Too hot to handle

I like to cook, but cooking for one day in and day out becomes rather mundane. Every so often, I need to break out of my routine and cook for someone else. Sometimes this desire is so strong that I'll force my way into cooking for a friend, even if it requires me bringing all the ingredients and cooking it at their house. I get oddly excited about it. I'm pretty sure it's quirk that most of my friends are willing to deal with (...unlike all those other quirks...)

A few years ago, I was at the BFF's house, cooking some dinner for her. I can't remember the entire menu, but I do know that we had pork tenderloin with broccoli and carrots.

I seared the tenderloin in her frying pan and finished it off in the oven. Right about the time the tenderloin was finished and I was going to start 'nuking the veggies, she remembered that she had a lone lamb chop in her fridge that she wanted to use up. It was already cooked, so it would only take a few minutes in the hot oven.

One small thing, but it threw me off my game. The chop was finished before I was ready for it, so everything got dished up and we were just sitting around waiting for the veggies to come out of the microwave.

I was certain that I could be using those 3 minutes better than just standing there.

I decided that I was going to be all efficient and get everything soaking in the sink so that it would be ready to wash once we were finished eating.

I grabbed the 375F pan off the stove and carried it over to the sink.

Without an oven mitt. It took a minute for it all to sink in...

It was hot. Like, really fucking, hot. I turned back to the stove and literally threw the frying pan at it. I immediately turned back to the sink and turned the cold water on full blast. It also took K a minute to realize what had happened. She tentatively asked me if I was okay. All I could do was shake my head and say, "It's bad".

It was bad.

I spent the night there, even though it was a Tuesday night and I had to work in the morning. After 3 hours of soaking my blistered hand in ice water, I realized that I was not going to be able to work. I could not have unscrewed a test tube if my life depended on it.

I spent the rest of the night trying to sleep with my hand in ice water. Once I used up all the ice in the house, I switched over to ice packs, once I used up all the ice packs, I went back to running it under cold water. It was a restless night.

In the morning I drove home and was fairly convinced I would be okay. Until I realized that I iced my burns for about 8 hours and they were still hurting. I decided seeing a doctor might not be a bad idea.

I went to the first walk in clinic I could find. They asked me to fill out a bunch of paperwork. They handed me a clipboard and a pen and moved onto the next patient. I stared at the paperwork. Rather than asking for help, I filled out the paperwork, with my left hand. (have I mentioned that I'm right-handed and I burned my right hand to shit? No? Well, I am and I did!)

I left any fields that I deemed unnecessary blank. Even still, by the end, my writing was so bad that the receptionist had to ask for clarification on a number of the necessary fields. I felt kinda bad, but my hand felt worse, so the guilt was fleeting.

I got in to see the doctor and she had one hell of a time bandaging me up. She tried to make it so that I had some use of the fingers that weren't burnt to shit. I had to go back every 2-3 days to have the dressing changed and to check for signs of infection. I went back to work on the Friday and got assigned some computer work.

The following Monday I decided that I could do my regular job. I was wrong. I went back to the make-work-project on the computer for the rest of the week.

And that is the story of how I burned my hand. Ever since, whenever I take a frying pan out of the oven and let it sit on the stove, I always cover the handle with an oven mitt. Extra insurance against stupidity. So far it has worked. *knock on wood*