Published Tuesday, September 20, 2011 11:57 AM
Updated Thursday, September 22, 2011 11:02 AM

 

Riffs: A bucket o’ blood and a pack of gum

If you grew up with me, then you probably lived through, or were part of, a number of insanely stupid mishaps, from a goose egg in the noggin after taking a direct hit from a bottle rocket, point blank, to falling out of trees, ripping clothes and skin on barbed wire fences, various and sundry bike wrecks and skateboard disasters, and a host of other brilliant moments that, mercifully, I can't really remember any more.?What I do know, and have known for some time, is that I am accident prone, particularly around mechanical or electrical things. Several years ago, the guys in my band started calling me “Chief Black Cloud” because of my inherent ability to wreak havoc on electronics. Microphones would squeal, jump cords would get crimps, amplifiers would smoke, guitars would fall out of their stands, if I so much as came within 15 feet of them.?That still hasn't changed much. I don't know how many guitar jacks I've shredded by stepping on the guitar chord while playing at top volume.?So I ought to know by now not to press my luck, especially when it comes to driving and, well, anything else.?Yet here I sit, staring at the computer screen, a bloody napkin dangling from my lower lip, hoping like the very devil that I'm going to stop bleeding before my 11:45 appointment.

For those of you who don’t know about this curse I am under, or are just vaguely familiar with my many brushes with death via stupidity – or maybe brushes with stupid via near death – here’s a new one for the books. Not really life threatening, per se, but if someone walks in here, I'll probably die from embarrassment from the spectacle alone, much less the ensuing explanation of why I am sporting a red and white Burger King napkin from my kisser.?Like so many of the bizarre happenstances through which I’ve lived, this little mishap started in the car. It was innocent enough; I was trying to open a package of gum, the kind in which the individual gum pieces are packaged in these annoying aluminum foil flats. You have to push the gum through each compartment, which makes a neat little foil split. I’m doing this while at the same time keeping an eye on the pedestrians on the sidewalks on either side of the busy highway, noting a distant crosswalk approaching, and balancing a tepid cup of coffee between my knees.?So as I carefully ease up to a red light and crosswalk, slowing my vehicle to an ever so ginger and manageable crawl, I finally pop a piece of gum out of the package. Feeling it slip down my lips, I try to shove it back to my mouth so as not to have a wad of gum and a tepid cup of coffee between my knees. I take a sort of slurping bite, feel the flesh of lower lip splitting, as though sliced cleanly in half by, well, a jagged piece of aluminum foil. Take a chomp of the gum to get it out of the way. Taste peppermint and blood. Mmmm.?Twenty minutes later, I’m still bleeding. My trashcan now contains five wet paper towels the exact color of Pepto Bismol, which is what you get when you mix ice cubes and a copious amount of drool with a clean, white paper product and blood.? I can't even say, “You think this is bad; you ought to see the other guy!”?The other guy is lying on the passenger side floorboard of my car and the only blood showing on him is mine.?The good news is, I didn’t spill the coffee. And none of the old people, handicapped folks in wheelchairs and walkers, drunken Tour de France riders, toddlers smoking cigarettes and taking their first steps, and baby ducks waddling through the crosswalk ever came close to becoming another decal on the fuselage of the Mighty Mighty Element.?And it’s only Monday morning. I think I’ll go crawl under the bed and assume the fetal position for awhile.