Giving Everyone The Finger

A couple of weeks ago, something really weird happened at the antique market where I work. And that’s saying a lot, because weird sh*t happens there all the time, as I’m sure you’ve realized based on my previous stories about it, like the guy who did a LOT of cocaine. For another example, see last month:

Me: So that’s six magazines at $4 each, plus tax. Your total is $27.12
Woman (volunteering this with no prompting): The Playboys are for my son. He’s 17.
Me: How would you like to pay?
Woman: He’ll be so excited.
Me: I can only imagine. Have a great day.

So, yes, the clientele can be a little—quirky. But a week ago Monday, this one really took the cake. A man came in, short, twitchy, with a shock of bright orange hair under his ball cap. He smelled REALLY bad. He was interested in jewelry and one of the owners took a tray of rings out of the showcase and brought it to the counter so he could look at them all. My co-worker and I were behind the counter, and we also made a beeline for the rings because the vendor had just come in and restocked. The man kept going on about “his lady” and how great ‘his lady’ was, and how ‘his lady’ deserved only the best, ad nauseum, until he’d finally picked out several rings. Then he went to look around on the other floors, at which point, my co-worker said, “Oh my god, that was disgusting.”

And she wasn’t talking about ‘his lady’. Nope, she was talking about the horrifyingly swollen, cracked open, bloody, and black index finger that the guy kept pointing around with. I’d never seen anything like it before—I’d describe it even further but some of you may have weak stomachs.

Me: What the hell happened to him?! That’s unreal!
Co-Worker: I know! I’m burning with curiosity!
Boss: I’ll find out.

So when the guy came down to pay for his rings, the young boss asked him about it.

“Oh, that,” he said. “I was doing some carpentry, and I was about to hammer a nail into the floor when someone knocked on the door. It scared the crap out of me and I jumped and hammered my finger instead. But it’s okay—it doesn’t hurt. They gave me some antibiotics at the doctor’s but then we got into an argument, so I haven’t been back.” Then he left.

Co-worker: I can’t believe that doesn’t hurt—it looks insanely painful.
Me: There’s a reason why it doesn’t hurt.
Boss: Why?
Me: It’s dead. He has gangrene. The next time we see him, he’ll be missing a finger. If he survives it.
Boss: Gangrene? Seriously? How do you know?

How do I know?! Because I’m Gen X, obviously. When we were growing up, there were very few rules:

1) Look both ways before you cross the street.
2) Don’t talk to strangers.
3) Come in when the streetlights turn on.
4) Watch out for quicksand.
5) If you cut it, clean it. Otherwise, you’ll get gangrene and it’ll fall off.

Even as a late-middle-aged adult (because I plan to live past 100), I still abide by these rules. Except for number 2—because of my job, I’m literally forced to do this, and now, thanks to number 2, I’ve seen the physical evidence for number 5. Number 3 is, of course, my favourite, because I have no desire to be anywhere other than my bed with a glass of wine once the streetlights turn on.

So then I had to explain gangrene to some of my younger colleagues, whose collective reaction was “EWWW!!! No wonder he smelled so bad!”

And sure enough, guess who was back this past Tuesday? He was looking for more rings for ‘his lady’. My co-worker leaned forward over the counter a little and whispered, “He’s got it wrapped up…but it looks shorter…”

Yep. Sure enough, the finger was gone. When he came to pay, I’d been nominated to ask him about it:

Me: I remember you from last week. What happened with the…?
Gangrene Man (waves hand with only four digits angrily): I went to the hospital, and they cut it off!
Me: Uh, sorry to hear that.
Gangrene Man: Stupid hospital. And then they were like, “You should have taken all the antibiotics.” Anyway, my lady is gonna love these rings. Nothing too good for her.

And then he was gone. Like that gangrenous finger.

In other news, I’ve just launched Baxter House Editions, the reprint division of DarkWinter Press. Here’s a little bit about how it came about, you can read the story here!

47 thoughts on “Giving Everyone The Finger”

  1. barbaramullenix says:

    That’s a great story about Baxter House – Congratulations on setting all that up!

    I’m a much older generation from you, but I had the same list of rules, except we didn’t have the quicksand one, but instead we had the clean underwear one – in case of accidents – we wouldn’t want to shame our parents, would we? And good grief! What would we tell the neighbors!

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  2. I’d love to know the back story about the mom buying Playboy magazines for her 17-year-old son—honestly, that had me raising an eyebrow. In an age where the internet offers a vast sea of information (and more), it’s both amusing and slightly perplexing. Makes you wonder about the conversations at their dinner table, doesn’t it?

    As always, your post brought a hearty laugh and a moment of reflection. Thanks for sharing these snippets of life’s quirky moments!

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  3. With my Mom it wasalways tetanus! Some kid she knew growing up stepped on a rusty nail, got tetanus and died. So every time one of us kids got a cut, out came the burning peroxide! Cuts and splinters have been a part of my everyday life at work now for 25 years, and I’m pretty bad about cleaning them. Never gotten tetanus (or gangrene) yet!

    And it’s funny, because as a kid I was fascinated with the streetlights and loved to watch them all pop on one at a time! And with my night owl tendencies I had even as a kid, I could even watch them all go off as well!

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  5. The story of Baxter House is great but…the guy with gangrene. The weird thing is I, for no reason, assumed he was also Gen X. I knew some people like him when I was growing up and now I wonder how many have survived. Sepsis is a terrible thing and he’s lucky he only lost a finger. He’s lucky he was able to come back in. And I guess his lady won’t be buying him any rings.

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    • No, he was a Millenial. Frankly, I was surprised he was still alive–that finger looked like it would end him! When he showed up this week all amputated, the rest of the hand wasn’t looking so good–ALL THE ANTIBIOTICS, DUDE!

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  6. You called it on the finger! All I can say is that I don’t think he actually has a “lady,” because if he did, she wouldn’t have allowed his finger to get that bad. Great story, though! Also, QUICKSAND?!!! Did you grow up around areas with quicksand? That’s got to be a fascinating story if you did. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in real life. Now it’s on my bucket list! Ha! 🙃 Mona

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  8. Wow, I WAS that kid who stepped on a nail, but I didn’t get tetanus because my mom took me to the ER as soon as I told her. I too lived by those same rules you did. Tetanus shot hurt like a motherfucker and to be honest, also being Gen-X, I stepped on a nail because I was a kid who went out and played outside as much as I could. I rode my bike through cotton fields and on canals, played in apricot orchards with my cousins. And in a junk yard since my dads eldest brother had one in his backyard, we were there all the time. This is where I stepped on that nail that was stuck in some old railroad ties he’d just acquired a couple of days earlier. But Mr. Gangrene, that’s just freaking gross, but im sure “his lady” if she truly exits (and not just in his head) doesn’t mind since he’s buying her all those rings 🤣😝😂.

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  9. I stepped on a nail in the sixties when I went behind a large copy machine to figure out what was wrong with it. The guys at work took me to a doctor who cleaned it out and I did receive a tetanus shot. 

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  14. Also being a Gen X, but British, the usual response to some gory injury (in reality a small scratch that seeps a trickle of blood) sustained whilst playing out in the fields was to point out the victim would have to go to hospital for a tetanus jab. The one exception was a friend who played around on the nearby railway line (for a coal pit’s shunting yard) and somehow managed to lose a toe. I think it was a bit more sudden than gangrene though.

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  15. I worked at a pharmacy at a teenager — some of those experiences were incorporated into The Dogcatcher — and we had no shortage of crazy customer encounters, but Gangrene Man takes the cake!

    One of the litmus tests for Gen Xers is, “Did you ever wind up in the emergency room, and when your parents came to pick you up, they were annoyed with you — not remotely concerned or sympathetic — for interrupting their day?” That happened to me, to my wife, and to a bunch of Xers I know!

    Awesome news about Baxter House Editions, Suzanne, and I love the story behind the name!

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  17. Ugh…thank you for not going into more detail – haven’t had breakfast yet. I’ve read about gangrene but never seen or smelled it. I don’t know whether to feel sorry for that man or wonder how many kinds of stupid there are in this world. 😦

    p.s. congratulations on the reprint. 🙂 I honestly don’t know where you get your energy from. Go girl!

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  18. OMG. I’ve never actually heard of anyone getting gangrene since the the middle ages (at least since the invention of penicillin). Eeek. We’ll I’m glad you all got down to the truth. I hope his lady is happy with the rings. 🙂

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  21. Congrats on Baxter House, and thanks for the link. Truly interesting history.

    I hope it will be a wildly successful venture. 🙂

    The Gen X rules are ones to live by. My mother was a big one for lecturing us re: making sure random body parts didn’t fall off due to gangrene, bless her.

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