Alcohol abuse and trouble fingering

It is not so much that I abuse alcohol to harm myself as it is that I abuse alcohol to harm alcohol itself.

It is also not so much that I am inexperienced at fingering as it is that I am having trouble of late.

Let me explain. In the India stores in my neighbourhood you get this wonderful product called 'mango pulp' in a can(Yes, that's the beginning!). If one adds yoghurt and some water to some of this pulp and blends it all together it makes a most delicious mango lassi! I bought one such can yesterday. There are two stores close by and I usually get all my desi products only from one of them because the other is reputed to have outdated stuff often. But this latter store is open longer. So at the sunset hour that I went, only the latter store was open. I searched the store and didn't find this mango pulp can. So I asked the store owner if they had any, in case I overlooked, and he pulled one lone can out of some corner. Naturally, it was terribly old, and quite rusted too. But I figured the rust must only be on the outside and was a little uncomfortable at the thought of refusing to buy it when he took all the trouble to hunt one out for me. I bought it and took it home to make my lassi. The can had a large circular base. So in order to open the can fully, one has to crank the opener several turns. Now, there are three openers at my home, but all three are rusted. So it takes quite some effort to do all that cranking. So what I did, I opened a little and then thought I'd let my muscle power do the rest for me. Accordingly, I put the tip of my index and middle finger against the edge of the cut lid of the can and exert my muscle to try and rip the can open. Instead, I nearly rip my index finger against the sharp edge of the lid that was sticking out. Oddly enough, the edge was rusted. That wasn't good news. Now all this I did at around 6:15 pm in the evening. At 6:30 I had to go play sand volleyball. I didn't want to miss my dear volleyball so I did what I usually do when I have blood oozing out of my body. I poured some of my aftershave on the wound. It has alcohol which would temporarily do something to kill all the unwanted stuff looking to have an orgy on my wound. BUT, I cannot forgo volleyball. So I poured lots of aftershave and ran to the sand courts to play. I played for a good one hour and got the cut covered in a mixture of dried blood and sand and it remained that way for a good hour or so till the germs probably formed an army large enough to concur the world. I came back and washed my hands with running water and soap, and poured more aftershave on it. But today at work, it started hurting again when I tried to lift some piece of equipment which was heavier than I expected and ended up putting the cut against the edge of that equipment while trying to lift it. There are some little luxuries of being in an experimental science lab. There is bound to be alcohol, which a good solvent and is often used for cleaning stuff. So I went to pick up the usual ethyl alcohol squeeze tube and pour some of it on the wound. It stings of course. But that's a sign, hopefully, that it is screwing those germs! Unfortunately, today the ethyl alcohol squeeze tube was empty. So I took the isopropyl alcohol squeeze tube instead and poured it on the cut. My lab mate then put a band-aid on the cut and wound it up with some tape to keep it in place because it was more at the fingertip, which has a curvature to it. So far so good. But what I didn't tell you was that yesterday's mango pulp not only looked old on the outside, but also tasted a little odd. As I wasn't prepared to risk an upset stomach, I threw the can away and bought one from the other store today. Laziness prevailed again. I cut through half the circumference of the lid, which was more than I had done yesterday, but it still proved insufficient for my muscle power act. Same story, I cut a finger? No. There's a twist. I cut two! Two new ones. So now I had three fingers with cuts on them. Two bleeding. More aftershave. Call for volleyball comes. Irresistible urge. At the courts, I found that today's cuts were starting to bleed while fingering. (We Indians call the 'setting' fingering. Actually, that is how it used to be called in the US too, until the more perverted connotations took prevalence I believe.) So what I did, I pulled the extra tape off the band-aid and wound the tape directly on top of the cuts to stanch the flow of blood. I hope that adhesive contains harmless stuff. The odd shape of the fingertip and the fact that I was still trying to spike and finger the ball meant that the tape fell of in a few shots. Some great matches today. A good three hours in the sand courts. Good fun. But all three cuts were covered in a mixture of dried blood and sand. I do hope I don't suffer from Tetanus. It is a while since I've taken my last shot but I'm reluctant to go and get a shot. We'll wait and see?