I’ve got something in common with the President of the United States: thin skin.
I believe I can thank my father Richard Manning for this affliction.
He was an automobile mechanic and always had bumps, scrapes, cuts, bruises, and scabs all over his arms and hands from doing manual labor all day long. My Dad never complained about his station in life, which included for forty-something years having dirty grease under his fingernails. (That stuff wouldn’t come out even with Boraxo soap. It was his badge of honor, probably.)
He was a tough guy. I can remember him accidentally stapling himself, slicing himself, burning himself, nailing himself, dropping heavy objects on his feet, falling off of ladders and roofs, and doing a 60-mph cartwheel while water skiing which blew out an eardrum. Did I mention that he had only one eye? It’s true: he lost it to a slingshot accident when he was a kid.
Like every other impediment in his life, he just brushed it off and kept plodding ahead.
The only times I ever heard him swear in my life were those occasions where an impact wrench fell on his head, he almost lost a finger to a band saw, or got a second traffic ticket in less than 5 minutes. (In that incident, he mouthed off to the officer who gave him the speeding ticket, then unsafely bolted back into traffic, whereupon the Highway Patrolman pulled him over again…grinning.)
One time he absolutely mashed his thumb with a sledge hammer in the garage, walked calmly into the house to my Mom, put the bloody, exploded appendage on the kitchen table, and said, “You got a BandAid?”.
I remember a few times when he would sit in his easy chair with a drill bit in the fingers of one hand and he would spin the bit and drill into a thumb nail that had been smashed…to relieve the pressure from the blood clot under the nail. The result was a short-lived, red geyser. Then he would go back to doing the crossword puzzle (which he completed every evening…in ink.)
I was skiing with him one day along with my brother Terry at Park City, Utah. As we came down the mountain, on pretty thin snow, I took a quick detour around a rock-strewn road. Both my brother and Dad, who were following me, took headers into the gravelly dirt and my Dad speared a sharp rock with his head. That guy could bleed; when we got down to the lodge, and my Mom saw him, it appeared that he’d been decapitated. No scab for this wound; he had to get stitched up.
More often than not, Richard Manning simply ignored bloody carnage and let the scabbing process do its magic.
However, when he got older his skin got thin, and he would get all manner of bruises, scrapes, and scabbed up hands and arms from minor brushes with objects. It was more noticeable then, because he was retired and wasn’t as active in the garage building or repairing things. (On a positive note, the axle grease under his fingernails were a thing of the past!)
MAYBE MY DAD’S DNA GOT DILUTED AS HE AGED? (Sounds plausible to me, but, then, I got a D in high school Biology.)
I’m retired now myself, approaching 73 years old (the same age as my Dad when he passed on!), and I have the curse: the old man’s thin skin.
I can’t seem to go a day without getting a new scrape from running into some stationary object, falling down while hiking, stabbing myself on cactus out in the backyard, getting scratched by dog paws, or ripping my epidermis while accomplishing a Honey Do project out in the garage. Even the skin on my shoulders and head is decorated with various irritations and roughness, and I’ve got some miniature scabs in my ears from who knows what.
Conversely, the skin on my feet and toes has thickened as I have aged! I have to get periodic pedicures to grind off the excessively thick, cracked skin. And, I have more hair in my nose and ears. What is THAT about?
These exceptions are not consistent with my hypothesis on DNA dilution! I will have to give that theory more thought.
As I was saying before I interrupted myself, my scabs have scabs. And I had just about become scab-free on my left hand a week ago when I brushed the exterior stucco wall with a knuckle…and scraped off a huge, deep chunk of skin the size of a dime. Geez, what a klutz. Add one more big scab to the inventory.
And now I can’t golf for a week! Dammit.
The only good thing about this thin skin problem of mine is that my wife Charlie LOVES scabs. She gets a perverse pleasure picking them (ask our kids!), even when the things aren’t yet healed. I sometimes have to restrain her from going after some of my healthier scabs. “He’s not ready!”, I’ll shout.
However, Charlie is also an ex-nurse, so she is quite adept at debriding my wounds and bandaging me up. That comes in handy, like it did today, because I tend to ignore the things, get my wounds dirty with landscaping manure and such, and let the dogs lick the things. (Who knows where those tongues have been, right?)
The point is that I am not that hygienic…except for strictly adhering to the Five Second Rule and always dousing myself with hand sanitizer after going to the supermarket.
Oh, yes…call me un-patriotic, but I always wear a facemask in public.
Other than that, I believe in the Golden Rule…I try not to bother germs, and I ask that they do likewise.
Luckily for me, Charlie can spot an infection ring around a pesky wound and order me to sit down so she can save my ass from tetanus or gangrene or worse.
Those Covid-19 germs don’t stand a chance against my woman.
She’s got my back…and my scabs!