Scissor Sister

Monday evening, as I was riding on a bus, returning home from work, I received a brief text message from my bank, asking me to please check my credit card status and balance right away, since they suspected unusual behavior and were under the impression that someone other than me was using the card.

I hurried home, not wanting to check the balance on the bus, and opened my bank account on my smart phone. Indeed, someone had made purchases on my expense, and the balance was negative, by a lot. Panicking, I forwent my usual after work routines, such as snacking and taking a shower, and dialed the customer service number attached to the text from the bank.

Of course, the time being what it was, no one was there to pick up my call although they claimed it was a 24/7 service, and after fifteen minutes of panic growing inside, listening to horrible renditions of Eighties soft rock, and, it being me, starting to fume at the ears because no one was fucking picking up from the number they themselves had directed me to call, I hung up, in an unnecessarily aggressive manner, especially since in the smartphone age hanging up on someone really has lost its momentum and forcefulness it used to have when we had actual phone receivers to throw against the cradle with a few select profanities.

I have the emergency card cancellation hotline number saved on my phone, and, wondering why I hadn’t tried there to begin with, made the call. There a young man answered right away.

“Ohmygod ohmygod do something, man! My credit card info was stolen and my balance is below freezing already! For the love of god, cut it off, cut off the card right now!” I all but screamed to the kind and very patient man.

“Okay so the information was stolen, not the actual card?”

“Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! I’m holding the card right now, it’s the one I use to pay for Spotify and Tidal and my writing software, I store it in the cupboard with old sunglasses and extra bike keys, I–“

“Okay take it easy, the card is cancelled. It’s done, and they can’t make any more purchases.”

“Okay, thank you, but what do I do now? I tried calling the number they gave but there is no one there at nine p.m.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that, I’m only good for the cancellations. But please calm down, ma’am, the card is cancelled, and when the info goes to your bank, they will send you a new card. It’ll take for about a week. Look, one thing you can do right now, if you’re holding the card in your hands, is to take a pair of scissors and just cut it in half. That way there will be no confusion as to which one the cancelled card is, and which the fresh one. Okay? Just keep calling the number, they will tell you what to do. Okay bye!”

Cold sweat prickling on my forehead, I put down the phone, not at all calm, and grabbed the pink Fiskars house scissors from the panda bear mug on my desk. Wasting absolutely no time, as if cutting the card in half in my study would somehow help in bringing in the culprits immediately, I fiercely, and with all the determination and force of a woman done wrong, brought the sharp ends of the scissors to the grey useless piece of plastic, and cut in half not only the credit card, but along with it the flesh between my right thumb and index finger.

It was a deep, neat cut, and it took a moment for the mind to register what the body had done. Then the blood appeared. And with the blood, unbelievable pain.

The bright side was, the mind-numbing unease from cutting my own damn hand with house scissors really put things into perspective. I was no longer that worried about how to get in touch with the bank people at nine p.m.

The downside was kind of obvious. I had never managed to cut myself, not with scissors nor with a knife, in all my thirty-nine years living on this earth, not even as a child, and there was a moment there, between the pools of blood and the incredulity at my own stupidity, where I did find it all hilarious, and figured this was one of life’s little moments I would remember for the rest of my life, if for nothing else then for the giant scar I would develop on the skin of my hand. I managed to send a quick prayer of thanks to god I was a leftie, before I started to get worried. The cut was enormous, I had sliced the skin neatly in half, and it looked like it needed stitches.

A downside to trump all other downsides was that I was home alone that night, straight off from work, beat, dirty, and tired. Someone had bought plane tickets and sports gear with my card, and what if I had wanted to buy plane tickets and sports gear just then? And now I was also bleeding like there was no tomorrow, and I would not under any circumstance call my man for help. He was having some sort of work dinner gala that night, and we were fighting, and there was no power on this earth that would make me pick up the phone and dial his number. A typical female, I would rather bleed to death than swallow my pride.

So, I took a shower, best I knew how with an open wound, tried a couple more times calling the customer service number, tried to keep pressure on my hand to stop the bleeding, and finally went to bed.

I did manage to get a hold of the bank, in the end, at one a.m. that night, when I lay awake in bed, not even a little sleepy, and stumbled on a real person on the supplementary online chat, who advised me what to do, and ended the discussion by telling me to try and get some sleep, things would sort themselves out and there was no reason for me to stay up all night for this. She actually worried over my sleep deprivation, bless her heart.

As fate would have it, two days later, I had an existing doctor’s appointment to remove a small mole from my back that had strangely severed last week when I was on the floor doing abs. As we waited for the local anaesthesia to kick in, I entertained the good doctor and nurse with my credit card story.

“Really? Okay well let’s see the wound”, they asked. I obliged.

“Wow, that is a large cut. You should have come by, it would be healed by now. Now it is going to leave a huge scar”, the doctor said, literally knifing my back while talking.

“I know, but I was having an argument with my spouse and decided I will take care of it on my own.”

“Oh yes, the crazy reason. You always could have tried sewing it up yourself.”

“Oh, the Indiana Jones solution. I could have, yes.”

“But the wound is very neat and clean”, the nurse chimed in. “I mean, I was expecting it to be infected and horrible, but you did a great job keeping it clean. Also, the cut is, well, I don’t know how else to word this, but, you did a tidy job, cutting yourself like that, it’s a straight line.”

“Well thank you! I think so, too. I used eau de cologne to clean it.”

“I remember when we were warned as young men never to accept drinks made out of that stuff”, the doctor said. “That is really strong stuff, good for you. I remember once I had this man, a carpenter, come to see me with a twenty-centimeter cut on his shin, sewn up by himself days before with bear thread, after axing himself by accident. Of course, with the bacteria existing in the thread, the wound had started to get infected.”

“That is a horrible story!”

“I know!” he chuckled. “He told me he had used Koskenkorva vodka to clean the wound.”

“You know, with the spotlight behind you like that, there is a shadow of you using the needle and thread right in front of me on the wall up there. This is very cinematic, very doctor Frankenstein and his creature. Why are my hands shaking?”

“It could be because of our silly stories, sorry about that”, the doctor answered. “Or maybe you are just nervous.”

“The anaesthesia has adrenaline in it”, the nurse said. “It is no wonder your heart races a little and your hands shake. After we are done here I’ll give the wound on your hand a good cleaning, too, and some breathable Band-Aids to take home with you.”

“Thank you! And don’t be sorry, the stories are great! Wow, I’m just cut in pieces all over the place, aren’t I?”

“Okay I’m done now”, the doctor said. “No showering for the first twenty-four hours, and if you are exercising, no abs other than planking, planking is fine. You come see me now some time again, you hear? If nothing else, I’m sure you’ll have another freak accident like that hand of yours!”

“Oh, you know it!”

It was one of those Murder, She Wrote closing scenes, with everyone laughing heartily because the bad guys were caught, and Jessica and her friends were alive and okay after all. I loved the doctor for his bear thread story and sense of humor, and the nurse for complementing me on my scissor cutting and cleaning abilities, and while I had trouble sitting still without shaking or shivering a whole hour after the procedure, probably because of the anaesthetic, I felt that if I live in a world where the doctor isn’t afraid to tell me about how the man had cut himself with an ax when all I have is a mere flesh wound, to paraphrase Monty Python, then it isn’t an all that bad world after all.