Stop me if you’ve heard a buddy say this to you already…
“Oh my god, I haven’t even seen the Paul George injury. I looked away on TV when they warned us it was graphic. I don’t want to ever see it.”
I get it. Nobody likes to watch a man’s leg snapping like a $1 buffalo wing at TGI Fridays.
But what’s weird, is that for me, it wasn’t that bad. Just like Louisville’s Kevin Ware when he broke his leg – or the original split-wicket, Joe Theismann – I saw it and said: “Ew. That’s gotta hurt.”
That’s all. No queasiness. No cringing. No nightmares.
I mean, it’s not MY leg, tendons, bones and 9 months of grueling rehab, right? What do I care?
That doesn’t make me a tough guy. Oh no. No, no, noooo…
I just have my OWN injury hang ups. Like anything involving… I uh… I hate to even type this… but… anything involving KNIVES.
Aaaaggggghhhh!
Oh, god. No, no, no. Shoot me in the face with a shotgun and split my head like a watermelon before you even think about stabbing me to death.
I have a phobia about getting fingers smashed, lopped off, or sliced julienne french fry style.
Ask my wife. I can watch anything on The Deadliest Catch without so much as a blip in my heart rate. 800 pound crab pots nearly crushing a deckhand like a bug, guys going overboard tangled in the buoy-line, entire ships getting top-heavy with ice and nearly capsizing.
Nothing.
But god forbid you show one guy with a cut finger – JUST ONE – and I start curling up in the fetal position trying to bury my head in the couch.
Something about fingers and knives. Oh, god, the worst!
Some things are indeed, better off never ever having been seen. Once you see it, you can never “un-see-it.” Things for me, like the movie “Seven” with Brad Pitt. To this day I ask myself: “You IDIOT! What on earth did you think you would LIKE about that movie?”
I can’t even have people TELL me about the sick shit in all of the “Saw” movies, or GOD FORBID, “Hostel”.
The worst sports injury I ever saw… was a soccer player who somehow got his wedding ring stuck on a fence surrounding the pitch while celebrating a goal… and.. well…. look…. I warn you… once you see it, YOU CAN NEVER EVER UN-SEE THIS!
So as long as Paul George’s little snapped walking-stick stayed in that pulled up sock, and there wasn’t a big puddle of blood… meh… he’ll live. He’s got $100M guaranteed coming his way too.
As The Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail would say: “Tis’ but a flesh wound!”
None shall pass.