My left hand has seen better days, due to a chance encounter with a grater. I'm kind of big on hash browns, you see, and the way one makes hash browns is to grate them.
However, my hash browns are different. I leave the skin on the potatoes, which is healthier. More vitamins and minerals, you see.
The problem, though, is this--potato skins don't grate well. They stick. Which is a huge problem when you get right down to the last quarter or so. Which leads to the chance encounter with the grater.
The first chance encounter was simple--I grated the knuckle of my left thumb, scraping off a decent bit of the epidermis. Needless to say, this hurt. Not quite as much as my second chance encounter, though.
In the second chance encounter, which was the next day, I grated the potato down to the last quarter, then proceeded to grate my thumb in the exact same place where I had grated it the last time. I am proud to say I did not scream for very long, maybe only a half-second before I went straight to getting tears in my eyes.
So today I was being careful. I was being very careful, and my thumb was nowhere near the grater holes. Which is why I was that much more embarassed when the last bit of potato caught my left index finger and took off not only a bit of skin, but split my fingernail kind of deep. The pain, my friends, was somewhat higher than excruciating.
Now, I know that two deep scrapes on my left hand's fingers are not that big a deal compared with other injuries, such as a broken leg or getting your hand slammed in the car door. But still, there are an awful lot of nerve endings in your fingers, and several of them are lit up like Christmas trees right now. I'm thinking of wearing a winter glove the next time I grate potatoes.
Chris