Story number 1 of 2:

Once, I managed to render a serious injury to my foot. I'll spare the most gruesome of details, but it involved running barefoot in the dark dodging a sprinkler and forgetting that there was an unfinished construction project in the backyard. Buried in the ground were concrete piers with the integral straps sticking up. Foot versus strap and the strap won (nearly relieving me of my wittle toe). Now, I'm laying on the ground in the dark, writhing in pain as the popup rainbird sprinkler [about two feet away] I was trying to dodge regularly smites me with blasts of water.

(chook, chook, chook, chook, chook, chooka-chooka-chooka-chooka-chooka-chook, chook, chook, chook...)

I eventually get up the hill to the house and call for assistance from the wife.

Did I mention that we had MOVED OUT of this house into another one, and were preparing it to rent? Well, that meant that there were very little supplies to be had. She patched me up with paper towels and masking tape, and wrapped me in an old sheet that we were using as a drop cloth.

There I sat, shivering in the E.R., dressed in sopping wet shorts and t-shirt, wrapped in a paint-stained sheet, with bare feet (one of which was a bloody wad of paper towel and masking tape). I guess I was entertaining and pale enough to jump to the head of the triage line ahead of the illegal aliens with runny noses.

The guy nurse that unwrapped the wad that was my foot takes one look at my dangling toe and calls "Bro'. HEY BRO! Come and check THIS out!!" to one of his co-workers. I was quite the entertainment for them that night.

Although they said it was iffy whether the toe would stay attached or just turn colors and fall off, the former turned out to be the case.