Medic!

I think my dentist has made a pact with the devil. Okay, maybe not the dentist himself, but certainly his hygienist. She's got that syrupy- sweet, chatty personality that you know has to be demon-related and she loves her sonic tooth cleaner, which sounds like a drill and makes me wicked uncomfortable- to no avail. I want very much to keep my visits as short as possible, which means that I brush and floss and gargle like my life (or at least my immortal soul) depend up on it. 'Cause it does.

So last night, I'm bending over to drop the floss in the trash (a skill my children have yet to gain, but that's another story for another day) and suddenly someone jabs an ice pick into my forehead. No, not an ice pick-

The corner of the glass medicine cabinet.

Here's where the badass comes in. As I grab my head and start cursing (that's not new, it's what I would have done anyway), my first thought isn't "that hurts like a mo-fo," (though that came later, trust me) it's "crap. Head wounds bleed like a son of a bitch." Which it proceeds to do.

I have a husband who has a lot of wonderful qualities. Calm in the face of crisis? Not one of them. He's a panicker- which I was surprised to discover 'cause he doesn't seem the type. Trust me, he is. He hears the bang and the cursing and comes running in all prepared for me to need stitches or to have some kind of H1N1 infection in my brain (which isn't totally nuts- baby girl has it right now). In the past, I would have just shut up and let his panic lead me into my own panic. This time? I told him flat out that he's awful in a crisis and that he should calm the helll down and let me deal with it. No, I didn't need to go to the ER. Yes, I was sure. I was also sure that head wounds bleed like an SOB and that he should get out of the bathroom before he passed out (another charming and surprising quality of his). He didn't, but at least he put a sock in the panic and was vaguely of helpful. We decided that we could close it up with butterflies so, while I kept pressure and made sarcastic remarks about his cutting skills, he tried to turn half a band-aid into a butterfly. Cutting the bandaid was easy- getting the paper backing off, not so much. In fact, by the time he got the first one peeled, the bleeding had pretty much stopped- though it threatened to start again any moment.

By the end, we were snorting with ironic glee over the situation- neither of us had slept more than an hour at a time in nearly 48 hours (H1N1 apparently keeps kids from sleeping without a parent standing by- who knew?). We ended up strapping a gauze pad to my head with an ace bandage and some altheletic tape to keep me from bleeding all over my pillowcase- I looked like the mummy. But at least we were laughing. Laughing at a gushing headwound? So badass.