Arterial

            Everyone should, at some point in life, be confronted with the sight of his own arterial blood.  I’m not advocating a life threatening experience or even a grievous injury, but viewing one’s oxygen bright life force leaving the body in eager, arcing spurts is a defining moment, a predicament the reaction to and resolution of which illuminates much about the bleeder, not to mention the way the vivid, ruby memory lingers ever after as a cautionary reminder.

            The only hole an artery should have is the one that runs down the middle, lengthwise, making it, by definition, an artery.  Forget about this secondary hole leading somewhere else, specifically out of the body in a direction perpendicular to the normal flow, thank you very much.  At least that was what I was thinking as I watched a thin, velvety red stream pulsing eighteen inches into the air from my foot with the heartbeat regularity of a Bellagio fountain show every hour on the hour twice an hour on Sundays.

            I don’t mean to play up the trauma drama, as we’re talking about the faintest of nicks, the mildest of pinprick holes in the top of my foot, close to the surface of the skin and right on the big artery there in just the right place to make things look intensely graphic and messy without actually being much of a big deal.  Having seen the results of this superficial wound, I am now intensely aware of the seriousness of major damage to the circulatory system, because if my little mistake can make that much mess that quickly, I don’t want to be around when something big lets go. 

            Bottom line, like most little bumps in the road that we walk away from without serious repercussions beyond a small scar, be it emotional, mental, physical, said bumps teach us a lesson, make us stronger, wiser, more prepared in the future to face similar situations.  At least that’s what I kept telling myself as I pulled my foot from under a 300 pound aluminum dive deck ladder that I had just set on top of it and applied firm, direct pressure to the pulsing wound, willing myself not to pass out at the sight of my own arterial blood.  

Even Handed

            I carry a light when I dive. More than one, actually; it’s dark inside wrecks.  The primary light, though, is a big honking eight C cell (rechargeable, naturally) thing with a pistol grip.  When it isn’t clipped off on my harness, it is in my hand.  My right hand.  Always my right hand.  No matter how hard I try, how many times I switch it to my left for variety’s sake, the moment I stop actively willing it stay in my left hand, it jumps, unbidden, to my right. 

            Some activities require the dominant hand: writing, three point shots, cutting a steak are good examples.  Try any of these with your off hand and you will make such a hash of things they’re not worth doing.  Other activities you can practice with your left hand and become proficient---frisbee, shooting guns, dicing food, pleasuring yourself, etc.  But the vast majority of us don’t practice such things with our off hand.  It’s easier to do it with the dominant hand, so we do. 

            That’s how things happen with my light.  It stays clipped on my right side, and when I want it I reach for it with my right hand, where it stays until I clip it off again.  Sometimes I switch over and actually concentrate on keeping it in the left.  Then I start thinking about something else, or move to manipulate or steady myself on something, or illuminate something in a crack or crevice.  The next time I think about it or start paying attention again, there it is in my right hand.  It’s not like the light is brighter or more effective when held in the right.  What’s the deal?

            So, a little social experiment for you.  Something you use every day, as important to you as my light is to me.  How about your PDA/cell phone?  Try using that thing exclusively with your off hand all day tomorrow, and see how long it takes for your dominant hand to take over.  Strange, huh?

Moving

Imagine for a moment that the next time you pack up your household belongings to change residence, something drastic happens to the moving van or vehicle in which you are transporting them.  That this hypothetical exercise does not become too macabre, we will assume that ‘drastic’ doesn’t mean that your shipping transport was strafed, fired, torpedoed, and sunk with you in it, just that the vehicle disappeared but your belongings survived undisturbed for years in their packed state. 

 

            Now imagine that someone from a different culture, era, and language background happens upon the lost vehicle sixty-five years later and rummages around in your box of belongings, pulling your things out of their packing for curiosity and novelty’s sake.   How they would marvel at them, attaching weighty significance to the soup tureen your aunt gave you as a wedding gift, the hors d’oeuvre platter you never liked but your husband made you keep, and the set of cheap drinking glasses you picked up at your neighbor’s yard sale.  Think of the fascination the rummager would feel when examining not only the china, but the packing material.  The editorial section and Dear Abbey column from yesterday’s newspaper that you used to protect your glassware would seem an important historical find.  The rummager and would-be archaeologist might even consider the whole situation exciting enough to take some pictures and post them to his friends.