Have I ever told you about the time that I sliced the tip of my finger while working in a flag factory?

There’s not much more to the story than that.

I was earning some extra cash before an overseas trip, and trying to use a stanley knife with my right hand, despite being left-handed.  There was quite a bit of blood, and I had to wear a bandage for a couple of weeks.  That’s it.  Three and a half years later, you can’t tell that my finger was ever injured.  It’s not the most interesting tale, is it?

Blogging is such a self-indulgent exercise.  When I recalled the above incident this morning, I briefly considered writing an ‘It Happened to Me’-style memoir, using my cutting wit and humorous writing style to craft a few hundred words culminating in some sort of moral – as if this one careless act had led to a new understanding of the human condition.

But there’s no lesson to be learnt in the story of how I cut my finger, except for the importance of health and safety in a factory setting.  Knives are sharp – but that shouldn’t exactly be a surprise to anybody.  In fact, the story of how I cut my finger isn’t so much a story; it’s more a short sequence of events – something that happened to me once.  I guess it would be an exercise in creative personal writing to try and turn it into a essay worth sharing – but why not instead write about things are more interesting and worthwhile to begin with?

Some days I don’t know why I keep this blog.  I love writing, I know that.  And I’m certainly narcissistic enough – I have written all of this in first person, after all.  But when I think about the time I cut my finger, I struggle to turn a bland tale into blog fodder.  It’s something I’d be more likely to use when writing a script or a novel – a plot device that I can weave into a much larger story.  And I can guarantee that this new story would be far more interesting than a silly little blog post.

Three and a half years ago I cut my finger while working in a flag factory.  Today I ate a salad while working in an office.  Who bloody well cares?