The finger story

So I thought I had already posted about this, but apparently (based on all the questions about it from a previous post) I hadn't. This should answer all of your questions about why I say that I have 9/10 of a finger, or that my older sister was an especially abusive big sister.

During my third grade year and my sister's sixth, my family decided it was a great time to take a vacation to Disney World. I was just like the little kids in the commercials who can't sleep the night before they go to Disney World. It was SO exciting. I couldn't wait to ride all the rides and see all there was to see. When we arrived at our hotel, it was more than I could have ever imagined. I mean, a freaking train ran through the hotel ... how cool is that? And I got to have breakfast every morning with the whole Disney gang! Doesn't get much better for a third-grader.

The first day was great. The lines were super long, and the "Small World" ride was as creepy as I imagined it to be (I still have nightmares about those weird looking puppets singing "It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all!!!). We saw all sorts of goodness and exciting things that day, but it was just a warm-up for what I thought was to come of our vacation. The most exciting part we saved for the last day ... an entire day at Typhoon Lagoon, Disney's version of a water park. My energy-level at that age was unsurmountable. Combine that with a trip to Disney World and you could compare me to a roid-monster on speed. Just ask anyone in my family ... sitting still was not an option for me.

The second day was filled with more rides and more fun. Nici and I finally came to the front of the starship rocket ride. It was similar to the kiddie Dumbo ride, but much faster and much cooler for a third and sixth grader to ride. Each pair of people were assigned an individual rocket to ride in, we got rocket number 12. The ride started spinning around and around, and we soon realized that we had the ability to control how high or how low the rocket would ride. I pulled the large metal lever up, and the rocket slowly climbed up high. A bit later, Nici pulled the heavy lever down. As the lever came down to the floor of the rocket, I felt a small pinch on the index finger of my right hand. I didn't think much of it until I looked down and saw fountain of blood gushing out of my finger. You can imagine how I reacted. I was horrified! I immediatley started screaming and crying for the ride operator to stop the ride. Of course, he didn't. So I sat there with my bloody finger, bleeding all over the ride (the sick-o ride operator even let people get in #12 right after we got off). My sister tried to help the situation by covering my eyes so I wouldn't look at my bloody finger, once again proving that older siblings are totally useless.

It turned out that the tip of my finger including my fingernail was cut down to the bone. One of the medical guys went back to the ride and found the tip of my finger (still riding in #12 with different patrons). They opted not to sew it back on and instead gave me stitches, bandaged my finger up, and sent us on our way. The rest of the trip was centered around the intense pain I felt in my index finger. Also, the much-anticipated trip to Typhoon Lagoon was cancelled for me. Of course Nici and my dad went without me! Jerks.

I blame the whole incident for ruining my swimming career. I was on the middle-school swim team in third grade ... yes, I must brag that I was way above my level. But now, oh the sadness, NOW I couldn't get my finger wet until the stitches came out. I had to bathe with a plastic bag wrapped around the enormous bandage. I also had to go through physical therapy (no joke!) to learn how to write properly again. Trying to learn cursive while your index finger is totally bandaged up is no fun at all.

To this day my right index finger is a bit shorter than my left finger and the fingernail never did grow in the same. It's all weird looking compared to the other ones. Whenever I hit it in a certain way, or I strike a key on the keyboard at a certain angle I can still feel a weird shooting pain in the tip.

Disney paid for everything: hospital bills, doctor bills, physical therapy, all of it. They even put a huge basket full of fruit and Disney paraphanelia in our hotel room for good measure (I think they were hoping to not get sued).

So all in all, the moral of the story is to never allow older siblings to operate heavy machinery. They will somehow always end up injuring the poor, innocent younger sibling. Now us younger siblings do tend to get lost ... a lot (especially in foreign countries). But that's another post all together.

**Legal Notice: I hope nobody takes real offense at the jabs I take at my big sister. I am the ONLY one allowed to say things like that. Anyone who is NOT a member of the Bubble Gum Gang or who hasn't been kicked in the butt while saying "Don't YOU get lost," or who hasn't forced their friends to try out their homemade shampoo has no right to insult any other member of the Bubble Gum Gang. So there!