I am a nurse. Therefore, I see lots of goo and ook and blood every day.

Chop your hand off in a combine and I'm your pal. Shake hands with a moving chainsaw? I'm there on the spot. Enormous brain surgery? No problem.

Break a fingernail? I get woozy.

I once sliced a fingernail with a mandoline while slicing potatoes and passed out when I had to change the band-aid.

You are not alone.

Ow...

Being a former athletic trainer I saw something simular. One of two things that caused me to go ewww in my 3 year tenure. The other one... well we won't go there

GAH!!!!

Oh man, I can't believe you could even write about that without pausing to put your head down between your knees.

I cut my finger very badly with my 8-inch chef's knife once while washing it, and I still can't think about it without the hair on my neck standing straight up.

Hope it heals well for you, and I'm very glad it is on your left hand!

My toes curled up just from reading that.......ow ow ow ow ow

"very bloody"! "chainsaw"! "goo and ook and blood every day"! "ewww"! Oh yeah, *this* is going to improve those google ads.

I sliced off the tip of one of my fingers with a mandoline. Ouch, ouch, ouchy! How in the world are you still typing??

somedays those potatoes in a bag don't sound so bad :)

**said totally tongue in cheek, cause we all know that potatoes in a bag are even worse than a mutilated fingernail**

Keep track of those gloves this time!
--Weaver

Ouch. OUCH.

I try very hard to not rant and peel. Dangerous. Obviously.

Love your blog - ALOT!

I've done that before, though it was toenail.

Years ago, when I was about 5 or 6. Chills still run down my spine when I think about it.

Sending quick healing vibes, FW.

Probably hurts more because there are more nerve endings in the fingertips than in other parts of the hand. I just hate doing things to my fingers. Doesn't make me as woozy as eyeball stuff but it's definitely up there with the other stomach lurcher stuff.

Aaaaaaaaaaack!!!! Hope you finger heals quickly.

*shudder* That sounds horrific. Hope you heal quickly.

Ewwww. And just yesterday, somewhere on the 'net, I saw a Japanese (of course) video suggesting cutting just through the skin of a potato, boiling it and then submerging it in a bowl of water and ice. Ten seconds and then the skin slips right off! No peeling! No danger! Please consider this method...oh yeah, ewwwww again.

I use Nana's technique, and a ricer, don't even have to handle them taters at all when doing mashed.

I think it would be funny to note how we react, viscerally, to someone else's trauma. In my case, the skin on the back of my knees "crawls" and I get a heavy feeling in my throat, like trying to swallow a whole navel orange...and both things happened just as I read "The potato was in my left hand, peeler in my right." knowing nothing good could come after that. You poor thing!

OH.......MY..........GAAAAAAAAAA!!! I am hurting for you!!!

Have you ever seen the apple peeler/corer/slicer from Pampered Chef? It can also peel potatoes in a snap...all you have to do is attach the potato and turn the handle..voila!!!

http://www.pamperedchef.com/our_products/catalog/product.jsp?productId=229&categoryCode=CE

I was cleaning the scales off a fish when I was about 10 yearrs old and as i was moving against the grain my index finger slipped right into one of the bones on the fin right through the cuticle. I lost my breath and just stood there intil I had the courage to pull my finger out.

I have a high tolerance for pain but that was unbearble. Another time I stuck a carpet staple into my knee, so yeah good times.

Now, see, if your potatoes came out of a bag, that wouldn't be an issue, would it? ;)

Finger nails do me in like nothing else, mine or someone else's pain. My son once had a skateboard accident involving a finger nail, and I actually passed out trying to help him clean it up. We both subsequently went to the ER, he for the finger nail, me for the concussion when I hit my head on the floor.

Um, since I'm assuming you weren't cooking for Dracula, I guess you had to start peeling all over again?

Ow. Sorry.

Last summer my best friend ripped her middle fingernail halfway off when she caught it on the edge of the dryer while putting clothes in. When people saw the bandage and asked her what she did, she couldn't tell them because thinking about it made her want to vomit. She told people to ask her husband to explain it when she wasn't around.

I was an Executive Chef for about 15 years and I got to the point where almost nothing hurt (burns, cuts, etc) from about my elbows down. Nothing EXCEPT for taking off fingernails. Twice. Cut left index fingernail off once and when I was an apprentice I ripped one off while grating cheese.

Fingernail trauma sucks.

Love your blog. Reminds me to be happy every day that I don't own a restaurant anymore.

OH MY GOD, I MY GOD, I MY GOD!!!

Gak!! I felt that one in my teeth. I'm a physician & have beheld many things. (Don't play gross-out with me cuz I'll win, with just what I've held in my hands - medical professionals excepted.) But, even tho I could see it coming, I still cringed. I've done it myself, tho not so bad. GAK!!!

In the spirit of one-up-manship - my GAK moment was last year, when clearing out an elderly relative's apartment, when I discovered she kept an unsheathed razor blade in a kitchen drawer. It missed the nailbed by millimeters. But, it was still a GAK!! moment.

This fall, I was baking barefoot in the kitchen and I stepped on a toothpick. Gah! The toothpick entered my foot and broke off, leaving me with a small puncture wound and 1.5 inches of wood embedded in my sole. It took 2800 dollars of surgery to remove it.

Now, every time someone starts a story with "I was in the kitchen..." I get that visceral reaction, like I just watched someone eat a baby.

I'm VERY sorry about whatever happened, but my brain shut down when it realized where you were headed, and I couldn't read it :::shudder:::

I hope you feel better!!!

owwww... just in case your post didn't make me ill enough, reading through everyone else's comments and experience completely did me in!

hope it heals soon!

and yah, suddenly the google ads don't seem too bad after all...

I just clenched my teeth and sucked in air and said, 'Eeesh...'.

Exactly like that.

My stand mixer peels potatoes, and don't they have big things that do it for you? Peelers scare me.

Oooohhhhhhh.... owey! owey! owey! But did you notice in your google ads, one's for a potato peeler now? See, I read your ads! Luv your blog!

I am SO never peeling potato again. Mashed potatos with the skin ON from now on I think...

Reading through all of these posts actually gave me goosebumps.

I'm still gagging.

GAG...

Toenails and fingernails should be made of self-numbing armor.

A few months ago, I dropped a 3lb vacuum-sealed package of frozen beef stew meat on my big toe.

The nail has never reattached.

GAG.