Sticky Fingers

I guess the apple doesn't usually fall too far from the tree, as they say. Ellie came downstairs crying a few days ago. She had managed to get her finger stuck in the narrow end of her play flute. I pulled and tried to twist it off, but it was stuck on pretty good. Because the plastic tapers down at that end, she could push her finger in but the skin would bunch up and prevent her/me from pulling it back out. I tried squirting soap on her finger but that didn't work. I was starting to get visions of emergency rooms as I kept trying to pull the flute off without success. Finally I hit on the idea of pouring olive oil down the open end of the flute. That greased Ellie's finger enough to pull it out. Phew!

It reminded me of a time when I was younger, maybe 10 or 11. My parents had one of those old LP record players. The box that the record player was mounted on had several small holes drilled in the back. We were watching a movie in our living room and I was sitting next to the record player, mindlessly sticking my finger in one of the holes when it got stuck. The edge of the hole was rough particleboard and as I frantically tried to pull my finger out it scraped my skin and caused my finger to start swelling. My brothers and sisters thought this predicament was hysterical of course. I was petrified that I would either have a record player stuck to my hand for the rest of my life or have to get my finger amputated. Eventually my siblings did try to help me, and so did my parents when they got home. I was stuck at least an hour though before my dad got out his power tools and ended up carefully drilling and sawing the back of the box open so I could free my poor finger. It was really traumatic. Poor Ellie. Sometimes you just can't fight genetics.