A STORY I WOULDN'T BELIEVE, IF IT HADN'T HAPPENED TO ME

Ohhhhhh!  I hate when that happens.  The nose knows.

Insult to injury...The "blistering" evidence. 

The culprit...Damn that thing gets hot!

Up to now I have been a lot of things in life, but a masochist has not been one of them...Not until the other day that is!

It's a long story, but here goes...

It was supper time and I had fired up the barbecue preparatory to cooking some hamburgers.  I generally set the BBQ for 400 degrees.  As I waited for it to preheat I proceeded to whip up a Caesar salad in the kitchen, leaving the door to the deck slightly open.  An open door is my dog Lucy's invitation to do some outside exploring, but no problem because the back yard is totally fenced in.

After about 10 minutes, the salad was finished and the hamburgers were ready for the grill.  It was also time for me to check on Lucy but there was one problem -- she was nowhere to be seen.  I called out for her, to no avail.

"Maybe she's sniffing out chipmunks at the side of the house," I thought; so craning my neck I stretched to look over the barbecue, absent mindedly leaning my right arm on the red hot lid   Reacting to instant and unbelievable searing pain, I spontaneously jerked my arm upward in a lightening fast swinging motion, planting my fist squarely on the bridge of my nose that was a mere two feet above the barbecue.

It was a blow of Mike Tyson proportions.  I was stunned for a minute and struggled to maintain consciousness. Miraculously, I did not break my glasses but the pain in my pulsating, bleeding nose was excruciating.  I literally saw stars and my eyes watered profusely.

As my head cleared, I felt something at my feet...It was Lucy.  Apparently she had been there all the time. She's a very quiet, little 15-pound sneak!

As I rushed to the bathroom for a roll of toilet paper to apply to my nose, I really could not believe what I had just done to myself.  Talk about a freak, stupid accident that could only happen to me.

It has been 48 hours since that nightmarish mishap and the swelling in my nose has subsided.  It is still sore, but luckily not broken.  The four-by-two-inch triangular burn on my arm is starting to blister and it itches like crazy. Other than that, I'm okay.

Oh yes, supper the other night was a little late.