Pain has a Memory 

Last Saturday, while Mitchel was trying on new goalie pants, I was trying on skates. It's been awhile since I've tied a pair of skates about six times, which is sort of what happens when you're trying on skates. Yeah. I sort of ripped up my hands. I pretty much had to buy the pair with the most blood on the laces. I looked at my hands (see above) and thought, “that's going to hurt tomorrow”. For some reason I also thought it looked familiar. Even after the sales guy said, “Whoa, got some rope burn there” it still bugged me that somehow, I'd done this to my hands before but couldn't really remember when. I even knew how long it would take to dry up and scab and what to expect. How did I know this? It just seemed really familiar but I just took it for granted I had done it before somehow.

Not until someone asked me about it did I realize that this is almost classic cod jigging line burn. This is where you'd form a callus from jigging. The older you get, you sort of learn to avoid that kind of thing, but as a kid you're always tearing your hands apart when you go cod fishing. Of course, it's worse when you get salt water in the wound. It's strange to me that such a vivid memory would take so long to dislodge itself and float to the top. How many times did I stand swaying in our boat, wet line in my hand, salt spray on my mouth, watching the horizon rise and fall only to realize the line had cut straight through my hand. Then I'd pull my sleeve down over my hand and keep going. When we'd get home, I'd put iodine on the blisters, wrap a band-aid over them and wait.

That's pretty much what I'll do this time.