the "things you wish you could say" thread

[apl68]

Sweetheart, I'm very sorry you cut your finger. I agree that it looks painful and scary. But you put pressure on it and the bleeding stopped pretty fast. Judging from the stains on the paper towels, you've lost less blood than I leave on a tissue when I wipe my nose during nosebleed season.

So cool it with your fretting about blood loss. Sweets are great when you've had a scare, but you don't need to be replacing blood sugar, and you certainly don't need to be taking iron supplements to prevent anemia. I mean, it's not going to hurt you or deprive others to take these measures, unlike certain hydroxychloroquine swilling world leaders I could mention, but good grief, you're almost forty.

I'm guessing your sweetheart is a man.  I had a similar when Mr. Dr. Geneticist sliced his finger - no you don't need stitches, you haven't lost much blood (really), it will be OK, you will not bleed to death from a cut that size.

Mr. Geneticist must not have grown up in a rural area like the one I did.  Cuts, sprains, etc. are just a part of everyday life.  Well, maybe not every day, unless you're really clumsy.

[polly_mer]

Sweetheart, I'm very sorry you cut your finger. I agree that it looks painful and scary. But you put pressure on it and the bleeding stopped pretty fast. Judging from the stains on the paper towels, you've lost less blood than I leave on a tissue when I wipe my nose during nosebleed season.

So cool it with your fretting about blood loss. Sweets are great when you've had a scare, but you don't need to be replacing blood sugar, and you certainly don't need to be taking iron supplements to prevent anemia. I mean, it's not going to hurt you or deprive others to take these measures, unlike certain hydroxychloroquine swilling world leaders I could mention, but good grief, you're almost forty.

I'm guessing your sweetheart is a man.  I had a similar when Mr. Dr. Geneticist sliced his finger - no you don't need stitches, you haven't lost much blood (really), it will be OK, you will not bleed to death from a cut that size.

Mr. Geneticist must not have grown up in a rural area like the one I did.  Cuts, sprains, etc. are just a part of everyday life.  Well, maybe not every day, unless you're really clumsy.

Most days when we were kids and unsupervised.  The questions then were always the Erma Bombeck-type questions for her kids:

* Whose blood is it?

* Is it a lot of blood?

* Where is the blood?  On the expensive sofa or something washable?

* What caused the blood and can you get little brother to be quiet about a clear accident?

To this day, I know when it's going to rain because of an accident that scared my friends enough to run get my mom, but didn't scare my mom enough to take me to the emergency room.

As I was explaining to my child just yesterday, one of my great uncles lost everything but his pinky and thumb on one hand due to a home meat processing accident and he still played cards at every opportunity for the next sixty years, so hush up about your minor little cut that doesn't even need a band-aid.

[Puget]

Sweetheart, I'm very sorry you cut your finger. I agree that it looks painful and scary. But you put pressure on it and the bleeding stopped pretty fast. Judging from the stains on the paper towels, you've lost less blood than I leave on a tissue when I wipe my nose during nosebleed season.

So cool it with your fretting about blood loss. Sweets are great when you've had a scare, but you don't need to be replacing blood sugar, and you certainly don't need to be taking iron supplements to prevent anemia. I mean, it's not going to hurt you or deprive others to take these measures, unlike certain hydroxychloroquine swilling world leaders I could mention, but good grief, you're almost forty.

I'm guessing your sweetheart is a man.  I had a similar when Mr. Dr. Geneticist sliced his finger - no you don't need stitches, you haven't lost much blood (really), it will be OK, you will not bleed to death from a cut that size.

Mr. Geneticist must not have grown up in a rural area like the one I did.  Cuts, sprains, etc. are just a part of everyday life.  Well, maybe not every day, unless you're really clumsy.

Yep--
My back-to-the-lander parents let me spend my summers running around outside with the neighbor kids barefoot and largely unsupervised. The rules were to (a) come in when it gets dark (pretty late in summer in the pacific north west), (b) wash your feet off with the hose before you come in, and (c) ask first if you are eating dinner at the neighbors or inviting the neighbor kids to eat dinner with us.

We understood to get a parent if we were really hurt, but I can't remember that happening much. Blackberry scratches and tree climbing scrapes were par for the course. Stepping on bees and getting stung was the most common injury, but by mid-summer our feet were so tough not much got through.

I do vividly recall cutting my finger with the new pocket knife I'd been begging for and finally gotten (at around 8?), and quietly going in to get a bandaid without telling my parents because I figured they might take the knife away if they knew.

Good times-- I loved those summers, and no one was permanently maimed.

[dismalist]

Sweetheart, I'm very sorry you cut your finger. I agree that it looks painful and scary. But you put pressure on it and the bleeding stopped pretty fast. Judging from the stains on the paper towels, you've lost less blood than I leave on a tissue when I wipe my nose during nosebleed season.

So cool it with your fretting about blood loss. Sweets are great when you've had a scare, but you don't need to be replacing blood sugar, and you certainly don't need to be taking iron supplements to prevent anemia. I mean, it's not going to hurt you or deprive others to take these measures, unlike certain hydroxychloroquine swilling world leaders I could mention, but good grief, you're almost forty.

I'm guessing your sweetheart is a man.  I had a similar when Mr. Dr. Geneticist sliced his finger - no you don't need stitches, you haven't lost much blood (really), it will be OK, you will not bleed to death from a cut that size.

Mr. Geneticist must not have grown up in a rural area like the one I did.  Cuts, sprains, etc. are just a part of everyday life.  Well, maybe not every day, unless you're really clumsy.

Yep--
My back-to-the-lander parents let me spend my summers running around outside with the neighbor kids barefoot and largely unsupervised. The rules were to (a) come in when it gets dark (pretty late in summer in the pacific north west), (b) wash your feet off with the hose before you come in, and (c) ask first if you are eating dinner at the neighbors or inviting the neighbor kids to eat dinner with us.

We understood to get a parent if we were really hurt, but I can't remember that happening much. Blackberry scratches and tree climbing scrapes were par for the course. Stepping on bees and getting stung was the most common injury, but by mid-summer our feet were so tough not much got through.

I do vividly recall cutting my finger with the new pocket knife I'd been begging for and finally gotten (at around 8?), and quietly going in to get a bandaid without telling my parents because I figured they might take the knife away if they knew.

Good times-- I loved those summers, and no one was permanently maimed.

I grew up in a part of northern NYC that was, strangely,  country like for some years. All the kids would roam around in the woods and the rules were the same as above: Home at dark, or a tad later, or there'd be hell to pay.

The only injury I remember was falling onto my knees and moving along the gravel of the cul-de-sac we lived on, as I had been running. My knees bled and I ran home to mama. She took one look at the bloody mess and said: What's the problem? You're wearing shorts-the skin will heal!

That builds character. :-)

[polly_mer]

My knees were all healed before I was married, but I always had skinned knees when I was a kid.

[Liquidambar]

I do vividly recall cutting my finger with the new pocket knife I'd been begging for and finally gotten (at around 8?), and quietly going in to get a bandaid without telling my parents because I figured they might take the knife away if they knew.

I have a similar memory!

[science.expat]

Same type of childhood. The only major intervention was after I fell down a waterfall and even then it was 3 days before my mom took me to the doctor. (I had hairline fractures in both wrists.)

And I never told my parents about the nail I lost after slamming a car door on my finger while intoxicated...

[ergative]

I do vividly recall cutting my finger with the new pocket knife I'd been begging for and finally gotten (at around 8?), and quietly going in to get a bandaid without telling my parents because I figured they might take the knife away if they knew.

I have a similar memory!

Me too! I got a pocket knife for Christmas one year and promptly sliced my finger open. I got a band-aid and then told my parents what happened, and my father's first question was, 'Did you get blood on the carpet?' At the time I thought that was cruel and unfeeling, but in retrospect it was clear that I was fine, so of course he moved on down to the next item on the priority list.

What's the problem? You're wearing shorts-the skin will heal!

Yup. I not so long ago found the perfect trousers (I even posted about them in triumph on the fora), and have since then twice tripped and skinned my knee. Both times my primary concern was whether I had ripped my perfect irreplaceable trousers. (Fortunately they were fine, although the layer of skin on the inside of them was a bit gruesome.)

I am very unsurefooted, however, and have definitely ruined other trousers from such accidents, so it's only a matter of time. My knees, fortunately, continue to regenerate.

[sinenomine]

Why do you consistently join meetings late and then ask questions — in the most long-winded way possible — that have already been addressed?

[FishProf]

All these meeting about "how will we do our jobs?!" are preventing me from doing my job.

[polly_mer]

All these meeting about "how will we do our jobs?!" are preventing me from doing my job.

Wait until the return-to-work trainings start and it's clear that not a representative-enough sample of workers were asked what they do all day.

[the_geneticist]

I do vividly recall cutting my finger with the new pocket knife I'd been begging for and finally gotten (at around 8?), and quietly going in to get a bandaid without telling my parents because I figured they might take the knife away if they knew.

I have a similar memory!

I must have been 10 or so when I accidentally shut my pocket knife on my finger and cut it pretty deep.  In my case, I did eventually tell my Dad who asked "Do you want stitches?".  Well, no I didn't want to go to the doctor so we just bandaged it up and called it good.

[sprout]

Why do you consistently join meetings late and then ask questions — in the most long-winded way possible — that have already been addressed?

Oh, we have one of these!  He particularly specializes in reopening discussions on divisive things that we'd already decided on, before he showed up.

[fishbrains]

Why do you consistently join meetings late and then ask questions — in the most long-winded way possible — that have already been addressed?

Oh, we have one of these!  He particularly specializes in reopening discussions on divisive things that we'd already decided on, before he showed up.

We applauded our dean (silently, because she had requested we mute the Zoom on our side) when she shut down one of these folks who joined the meeting 30 minutes late. We looked like a bunch of those wind-up monkeys that bang cymbals together.

[archaeo42]

Why do you consistently join meetings late and then ask questions — in the most long-winded way possible — that have already been addressed?

Oh, we have one of these!  He particularly specializes in reopening discussions on divisive things that we'd already decided on, before he showed up.

You're giving me flashbacks to a project where I swear some people were using a playbook on how to prevent anything from happening.

"Now, what does X mean again?"
"I'm confused by Y."
etc etc.