He Gave The Finger To His Garage Door

I'm not one to laugh at others misfortunes, but, sometimes, life's experiences are just too painfully funny to pass by.

I have a friend, Dave, who is an intelligent, successful business man. He's in his late fifties, so, he's been around the block and back a time or two. One morning, recently, he opened his garage door to take the garbage out by the roadside. Now, mind you, this was at 5:30 in the morning and your brain is not quite up to speed yet. After he told me the story, I said, "Dave, that's what you get for being so cheap with yourself." He said, "No, Dave, that's what I get for procrastinating," after I asked him why he never installed an electric garage door opener. It's the kind with a handle at the bottom you just lift up after you've unlocked it from the inside. So, down the driveway he goes, taking his garbage container out for an early morning stroll. Brush off hands, walk back up and close the garage door, right?

Well, it didn't quite work out that way. He had grabbed the handle and pulled it down. You know, it never quite goes all the way down, so, instead of bending down or using his foot to push it shut, he just reached in between one of the slats and...

...forced it shut. Now, remember, these slats are on a track and as they come downward, they fit tightly into each other.

All of a sudden, this excruciating pain shot through the middle finger of his right hand. Instinctively he pulled it back and looked in horror at his hand. The tip of his finger just above the first joint was gone. Crushed. He opened the door with his other hand and pulled out his flattened fingertip. After rushing inside, he carefully put it on ice and raced to the nearest emergency room. "There's nothing we can do. We can't sew it back on. It's been crushed," the doctor told him. Yup, flattened like a pancake with strawberry syrup. The fingernail still looked good. So, they had to take snippers to re-form his jutting out bone to make it more rounded so they could close up what remained. 18 stitches. He went home, not quite feeling like the whole man he once was. I think he took the rest of the day off.

Today, he pretty much laughs at it. He says, "You know, that was about the most stupid thing I've ever done. I just wasn't thinking. And, even better, when I pulled away in pain, I tore the darn thing off." Not that they could have saved it anyway, but it did save the cost of amputation.