my decision to involve my new, hot neighbor in my world of calamitous stupidity.
Before I could knock on the door, the lights in the hallway dimmed, and a loud ringing muted every other sound in the building. After a short chaotic moment in which I imagined that “The Terrorists” were finally attacking, I realized that the smoke alarm in our building had gone off, and I shuddered with horror as I realized that I’d left rice boiling on the stove in my apartment, and the steam had most likely triggered the sensitive smoke detector.
Before I could react to the smoke alarm, the door to room four oh six flew wide open, and my new, hot neighbor ran out of her apartment and hit me right in my chest.
Due to my injury, I could not properly protect myself from the impact, which caused the two of us to tumble to the floor.
It takes two to tango.
My ass landed quite hard on the thinly carpeted cement floor of the hallway, as new, hot neighbor’s body pressed into mine. The impact caused my right hand to jam itself into my left armpit, which in turn caused the banana peel to fly off of my hand and right into new, hot neighbor’s face.
It was just like a funny clip from “America’s Funniest Home Videos”, only there was no home video camera to capture it and it was not funny at all; it was disgusting.
She let out a horrific shriek as the peel smacked her face. It sounded like a wet sock smacking against a floor.
I noticed that her face was still really attractive, despite the thick smear of red-orange-yellow-Pollock-expressionism covering most of her mouth and nose.
New, hot neighbor continued to scream, but instead of staring at my bloody right hand, as I thought she was, I saw that her eyes were fixed upon my crotch.
Looking down there myself, I saw that due to an unfortunate combination of the lack of an effective elastic waistband on my sweatpants and the impact from our fall to the floor, my sweatpants had fallen off my waist and I was lying there, naked, with a hard on.
As new, hot neighbor had hurriedly attempted to ascend from my body, she had inadvertently used my penis as a tool for gaining leverage, and in the process of using my apparatus as a handle; new, hot neighbor had successfully given me an erection.
I was more embarrassed than I’d ever been, but the saving grace was that the pleasure of her soothing touch had allowed my pain stricken mind a brief moment’s respite from the throbbing pain of my severed finger.
I heard several gasps and looked away from my manhood to soak in my surroundings.
Emergency lights still dimly lighted the hallway, and the alarm was still piercing my eardrums, but in addition to this cacophony, a crowd of startled neighbors, none of whom I recognized, had surrounded the two of us.
It seemed as though everyone around us was ignoring the prospect of a fire in the building since it was far more alarming to consider the fact that, apparently, one of the local street junkies had somehow entered the secured building and attempted to rape the poor new girl from room four oh six! I blushed, and continued to lie there, naked.
***
I don’t remember a whole lot about the next four hours. I’m told that one of the neighbors called the police to report an apparent burglary/rape attempt in the building, and the responding officer in turn called for an ambulance to take the rape suspect to the hospital to deal with some sort of hand wound.
The ambulance ride took practically no time, since I apparently live less than four blocks from the nearest hospital – even in the cold, with wet hair, bare feet, and a severed finger, I could have walked there.
I awoke hours later from the anesthesia to the sight of a police officer, a doctor, and my new, hot neighbor, standing over my hospital bed.
The doctor beamed from ear to ear as he explained to me that a crew of doctors and nurses had worked for four straight hours to successfully reattach my fingertip, and it would be good as new within a year. Then he shook my left hand, and left the room.
The officer looked angry, and was holding a clipboard and tapping a pen against it. He did not smile as he informed me that he had to take one more statement, but then he’d return for my statement.
And new, hot neighbor? Well, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but I found her cute, worried expression to be just as attractive as her smile. Whatever it was that she was thinking, it didn’t really matter to me, because I was now healthy, of sound mind, and alone in a room with her.
I proudly reflected on the sheer, good fortune that the universe had given me, and it seemed as if it was all because I’d decided to improve upon my ambidexterity. I quickly canceled my earlier prayer to god for a time machine, and resigned from my office as king of the handicapped and dispossessed – I didn’t belong with those fools.
My arrogant mind decided that it was official: not only was I not a fool; I was actually a genius, a mastermind if you will.
After all, I had engineered the perfect chance encounter with my new, hot neighbor, and now that it had arrived, I knew that I wasn’t going to squander this chance!
So I did what any rational man in my position would do, I put forth my left hand, I introduced myself, and I invited her to come over to my apartment later that week for some zucchini and rice.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
