So last night, I’m making my family-famous tahini-lemon sauce and I decide to rinse off the immersion blender while it’s still plugged in.

I’m rinsing away, getting ready to do another recipe and…four hours later, I leave Queen’s with two white gauze sausages on my left hand. It took me about 10 minutes to type the previous two sentences (and I normally type 90 wpm). I shredded the pads of two fingers on my left hand (I’m right-handed, which is the only reason this post is even happening).

The immersion blender in question is a story in itself. Our visiting children brought it with them when they came to stay, for pureeing baby food for our twin granddaughters. I had previously owned a “stick” or immersion blender but it was battery-operated and always dead as a midnight cockroach when I needed it. I gave it away.

But then I fell in love with this thing, a Cuisinart. I mentioned it in a previous blog. There’s been a running joke in the household that, when the kids move out, I’m going to hide it. Yes, steal from my children. I’ve hinted broadly that it should be my thank you gift for hosting them for the last few weeks. They’re not buying it. They love the thing, too.

So, I’m lying on the ER bed at Queen’s and I’ve just endured about 7 shots of lidocaine and the doc. is starting the stitches and I say to my husband (who is very sweetly holding my hand and trying to distract me), “Don’t you think I should get the blender now that I’ve shed blood for it?” He gives me a look that only a long-suffering man can give his crazy wife and says, “No.”

But then he said I could have one for Christmas.

Worth the pain!