Keeping with the theme of Christmas this week, my story for “Talk About it Tuesday” takes place a few days before Christmas in 1991 or 1992. This story is also an example of “things my secretary doesn’t know” because it involves the process of locking a car door in the time before key fobs. Which, let me just say, if this happened today, I don’t think it would have been as big of a deal.
So, one year when I lived in Georgia, my mom drove a little two-door, tomato red Toyota Tercel.
She and I had just arrived home and as I got out of the passenger side, I pushed the door lock, because that’s what you had to do to lock your car. You opened the door, pushed the door lock button/lever on the inside of the door and then you shut the door and your car is locked.
I followed those steps. Except, when I shut the door, my entire body was not out of the car. The thumb on my left hand lingered just inside the door. If memory serves, I had my hand on the outside of the car when I slammed the door. Imagine, if you will, a 10-year old girl who just shut the car door on her thumb. But she can’t get her thumb out without opening the door. And you can’t open the door without putting a key in the lock and turning it. No key fobs.
Needless to say, I screamed. Loudly. I can still picture my mother running around the front of the car and unlocking my door to get my thumb out. She said one time that she had nightmares about that scream for a long time after that.
My thumb was quite injured from that. It ended up that she had to take me to the emergency room because the blood under my fingernail had spread to more than half of my nail. That’s what the doctor said on the phone when she called while I writhed around on the couch in pain.
I don’t know what exactly happened to my thumb, but I remember I had to have something done to it. They removed my thumb nail, did something inside my thumb, then stitched me up. There were stitches on the inside that dissolved, but then they stitched my thumbnail back on. I had to go later to have those stitches removed. I remember I kept wanting to watch them work on my thumb, but my mom made me keep my head turned. She even took off her glasses so there was no way to see the reflection.
It made opening presents on Christmas interesting because the bandage on my thumb turned it into something akin to corn on the cob. My dad had to help me with opening some of the more difficult boxes. There’s a picture of Christmas morning somewhere where my white gauzed thumb is visible. I also remember I missed out on Christmas dinner that year because the pain meds I had to take knocked me out.
Interesting consequence of this incident is that my mom’s adrenaline was such that when she unlocked the car door to get my thumb out, she jerked the handle so hard that it broke. After that, the door could only be opened from the inside. When my sister went to take her driver’s test with that car, the only one she had ever practiced in, the dmv lady wouldn’t let her use it. The car had to be fully operational and because my sister had to open the passenger door for her, the car couldn’t be used. So she had to use my dad’s car, which she had never driven. She was terrified but still passed.
My left thumb actually looks similar to how it did back then as it was healing. Two months ago I smashed it in the back door of our house. It was all gross looking for those two months and has now finally shed the nail and is regrowing. It hasn’t gotten very far yet.
I think at this point, my best bet is to protect my left thumb at all costs. It can’t be trusted to not put itself in harms way.
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