I hate splinters!

I know when you read the title, you immediately went to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their Master Sensei, but I'm not talking about that Splinter. I'm talking about the type that gets under your skin and just jabs you on your nerve endings and just drive you crazy. I got one of those kinds of splinters today while teaching. I had to go for an hour with it in me until I could get to the nurse and pluck it out. It was a rough hour. Just try not using your right thumb for an hour.

First, let me say, I'm not very good with my left hand. The task of maneuvering tweezers to get to a tiny little piece of wood in my thumb was not as easy as it should have been. Sure, I could have asked the nurse to help me out, but I didn't think it would be right to cut in line in front of the girl who said she was going to throw up, and the kid that skinned his knee at recess. So, I did the noble thing and did it myself. I plucked and pulled for about five agonizing minutes and finally pulled the plank from my thumb. I was definitely bleeding after jabbing and tearing skin. I put some ointment on it and a band aid and was off to conquer the remainder of the day.

I wanted to shoot free throws today to try and see if I could improve my personal best. I missed the first three. I realized that shooting without a thumb was making my shots be much more difficult than I would have thought. I was used to the ball rolling off my finger tips but didn't know my thumb was so important. My shot percentage today was much below 50%. It was embarassing. I had one stretch of making 5, but that was as close as I could get. I am really hoping to have some time off on Monday's day of meetings to sneak off to the gym and give it a better try. Hopefully my thumb will be healed by then.