carving fingers

Yesterday Sam's class took a fieldtrip to Linvilla Orchards. It is a great old farm where you can feed the animals, pick your own fruit, go for hayrides or play on the really cool playground. James and I met up with Sam's class for a little while so we could pick out some pumpkins for Halloween.
After I picked Sam up from school we decided to carve the pumpkins. We spread some newspaper out on the porch and took out the cheesey pumpkin carving set that I had bought last year at the grocery store. Surprisingly we got an entire pumpkin carved without incident - not even a pumpkin seed fight. However just as I was cutting out the top of the second pumpkin my knife broke. I tossed the pieces in the trash and picked up the second -and final- knife and continued to cut. This knife broke as well, but this time when it snapped I ended up scraping my finger across the back edge of the blade as it was still stuck in the pumpkin. I calmly went to the kitchen, washed my hands, tried to stop the copious bleeding by wrapping a wet paper towel around my finger, and called John to let him know I was on my way to the hospital.
I ended up just going to John's office. He and his partner decided that the cut wasn't deep enough for stitches. John cleaned it out, taped it up, and put a splint on it, telling me I could not move my finger (or get it wet) for a week. No problem! Ha!
As I was getting ready to leave for dress rehearsal I explained to John my problem. The injured finger is my index finger on my right hand. ALL of the choreography for The Mikado involves flipping open a fan with my right hand. As I attempted to demonstrate the technique to John with the giant splint on my finger he started cracking up. He didn't laugh so hard when I told him that he would be responsible for giving the kids their baths for the week.
So have I learned from this experience? Absolutely! Next year when I am carving pumpkins I will use better quality knives!!