A Personal Lament

So, I've been having trouble with my old Cavalier lately. The rear, driver-side door was flying open for no reason, after which it would become impossible to close properly. I was informed this morning that the lock mechanism is shot out, but for the past couple of weeks I've been managing with copious WD40 applications.

Until yesterday when, out in the 905, the mechanism gave its last and I wound up driving around with my wife in the back holding the door shut. We got to the mall we were looking for, and while she went inside to shop, I began to fiddle around with the door.

And with none of my usual techniques working, I came up with a scheme that involved string, WD40, and a seat-belt cutter. Had it succeeded, my scheme would have been like an episode from McGyver, but instead I wound up stabbing myself with the seat-belt cutter, looking at the wound and thinking "Damn! That goes right down to the bone!"

So the rest of my afternoon was spent at the walk-in clinic at Branson, waiting for my turn in "the laceration room". There were a couple of guys from a tow-truck company in front of me, and the injured one looked professionally embarrassed by the fact he had cut himself up on the job. As for the fellow one bed over, I think they were picking bits of metal out of his ass. I never got the details, though. BBQ accident?

In the end: 2 stitches. It was the wife's birthday too, so she wasn't terribly pleased. But it could have been worse. One inch in another direction and I might have been forced to rename myself "9 Fingered Lib".