http://www.overbooked.org/satterthwait/stories/cassoulet.html
Hey Chas,
Sorry you’re in such a state! Check out this short story – see if you could find someone else to donate the key ingredient for your next dinner party!
How’s it looking now? My doctor uses superglue when she cuts her fingers, since she’s not allowed to wear bandages in the examining room. Maybe you could reconstruct your fingertip and it’d be elastic enough to cover the hole.
Jennie
Well after the cayenne pepper application (see Jared’s board, can’t discuss it here), I was able to play tonight. It’s partly that the wound wasn’t as bad as last time, but not entirely. I’m really pleased.
Cheers,
Chas, so sorry this happened to you–glad it’s healing up.
Be careful out there!
carrie
What I want to know for all you kitchen accidentees, did you eat the food?
Candi
Absolutely. Thing about an injury like this is, it doesn’t start bleeding for several seconds. (There’s something eldritch about the flat white patch of freshly exposed flesh before the blood starts flowing.) The little flap of skin is not hard to find and dispose of.
I was thinking, after soundly smacking my thumb with a framing hammer yesterday, that I really should count my blessings. An aquaintance of mine has bad nerve damage in his hands from repeated freezing on Arctic treks. Because of the lack of sensation, he is on a first-name basis with the entire emergency room staff.
His last escapade was affixing himself to a wooden frame (he’s a sign installer) while at the top of a tall ladder. He had fired the second spike through his palm before realising he was going to need a bit of help.
BTW, while I don’t recommend it, injuring the left thumb is a great way to fix grip problems on flute. Another blessing, I guess.
it’s always the little things in life, innit! 
[deleted post that remained while I was editing it.)
So, I’m two years older and no smarter, or possibly at my age, two years stupider. I had a twofer this weekend.
The injury came when I was putting out some recycling. I had something like 3-4 bottles and a couple of cans, so I did what any stupid person would do and put my fingers in the mouths, including the mouths of the cans. I’m tossing them into the bin, and let out a scream heard by the neighbors as one can sliced well into my index finger. It bled like crazy, but it’s a good clean cut, so is healing nicely.
The other one only involves beer. I say “only,” but I take beer as seriously as Henke takes whisky. About three months ago, I was making a ginger wheat and had two packets of yeast in the fridge – one Danish lager, the other Bavarian wheat. So I took out one of the packets, made a starter, and carefully labeled the jar I put it in as well as the one for future use, “Bavarian wheat.” When I went to put the jar in the fridge, I noticed that the packet that was still in there said “Bavarian wheat.” So I made a lager out of the ginger wheat beer. Just bottled it last week, so I don’t know how it turned out yet. So yesterday I got out that jar that said “Bavarian wheat” on it. And made a raspberry wheat. And it still wasn’t Bavarian wheat yeast. So I’m making a raspberry wheat lager. Should be interesting.
Edited to add my nomination for the “sufficiently motivated fool” award for today (and this is NOT me): The fire alarm in my building went off at about 3 today, and we were all evacuated. The fire department shows up and, about 15 minutes later, they emerge with the explanation. Evidently someone had hooked a garden hose up to the sprinkler system. This triggered a low pressure alarm, indicating that there was a malfunction in the sprinkler system, hence no protection against a fire, so the alarm went off. It would never occur to me to hook a hose up to the sprinkler system.
That’s what alpha and beta testers are for. For the stuff that no one in their right mind would ever think of doing. Which is, of course, exactly the first thing that someone does.
Chas man, no offense but maybe you should reconsider the flute making retirement plan, some people just aren’t safe around sharp objects…
Loren
piper’s grip is your friend 
Sometimes I wonder if one of these would be a good backup.
Tabor pipe
Willow flute
Sometimes I wonder if one of these would be a good backup.
Tabor pipe
Willow flute
If something happened to my hands, i’d play the didgeridoo 
Chas-
I’m sorry that you’ve stopped thinking things out and have boogered up your hand again . Almost as sorry as I am to find out that you’re now making two batches of mystery beer (could be great, could be hazardous, could be both).
On the other hand, (pun somewhat intended) I’m really glad that you posted to this thread again. It brought back names that I haven’t seen in a long while. Kind of makes me nostalgic. I wonder what happened to those folks?
Dow, my sufficiently motivated fool comment was inspired by your signature. I’ve been known to use the quote from Henry Ford in the similar vein: It’s difficult to make something foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
My finger is fine, back to flute playing. I wish I could say the same thing about my brain.
I did a wheat lager once when I was out of ale yeast, and it was wonderful. So I actually have high hopes for these two batches.
Ouch, and I’m sorry to hear the news. I, too, cook for myself, and have also managed to do some similar things to my own hands, as not good.
But, and talk about stupid stupid stupid, while working in my back yard I recently managed to whack the back of my hand, now causing L2 and L3 troubles.
Injury is not a good thing, no matter how stupidly acquired!.