Oh no, I think I cut myself...
2019-07-25 Comments
During a busy Monday morning in the office, my section and I were counting the minutes until it was time to take a break. We worked in a payments office and it was near financial year end so things got intense. We were suddenly slammed with emails and chase calls from our suppliers. After getting through several long calls and answering numerous emails, the time flew by.
Once the mid-morning break came round, a few of us went to sit down on the comfy chairs in the recreation room. I walked out the same time as another colleague, Jane, and she said she would join us a bit later as she had to take care of some personal matters, then headed off to the toilet. When I got to the recreation room I got myself a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit...OK, OK, three chocolate biscuits and sat down with the group. We exchanged small talk for a while. Then one of the more extrovert guys began telling us what he got up to over the weekend.
He had gone paintballing with a group of his mates. They were pitted against a bunch of teenagers and a gathering of older guys. He was giving us details of his victories, over how many others he had shot and where he got them. Then someone snuck up behind him and shot him in the arse cheek, it turned out to be a young girl. He began showing us the top of his bum. Who'd have foreseen this most unexpected turn of events. It was only a Monday too, very surreal. I was surprised that people wanted to see him drop his pants down in the middle of office breakroom. He stood right in the centre of the chairs and started to unhook his belt. Then he pulled his trousers down slightly, slid his shirt up and pulled his underwear down.
He proceeded to pull his butt cheek up and out. It was pasty and smooth with a massive bruise on it. For a scrawny guy he had a fleshy derriere. The mark looked like a multi-coloured nipple, from the middle being a yellowy circle slightly raised, then a kind of red outer ring turning into to a purple outer ring. Ouch! Someone should get him some ice.
He went onto say that his wasn't the worst injury suffered that day. He said some of the "hardcore members" had saved up old paint balls and one of his friends got hit by one which hurt more than usual as it caused extra bruising. The friend got hit on the arm and the bruise was dark purple close to black, nearly breaking the skin. I asked him why old paintballs would do so much damage and he explained "for those who did not know what paintballs are", paintballs are like bath pearls with the gelatin outer layer containing coloured dye instead of scented bath oil. The new ones have a more flexible outer shell. Some of those suckers would store a batch to age them, the longer you store them plus the drier the environment, the harder the shell gets. That's why the older paint balls cause more serious injuries. He pointed out again, what damage a normal paintball could do, hovering a hand over his rump.
A few moments later he finished his tale and the arse demo, so people went back to talking amongst themselves. Jane had come in a few seconds after he buckled and zipped himself up. She sat down in one of the empty armchairs near me and asked us if she'd missed anything. The paintball guy turned round and was about to tell his tale again when Jane, who knew the paintball guy very well, held her hand up to shush him. She said "never mind, I've probably heard it before" and was about to tell us about her weekend. As she was putting her hand down, she noticed some blood on her index finger. She made a bit of a show of it. "Oh no, when did I cut myself?". We watched as she went to suck on her cut. There was a gash about 2.5cm long (about 1 inch in old money) running along the outer edge of her finger. Paintball guy said "Well, that's not paint for sure". We looked at him and groaned, shaking our heads. Jane mumbled something about getting "better jokes" and rolled her eyes at him whilst she was sucking on her wound, then her jaw dropped and she gave a horrified look.
We got concerned and asked if she was OK. Her eyes went wide and crazed, like in a panic. Then we saw her eyes welling up and her nose scrunched. She looked a bit ill all of a sudden, then dropped her hand slowly and looked back up at us. She blurted out that there wasn't a cut. Huh? What did she mean? Why was she freaking out? Oh! And that's when it clicked. She'd just come from the ladies and has blood on her hands and she's NOT cut. She promptly turned green and then tried to stop herself from gagging. Conversations stopped and there was an awkward silence. She tried to make light of it and smiled at us, blinking the watered up eyes and kept trying to stifle a retch or two, still trying to keep her cool. Fortunately for her, I piped up and announced it was "time to head already, back to the grindstone" and people started to make a move back to their desks.
Later on just before lunch, when it was just us ladies around she admitted that it wasn't even her time of the month. No wonder she turned green. The only thing is, why the hell did she have to tell us that detail? As I sat in the staff canteen eating my sandwich I was forced to process that nasty picture in my head. Worst still, right at that moment, I happened to sit lined up directly over the next table with a guy facing towards me and could see him slowly squeezing ketchup out of a sachet onto his plate...then licking his finger.
Bluuuuurgh!