SLIVER


A sliver is usually a tiny splinter of wood that becomes lodged in your skin. You have two options. You can try and get the splinter out, usually by applying tweezers to the skin and squeezing the crap out of it, or you can let the splinter work it's way into your body.

Growing up, I always heard that if a splinter wasn't tweezed out, it could travel through your body and kill you. Not sure how. But I believed it, so I always opted to have a parent cause me tremendous amounts of pain to get this little wooden assassin out of my foot, hand, or other part of my body.

Sometimes tweezers aren't enough to get the splinter out. You might have to make another hole in yourself with a needle, and then coax the splinter out your new exit wound. I didn't make up this astounding medical procedure, my mom did. If splinters are the silent killer, how come this has never been addressed on an episode of E.R.? Some little boy falls on a wooden deck, and is rushed to the hospital with multiple wooden micro-stab wounds.

Once I became an adult(finally, some would say), I earned the right to choose how to handle my splinters. Do I gouge myself with tweezers and needles, actually making the hole in me much bigger? Or do I let the tiny little splinter continue it's long, arduous journey into my body, where it is programmed to seek out my vital organs and destroy them?

Well, I haven't used tweezers in years. I've accepted the splinters as a part of me. Some would say this is delayed euthanasia. Who knows, maybe all the splinters are slowly combining into one big wooden stake, which will one day rise up and pierce my brain, killing me instantly? This will probably happen while I am ordering food in a McDonalds "drive through" and it will take the employee operating the intercom many minutes to realize I'm dead, and not just one of the many idiots who can't decide what crappy food they want. Which, if you eat McDonalds food, is probably more deadly for you than a splinter.

I got a sliver last weekend.

Screw it.