random thoughts – Day 1,614 – (Sunday) – oddball inventory

Thanks to Facebook Memories, I was reminded today of the odd incident bravely endured on this date in 2018. It was a typical summer night in The BungaLowell. I was seated on the couch, eating a bowl of ice cream, and watching TV (probably Netflix or Prime Video). 

Injury-free ice cream.

Moose and Winston (my two biggest fans) were still around then, and were probably with me on the couch, jockeying for position in my lap. No matter what I was doing, as soon as one came near me, the other wanted in, too. Damn, I miss those little guys.

August 18, 2018 is the date I injured my lip eating ice cream. After a lifetime of ice cream consumption, on that evening, somehow the metal spoon got stuck on my bottom lip. New England winter training kicked in and I drooled onto it to free the spoon, but it still removed a bit of skin and drew blood. Tonight, I had the ripped lip in mind as I ate a bowl of ice cream. Caution prevailed. There was no bloodshed.

Of all the scrapes and dings and scars of a lifetime, the ice cream injury might be the stupidest/weirdest one. Or at least in the top five, up there with the time a wave knocked me over at Long Sands Beach in York Maine and I ended up with my hat and swimsuit top floating on the water and a purple toe. For the rest of the day, every time there was a big wave, my nieces and I would shriek “Inventory!” and we would check to make sure we still had on all our clothing parts. 

Childhood mishaps in the top five include a YMCA shower mishap that resulted in a broken front tooth. Another was around the same age when my brother and I raced across a playground and I ran straight into the top cable holding the tennis net, catching it in the nose, right between the eyes. Ah, the dramatic injury of an active child who hadn't yet flunked the school eye test and been fitted with eyeglasses.  

In the adult list, I once closed my left thumb in the door of my friend's Corvette after we had parked at a nightclub.  I was dressed all in white and managed to not get blood on my clothes before receiving a Bandaid from club staff. The busted ice cream lip while seated quietly on a couch is mostly embarrassing.

Fortunately, there have been no further ice cream spoon injuries since 2018. Or repeats of any of the other oddball injuries.