I’m back from my weekly Tuesday morning shopping expedition. The emergency run for cat food two days ago doesn’t count, because I couldn’t bring myself to do the sensible thing and work out a full shopping list before I went, so I ran out of fresh milk yesterday as usual.
Before I left, I prepared breakfast for my return, and, in the process of slicing the end crust of the loaf into two to fit the toaster, cut my left index finger. I held it under the cold tap, wrapped it in kitchen roll, and kept pressing it and moving the kitchen roll as it became soaked in blood. Then went looking for plasters, which I found in the form of continuous strips in the downstairs bathroom. Hunted for the scissors – on the kitchen table, among all the card-making stuff. Cut a biggish strip off and wrapped it over the wound and round the end of my finger.
Collected together bags, wallet, phone, checked I had the right cards, filled Miko’s water bowl, made sure she was inside, she started running around manically so I spoke to her gently and sat down with her for a few minutes to calm her down, checked the list (on my phone), picked up the scarf I’ve been using as a face mask, wrapped it round, left the building, and in locking the door realised there was fresh red blood dripping down my arm. I must have put pressure on the wound somehow, probably when pulling up the door handle.
So I went back into the house, and tried to work out where I’d left the plasters and the scissors. I noticed that everywhere I’d walked there were perfectly spaced, perfectly round bright red drops of blood on the floor. They looked like tiddlywinks.
I thought: never mind wrapping a scarf round my face, I really can’t go round Tesco dripping blood everywhere. I decided I was hors de combat, and could justifiably excuse myself from shopping duty – the main priority was milk, and I’d got a carton of UHT (bought for making yoghurt, but also as an emergency reserve) and a tin of evaporated.
I found the plasters back in the bathroom cabinet, but only at the second iteration – the box was lying down behind the lip at the bottom of the cupboard, and I didn’t recognise it. I stuck another one over the first and that seemed to do the trick. Might as well go shopping after all, as I’d psyched myself up.
So, once again I went through the whole palaver of remembering everything I needed to take, including the scarf which I’d discarded over the back of a chair, and this time I opened, closed and locked the front door without injury.
I haven’t even got enough words left to tell you what happened en route to the supermarket and after I got there. Give me rules to follow, and I’ll panic about getting them wrong. Thoughts for another day.
