It's Fine!
This past summer, I was seeing a guy from Hinge. Let’s call him Joe.
Things you need to know about Joe: he’s a chatty Brit, loves exploring Brooklyn, a live music fan, and a great cook. Say no more.
It’s important to note that after trying and failing multiple relationships in New York that year, I was jazzed to be seeing a foreigner. The accent helps, and his dating style is easygoing and casual. He was a Level 0 on the anxiety-inducement scaled compared to Level 9s and 10s I had dated recently. What a world!!
We went on a few dates and decided that the “next step” would be to cook together. I picked a pasta recipe because Joe loves Italian food. I chose one of Alison Roman’s, of course. I grabbed the ingredients and he got the wine. What could go wrong?
It’s a hot September night and Joe is coming over after a week of visitors - friends from London that were in town to see him. He was exhausted but excited to hang. And very eager to cook.
Joe arrives and we have some wine, and he asks if he can help. “Helping cook” in small NYC apartments is typically just a gesture, but he’s persistent. I asked if he was good with chopping onions and parsley to which he replied energetically, “Sure!”
He’s updating me on the food and bar crawls he did with his friends as he’s chopping. Chatting, chopping, chatting, chopping.
Then I hear an “oh no.”
Amidst the chiffonaded parsley, there’s a bit of blood. And then more blood.
The knife went just too deep on his pointer finger, and it’ll be fine. He’s running it under water, and it’s fine, he tells me.
I’m super chill about this. It’s a little baby cut, we’ve got chopping and stirring to do, he’ll be fine. Of course playing it off, so I copy him. When he repeats it’s fine, I keep on chatting.
About a minute into the faucet stream splashing his finger blood all over my sink, I genuinely ask if he is okay. He said it just needs to clot. It’ll be fine!
I finish chopping the onion and make the homemade tomato sauce. We are saying how authentic this meal is going to taste, forgetting that for all we know blood may have splashed into the pot.
10 minutes later, we realize the sliced finger is not clotting. He asks for bandaids, which I have! I’m so prepared.
But, the bandaids are shit. They are small, “waterproof” Walgreens brand and they for sure are not going to help clot his sliced finger.
Now he’s dripping blood on my hardwood floor while we try to wrap (read: Scotch tape) his bloody finger to force the clot. Bucatini is boiling, sauce is simmering, and Joe’s finger won’t stop bleeding.
I begin to wonder if he was so enthusiastic about chopping, that force behind his slice hit the bone. I wonder if I should order an Uber and take us to the ER. But we both want our Alison Roman bucatini and meatballs, so we persevere and enjoy the rest of our evening. Bloodied paper towels are all over my trash can as we clean up.
The story doesn’t end yet. Joe stays the night and removes his homemade bandage in the morning to shower.
The series of events starts all over again. Blood everywhere, running under cold water, clotting doesn’t hold, and fresh papertowel bandage to the rescue.
Joe goes to work and an hour later I get a picture of his finger with what looks like a small condom on it. Turns out he showed up to an important work breakfast and excused himself to go to the drugstore. He “patched himself up whilst bleeding on the sidewalk out the front of Grand Central,” he told me. The thing on his finger was a rubber sewing grip that he found.
Why didn’t he get a bandaid (or stitches) at that point? Your guess is as good as mine.