One Time I Did Something Not Smart

By "not smart" I totally mean stoo-pid.

This is a tale as old as time. The time I glued my fingers to the ass from the nativity. And also to each other.

[It's perfectly acceptable to say "ass" because it's in the bible.]

When I arrived home for Christmas break my mother was sick. She'd been sick since about October 8th meaning that she was sick for 75 days. Seven days earlier she'd had sinus surgery to clear the nastiness from her the holes in her head which were filled with infectious fluids. Pleasant, no?

The whole reason for me telling you about my mother's illness is that she hadn't decorated squat for Christmas. The tree had been up for about 48 hours. The fall decor was still upon the mantle. The nativity scenes were packed away in their boxes in the back closet.

One of the things I do best is taking control. That means I spent my first day home decorating. I put away the fall things, I rearranged the furniture [12 years of the same furniture arrangement is about 11 years and 4 months too long for me]; I put up candles; I hung lights and ornaments; I move pictures; I pulled out all the nativities.

ACK! The donkey is missing his ear!?!? Luckily it was in the box and I am the queen of repair. [See: first sentence from previous paragraph.]

I rooted around in the junk drawer and the junk cupboard and the other junk drawer to find some super-glue. Then I requested that my dad pick some up from the store. He brought back a 4-pack of the cheapest glue he could find.

Cheap is not always best. You get what you pay for, you know. 

I poked a hole in the top and put the lid on so I could accurately put a teeny-tiny drop of glue on the ass' head to attach the ear. Unfortunately, once I attached the lid about half the tube gushed out and ran down my hand.

It was still in liquid form. It didn't feel like much, it reminded me of oil which I've had on my hands many, many times without any problems. Plus, we've all experimented with a drop of super-glue and sticking and unsticking our fingers. I would be fine.

Except, my fingers were now stuck to the donkey. And to each other. And they weren't coming apart. This was definitely not oil. And the large quanity of cheap-ass glue was not what I played with as a child. [This use of "ass" is inappropriate.]

AT. ALL.

AT ALL! This is the dilemma...how does one dissolve a large quantity of super-glue which has dried between her fingers?

Nail polish remover? No.

Warm or hot water? No.

Petroleum jelly? We don't even have that, but we do have some Vicks [a top ingredient is petroleum jelly]. Did it work? No.

In addition to the difficulty in de-stickifying my fingers, our entire family would be arriving at our house in about 5 minutes. We'd invited them over for snacks and desserts. Perfect timing.

Must. 

Get. 

Fingers. 

Apart.

Did anyone in my family help me? Dad? Dad? I'm pretty sure he was busy on facebook and had no idea this was even occurring. Mom? Stop laughing at me. Oh, thanks for the Vicks. Dave? Thank you for looking up less than stellar solutions on your computer. Matt? Stop taking pictures. Abby? If you could get up off the floor where you have fallen because you're laughing at me that would be great. Brody? Auntie Amy loves you.

If you want it done you've got to do it yourself: I did it with a knife.

And it worked...luckily becuase if my fingers had remained stuck together that would wreaked havoc on my massage business. Plus it looked prissy and I'm totally not a prissy person. 

That was the time I glued the ass to my hand.

Thank you, Matt for photo-documenting this life-changing incident.