After my friend had left to work on a different project, I sat chiseling to create a perfect notch for the arrow on the mini ballista. I felt the chisel catch on the wood then slip. I looked down and saw my now bleeding thumb I clenched my thumb and ran to the nearest teacher, the 1-3 grade assistant teacher who was in the main room for the 1-3 graders, he bandaged it with gauze. He then called my parents who didn’t answer the first time, then told them what happened. While waiting my teacher told me that I should lecture the lower elementary about not putting your thumb in front of a chisel, or just about being careful with sharp things, when I got back.

At the hospital they put some medical glue on my wound, which I had never heard of before. They later explained that it was almost deep enough for stitches… instead of painful stitches I had odd purple gloop that stayed for about a week. Later it came off as a mold of my thumb, but was a quite effective substitute for a scab. I explained to the lower elementary what happened. They weren’t extremely shocked, or not as shocked as I thought they would be. They had seen the event, and probably had seen the lecture coming. It turned out my friend was just as confused at the time as to why they used glue.

Now when I look back I feel it wasn’t that bad and could have been worse, but the moment was still scary. After that I decided I didn’t really like chisels and never finished the ballista, which was sad because it was looking really cool. My siege weapon craze was fulfilled later by learning how to make a really simple but cool Lego catapult. I guess sometimes we have to learn lessons the hard way.