When you knock something off the windowsill, avoid the natural reflex to catch it if it's a heavy cactus covered in 1" spines.
Cactus unharmed, which is more than can be said for the hand which caught it, not to mention the blood on the carpet...
In message , Andrew Gabriel writes
I sympathise totally, when will I learn not to catch the soldering iron when I drop it?
I sympathise having had similar experiences. Our cactii have been brilliant this year in terms of flowering: the best in 35 years to my recollection.
I've "received" enough "training" that my brain allows knives and soldering irons to drop freely :-)
I am not that old but definately the best in 20 years:)
Adam
Bill wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@birchnet.demon.co.uk:
What puzzles me is, when I pick up a soldering iron by the wrong end, I feel no pain until I hear the sizzle and smell the burning flesh?
mike
Perhaps the heat destroys the local nerve endings, so it it takes a while for it to spread to an area where it can register?
Having allowed time for healing, I found I do have two snapped off spines stuck in me. Fortunately, neither seem to have become infected or gone red at all, but they're both very deep. One is particularly interesting -- it's gone right through my index fingertip from the pad and hit the back of the nail, through which it's made a tiny hole and got itself jammed in it. I presume there's nothing much left behind other than the bit stuck in the nail as the finger tip isn't at all painful on the pad anymore but I can feel a little pain if I rub the tiny bit sticking out through the nail (which is far too small to grip with anything). The other one's in the little finger, just where it presses on the shift key, but again remarkably unpainful at the moment.
Suggest you get yourself to the docs to get that out. I had an experience with a firethorn - thorn, that snapped off deep inside my thumb. That was very painful same night after it happened. I needed two *real fun* injections of local in the tendons and the thumb opening up at A & E, to get it out. The thorn was only about 1/8" long but had gone way in and the wound closed behind it.
Yeah, I seem to be well-programmed in that way too ... except that to the best of my recollection I've had very few 'training instances'. I think when I was young and using Swann-Morton scalpels for aeromodelling I must have effectively told myself ... if it falls and it's sharp/hot, get your fingers away. I can sometimes feel the program 'kicking in' ... and conversely, still find myself catching 'safe' falling objects. There's often time to catch something if you don't panic and act smoothly.
jon n
ISTR a similar thread in an electronics repair NG where the poster had once worked with high tension equipment and had trained himself not to touch things with both hands at once. Made using a knife and fork tricky as he had to convince himself each time that his fried egg wasn''t going to electrocute him.
But there wouldn't be a p.d. if both hands were touching the fried egg.
It'd be reaching for the ketchup that would kill him.
Owain
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