If you heard a “swooooooooooshKKK!” noise…

…that was my hands, sucking in about a quarter cup of moisturizer.

This is amazing. So I went out to run errands, and as I reached out to take the bag loaded with Taco Bell fare (yummm, cheesy goodness) I noticed that my skin was cracked on my left hand. Just a little crack, a fine line of red, but worth a closer look.

It was like something out of a horror movie. I pulled my hand back and put it up in front of my face, flexed my fingers…and a seam opened up along my pinkie and it started to no-for-real bleed. Not gushing or anything (and, thankfully, no aliens burst forth from within), but enough to make me yelp and grab a napkin to keep it from getting on anything.

For a split second I thought, Oh my gosh! It’s that flesh-eating disease, I just KNOW it!!! (Um, yes, I have hypochondriac leanings. Which is why someday I’m going to actually die of something stupid, because I always laugh off the thing I’m “obviously” dying of, because I know I’m probably just being a hypochondriac) (also, I should probably quit reading outdated articles at WebMD.)

And then I realized it wasn’t anything of the sort (see? I should always ignore my first instinct – at least with my own self. If, however, I think one of the Denizens has an ear infection? I don’t care if you can’t see it yet with your $400 ear-see-er-into-er-thingee and 18 years of medical training, it’s there. I can sense an ear infection hours, nay!, days before medical science can pick one up…). It was just dry skin wreaking its havoc on my hands.

It’s like a gnarly paper cut, and now that I’ve noticed it, it hurts like one, too. Smarts out all proportion to actual seriousness. I also noticed that I have several smaller but similar cracks around the bases of most of my fingers, and that the skin of my entire hands up to the wrist is so dry that it looks like someone has taken a belt sander to me.

When I got home, I dove into my bathroom, emerged triumphantly with a Costco-sized bottle of Curel, and took a couple full pumps into my palm expecting I’d need a towel for the excess.

Nope. What I’d need would be another couple full pumps, and then about a half pump to finally get to the point where my hands were “full”.

Still didn’t need a towel, though. It sank in with the application of a little warmth from the space heater. My hands sucked all that greasy goop in like a frat boy hitting the Budweiser keg. Swooooooooshk!!!

I swear, my left hand belched the alphabet afterwards. Oh yeah. That’s the good stuff, right there. Good to the last drop.

{pause to hum Maxwell House theme to self}

{Great. Now I want more coffee.}

Now, for heaven’s sake, people. Can you tell me, can you please tell me, how somebody gets their hands into such a State without noticing? You know, before the bleeding part? It isn’t like I don’t look at them frequently – hello, this very morning I was picking up a button band on a preemie sweater, which is not exactly “…and I was reading The Economist while I did so” work. No. I was staring at my hands. They’ve even been dropping little hints throughout the day, aching and complaining more than usual about the cold and such.

But no.

I ignored their pleas for help until they were forced to open gaping wounds (ok, a tiny paper cut like slit about as wide as my pinkie nail, geeeeesh!, do you all know how to ruin the drama of the moment with ‘reality’!) to get my attention.

That ain’t right, y’all. It just ain’t right…

In Other News: I will die if I don’t win this house.

OK. Not really.

But I’d really love to win it.

Even though I’m not going to on account of because I think I have a better chance of being hit by lightning, and my mother would kill me dead if I won this house and moved myself and four of her six grandchildren to !?Colorado?!* (go ahead, ask her how she feels about the idea of us moving to !?Colorado?!), and YES I KNOW, it snows in !?Colorado?! and I have no idea what that’s like blah blah eight miles uphill in the snow barefoot both ways YES! I KNOW!!

But look…a cozy knitting spot…walk in closets for the yarn…home office from which to buy more yarn…a cold climate where knitting with wool would be considered a plus…

…and ‘go play in your room’ is two floors down…

**sigh**

Why yes, please do sign me up to win…

* Pronunciation guide: !?Colorado?! is said in a high, squeaky, disbelieving voice with accents of superior knowledge indicating that the person speaking of !?Colorado?! might as well be talking about moving to the 9th ring of Dante's Inferno and that such things ought not to be said, at least not in polite society, so let's talk about something else, shall we, such as staying in California where we DARN WELL BELONG and not sullying our thoughts with such things as !?Colorado?! or WORSE! !!!Connecticut!!! {swoon!}