That Pesky Finger, again

I was out riding in the hills with Brandilyn, Skip and Dave about a week ago. New Years Day, I think it was. We were having a fairly okay time - well, everyone except Brandilyn, that is. You see, trail riding is just not her thing. I always thought she would learn to love it since horses seem to be her passion as they are mine, but, now alas, I have finally conceded. My daughter only loves riding in a nice, safe arena - flying over 4' jumps on a 16+ hand horse. Go figure.

But that's not where this story is going. So, we were riding when Dave and I decided it was about time to break into a gentle lope. We just got started when we heard screaming (coming from Brandilyn) behind. It turns out that the naughty horse she was riding took to bucking somewhat. I went to pull my horse up and caught the edge of my nail from that dog gone finger on my saddle. It just peeled the nail right back and sent me to yelping almost as loud as my daughter!

I managed to hold my cool and collect myself. The ride ended soon enough and I went up to the house and trimmed the nail up as short as I could. It just kept throbbing and really being a pain in my tail. I think I might have been a bit verbal about it to boot. Well, this went on for a couple of days. I just kept catching it on stuff or bumping it and it just sent me into some very serious swearing sessions. Skip convinced me that I should see the doc. I finally conceded and told Brandilyn I would be better off amputating the dog gone thing!

After some serious thought, I decided amputation might hurt, be unsightly and hinder my blogging - not to mention be just a wee bit extreme. Can't have that! At any rate, I went to the doc and told him my big sad tale. I was ready to have him numb the finger and remove the nail so I could get on with life. He then looked at me like I was completely daft! "Do you have any idea how much pain you are asking me to inflict upon you?" (I did). "I can see no good reason why you would want that." (well, where should I start?) "Furthermore, the risk of infection and completely damaging your nail bed would be pretty great." (Uh, I guess we don't want to go there again). "If you leave it tapped up the damaged nail is going to fall off within the week and the new nail will start healing normal." (Normal? What is normal? Have I ever seen normal? Huh, what a concept).

So I left his office.