No, you may not sign the cast!

[repsac]

Woah...I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack. (insert creepy music here).

So, wonder where I've been? Even care? Kidding aside, recently I broke my hand. Now it's one of those breaks where they don't put a real cast on it, but rather put a flex type. This thing has caused me more trouble than I can list, but some of it has been very interesting. Like, the incident at K-mart the other day. Then again, some of it was down right funny; and needs repeating.

First things first. While I /can/ take off the cast. I'm not supposed to. Secondly, I have a colored (green) light self stick bandage wrapped around most of it. It's for support so I can type of all things. Lastly, it smells...bad. This isn't my fault totally. There was some broken skin, and yes it's infected. So, I have to let it drain every so often; and then soak it in peroxide or warm salt water. Still, it causes this very funky smell that I really can't help.


1.) My god...what's that smell?! Remember I said my hand smells bad? Well, it does. It's something of a mix of rotting flesh, and feces. Due to the infection. However, it's not a smell you'd notice unless you were right up on the cast; or I needed to cleanse the wounds. Normally I do this two or three times a day to keep the smell down. Still, I never expected to find myself the brunt of this story.

I was shopping in a home depot, looking for some flooring for my home. At the time, I'd cleansed my hand some hour before, maybe less, and thought I had the smell down good. Apparently, a super smeller found me, because this happened next.: Lady comes down the ailse with me, suddenly freezes, sniffs a few times and then in a hoarse stage whisper says to her husband:
L: My GOD! What's that smell? Oh for the love of God. It's HIM!"
M: (turning around with the cast visible) Can I help you ma'am?
L: Could you at least BATHE!?
M: Could you not breed?
L: (looking offended) WHAT?!
M: Breed. As in have children. I'd hate to picture running into your offspring. Since you clearly don't know when to keep your fat mouth shut.

Her husband started up at me at this, but it was quickly ended when the flooring associate wandered about. Later, I explained why the smell was there. He must have told them because that woman ended up in line in front of me and kept giving me the "I screwed up and I know it, so I won't look in your eyes" type of look.

2.) Toy's R. Us and the Magnets: This one ended up being rather funny. It wasn't my fault, but the manager and employees did get a kick out of it. My cast, has a metal splint in it. Apparently, a steel splint.

I was wandering through the toys Ailse, only to be suddenly attacked. Not by children, or adults; but by a display of toys I got rather close to. In an instant, following a shocked cry of anguish on my part; I found myself...or at least my arm, COVERED in these little child type letters. You know the kind. Some spelled rather rude words. Pulling most of them off, I was rather amazed to find that some weren't coming off. Dang these things had strong magnets. Having heard my cry, some people including the manager came running, only to stop dead. Now, in my life, I've done stupid things. What came next rates rather highly among them. When asked what I did, I held my arm down by the magnets. It took the better part of ten minutes to remove all of them save one number six or nine that would not dislodge. They let me keep it.

3.) Court House of...Horror. (dun dun dun). Remember. Metal splint?

I had to do some business in the court house recently, and found myself waiting in line to enter. As I approached, I turned to one of the deputies. "Listen, I've got a metal splint on my hand. Mind taking me and wanding me since this thing is going to send that detector ballistic?" The guy nodded, and did so. Heading in, I found that I'd forgotten a tax paper; so I turned to go back. My second time through, the guy waived me past, since I had paper in hand. This occured in front of a few rednecks. Now, I'm not saying rednecks are stupid...but...

As I went around the detector and headed in, I happened to hear a rather loud "oof" behind me, followed by a scuffle. Ignoring it for the most part, I headed in, paid my taxes and on the way out happened to see redneck 1 (a burly guy in a trucker's hat and flannel) and redneck 2 (a bleach blonde waif with more pimples than pdiddy ever thought about) being escorted out under guard. WHA? Walking over, I also find that guard 1 (who let me around) was being tended to, and Guard 2 looked none too happy. I had to find out the story and this is what I was told.

Guard 1 had waved me through, since he had watched me go out grab the paper and come back. (standard procedure) Redneck 1 and 2 came in about the same time.

Redneck 1 saw me bypass the detectors, and for some reason decided that he could as well. He tried. God help him, he tried.

Guard 1, and 2 tell him to stop, with 1 moving before him. This irritated Redneck 1; who promptly responded with the typical redneck response. He decked guard 1. Bad idea.

Guard 2 reacts, macing Redneck 1. Redneck 2 screams like a bansee and attacks Guard 2. This results in SHE being maced. When it dies down, rednecks 0, guards 2.

The moral of the story? Just because you see someone else jumping off a bridge; would you? And if you do, aim for the rocks. Sometimes you get rescued.

[Ree]

It's a little irresponsible of that guard, actually, that he let you back through the second time, seeing as it was a courthouse.
Anyone can pass a security check, then claim to need to go back for a paper, and walk back in with a concealed gun. I guess it was the fact that he watched you go to your car and saw you get the paper, though, although I wonder that he had time to watch over one person in such a busy place as that, since you did mention there was a lineup and only 2 guards.

Hope your hand heals quickly.
I'd be concerned about gangrene if it smelled that badly, though. I hope you're on an antibiotic.
One of the first things they tell you to watch for with a fracture is a foul smell coming from under the cast.

[lordlundar]

I can agree ree, but if reps was observed the entire time, then it's permissible.

I love the bit with the magnets though. I probably would have been keeled over laughing if I saw that.

[Rapscallion]

I've never seen a rotting hand before. Feel like posting an image of your hand in the cast? Preferably with magnets attached, of course.

Since you were here last, we allowed members to upload attachments

Rapscallion

[NightAngel]

I'd like to see that as well.
Pics please!

[Ree]

I love the bit with the magnets though.

Me too.

I wish they'd had magnets like that when my daughter was small.

Most of them ended up falling off the fridge door and being sucked up by the vacuum, or stuck inside the bottom grille of the fridge.

If she'd had magnets so strong, perhaps her loving tribute to Mommy and Daddy wouldn't have read as "I lov Mom y nd ad y"

[NightAngel]

If she'd had magnets so strong, perhaps her loving tribute to Mommy and Daddy wouldn't have read as "I lov Mom y nd ad y"

And perhaps it would still be immortalized on your fridge to this day.

[powerboy]

Yeah, I want to see that too

[Ree]

And perhaps it would still be immortalized on your fridge to this day.

Yeah, I just checked, and after 19 years, the only thing I can spell out with the remaining letters is "bpmx".

[repsac]

I'm on these huge yellow, bad tasting horse pill antibiotics. So, yeah. It's possibly a light gangrene, but they told me that as long as it doesn't run bright yellow or pus colored, I'm ok. It's from the cause of the break (dog bite) mostly. And I see I left off the K-Mart story. That needs repeated.


It's a short story, compared to the rest, but it's where the thread name comes from. Namely, I wander into K-mart looking for a few things, only to have this clerk ask me on the way out if she can sign my cast. Now, normaly, this wouldn't bug me if she left a number , but still it struck me as odd to hear a total stranger wanting to sign it. Smiling, I appologize to the girl and say nicely "I'd rather you didn't." She seemed to understand, until I turned around to talk to a friend of mine. I "felt" this nudge on my arm and look down to see her complete with felt tip marker just finishing off her name. By that point, I was sore and opted NOT to press the issue, but when I changed the dressing I rather lost her name which I think may have been Tammy.

Still it begs to question. (Something I've noticed recently) What is it with people wanting to sign these bleeding things?

[Rapscallion]

People have been signing casts for years - I remember signing the cast of a fellow scout who got run over while playing silly buggers, and that was over two decades gone.

I think I got the last available piece of cast.

Rapscallion

[NightAngel]

Most people WANT other people to sign their casts. I have signed many casts of complete strangers over the years because they asked me to.

Then, maybe those people were hoping I'd leave my phone number to? Too bad I didn't think of that earlier...

[Rahmota]

I'm not sure why folks want their cast signed either. My son had all his friends sign his cast when he broke his thumb/wrist interface. I guess its some kind of souvenier of the event and the friends he had at the time.

They must have given you the temp cast/wrap because of the flesh thing as my son had a full fiberglass/permacrete (thats what it felt like if he'd whack ya with it) cast going from his palm up to his elbow to immobilize the wrist. That sucks about the bite. Hope ya get feeling better.

[Mr. Rager!]

Man! I would've loved magnets so strong that they leap of the shelves and attack anything magnetic on me. I could only imagine the nefarious plots I could plan with those.

At work, we play with magnets all the time. We actually have two magnets from a treadmill motor. Now those are POWERFUL magnets. Like when they slap together, they do it with such force that they create a tiny little spark. Truly PHENOMENAL!

However, we've never been able to get those to leap into action. As much as we've tried... where were these magnets again, I'm going to have to look into them. They sound interesting.

[repsac]

They were in one of the children's aisles, near a display of those metal boards kids can use them on. I still have that one floating around and I must admit even I was shocked they were so darned powerful.