February's Inktober52, 2023

#Inktober52 (The 2023 edition) continues!

February's prompts: Mighty, Skull, Odd, Pup.  (I committed a play on words for that last one.)

Two months down ...

 

 

........ Ruprecht ( STOP )

(Almost) Bleeding Out

No ... not an actual picture of my pooling blood

 
You know how water forms that little tension curve at its surface?  That's because their like molecules want to stick to each other until they're forced apart by gravity or some other means.

Well, the same goes for blood.  Only larger.

But I'm getting ahead of myself ...

I was using a scraping knife to get a label peeled off a book.  I ended up slipping and gouging my finger just below the knuckle of my left index finger, gouging it deeply enough that blood started flowing from it and pooling on the counter where I was working.  And man, did it ever flow.  I don't think I've ever cut myself so deeply with a scraper.   I didn't have anything to staunch the bleeding so I just stood there looking at it, thinking for a minute how I was going to get out of this predicament.  Paper towels were underneath the sink behind me which was a good 10 feet away from where I was standing so I couldn't reach them without dripping blood all over the place and there was nothing but dish towels in one of the drawers just below me.  I didn't want to bloody up any of them so I decided to stand there and think a minute.

Now, earlier, I had given a printer cartridge to Missy for the out-of-ink printer we had in another room.  She mentioned she didn't know how to install the cartridge and I playfully told her to figure it out.  After a minute or two I went to see what she was up to and realized she had locked the door into the room where the printer was.  I told her to open the door so I could install the cartridge but she resisted my help.  "Nope ... you told me to figure it out and that's what I'm gonna do" she said matter of factly.  I told her not to be stubborn and just open the door but she refused.  I pointed at the printer through the window in the door and explained she needed to flip open the printer because that's where the cartridge was, buried in its innards but she just ignored me.  So I just walked away.

And, on my return into the kitchen, was when I started fooling with the book, trying to get the label off.

So standing there dripping blood on the counter I began pounding against the granite countertop in an effort to try and attract her attention while yelling her name.  I graduated to slapping the wall thinking the sound of thudding would be even more of an earful but she was obviously ignoring me.  I knew she could hear me pounding away and yelling, at least distantly, but she was calling my bluff, ignoring my effort to help her install that printer cartridge.  Little did she know I was injured and bleeding.

Meanwhile, the blood pooling in front of me was growing ever larger with a pretty hefty meniscus forming at its surface.  (I wish I'd had my phone handy so I could have snapped a photo of that pooling blood ... but that would have been rather garish.)  At some point if I didn't do something about it it would threaten to drip over the edge of the counter.

A good 30 seconds of pounding and yelling yielded nothing from Missy.  Meanwhile, the pool of blood beneath my finger was growing exponentially.  I didn't think there was any chance of myself bleeding out but, still, the amount of blood coming out my finger was somewhat alarming.  That's when I realized I had rubber gloves in one of the drawers right where I was standing, so I opened a drawer with my free hand, pulled out a glove and jammed my bleeding hand into one so I wouldn't mess up any other surface other than the countertop.  Finally, I headed into the bathroom.  There, I started a water flush to get all the blood off my hand and begin cleaning it.  I applied hydrogen peroxide and just waited for the bleeding to slow down.  But the cut was pretty damned deep and it didn't seem as if it was going to stop anytime soon.

I washed it as best I could to clean it and applied additional hydrogen peroxide.  Finally Missy came in, curious what I was doing, and I told her I needed a little help, to please get me the Band Aids.  I asked her if she'd seen the pool of blood on the counter when she passed by on our way to the restroom.  She had not.  She mentioned she'd heard me pounding and yelling her name but she thought I was just trying to gain her attention to come out of the room.  I did but, instead, it was under the pretext I was injured and in need of assistance, not to coax her into letting me fix the printer.

Obviously, not the best time to get caught in the middle of a (possibly) life-threatening injury.

Which, really, it wasn't ... but it made for a bit more drama ... right?

 

.......... Ruprecht ( STOP )

Update: Then, there's this accurate little drawing I put together that went with Week #7's #inktober52 prompt and appropriate here ...

 

So, Yeah ... Sometimes I'm Grumpy

 

Look ... I know I'm a little grumpy sometimes.  But that doesn't necessarily nor automatically denote I'm dead wrong about things and simply emoting off-the-cuff grumpiness.

Grumpiness can be a good thing.  It can be cathartic.  It can be a good way to let off steam of the moment.

So here's the prelude to the situation where I got grumpy:  The front tires on my truck are in need to replacement, threatening to go bald. In other words, it's time for some new ones.  In many instances that requires purchasing a set of four tires because there are businesses out there who won't sell you just two tires.  (Or, simply, a single one for that matter.)  And I understand that in certain cases.

But when the rear tires on my truck are perfectly fine, there's no need to purchase 4 tires.  So I ran down to Walmart, just down the street, to see what I could see.  I took a picture of my tire size so I'd have it readily available and I talked to one of the service technicians down there.  I gave him the size of tire I needed, he looked it up and gave me half a dozen options to choose from.  I asked if it would behoove me to purchase a set of four tires - would there be a benefit to doing so price-wise?  He said it didn't make any difference, I could buy one if I wanted to.  Which I appreciated.  And I thanked him.  I asked if it was a good idea to make an appointment  for later or if there was a best time to show up when I was ready to pull the trigger ... and then I was on my merry way.

Fast forward to a couple days later.  I mentioned to Missy I had gotten a price on tires from Wal-Mart and she suggested I look up America's Tires (one of her preferred tire shops), Costco and Sam's Club among one or two others.  So right then and there I jumped on my phone and looked up Sam's Club.  

Once I navigated to the maintenance shop, I was asked to input my vehicle make, model, year and tire size before I could get any information.  Well, I already had tire size so I tried to input that information alone but it wouldn't let me access it without jumping through all the hoops of putting in complete information.  Which kind of ticked me off.  

In the meantime, Missy was looking up Costco tires and it was taking a long time for her to access that information in as well.  But she finally got where she wanted to be while offering up quite a bit less information than I had to with Sam's Club.

And that's when I got grumpy.  

Because I don't need to perform like a caged monkey just to get tire prices when I know exactly what I want.  I don't need to surrender an inordinate amount of information.  I'm reasonably intelligent and aware of what I need without requiring the "Purchasing Tires For Dummies" manual the Sam's Club website was asking for.  

I've got what I need, I know what I need, so fulfill my request already.  But it's just not that easy, is it?

And that's when I got grumpy.  I ranted and raved that I didn't want to have to input 12 million things when all I needed to do was provide ONE! THING! PERIOD!  How much simpler could it be?!?  GAAAAAAAAHHH ... !!!

So, looking back ... yeah I guess I might have gotten a bit emotional about the situation.  And maybe I did spit out a little vitriol along with a hefty dose of grumpiness.

But, you know ... with good reason ...

 

 

........ Ruprecht ( STOP )

Inktober52, The 2023 Edition

Well ... it's that time of year again.  Time to get the creative juices flowing and the beginning of the year off to an inky start, so to speak.

#Inktober52 (The 2023 edition) has launched once again, the challenge asking participants to output something ink-related 52 times based on a provided weekly prompt.

The first four for January are in the books below:  Build, Puppet, Shadow and Angel.

One month down, 48 more images to go.

 

  

 

 

 

 

........ Ruprecht ( STOP )