Invasive Metal Injury Redux

The marital bed, which doubles as a crash mat for my daughter when she's in gymnastic mood (I stretch out on the bed and she vaults over my legs), collapsed beneath me as she was about to pounce. Any other day it wouldn't have been a huge problem, the frame was drilled for different height mattresses, meaning that I had simply to lower the angle sections on each side, along with the central strut, refix them and drop the wooden slats back into place. But I'd given blood earlier in the day and my left arm was rather stiff, and she was already overtired and we'd hoped to get her to bed early. My drill/driver doesn't seem to hold a charge any longer so I was obliged to do the whole thing by hand, while feeling rather run down. Leaning in to achieve the most secure tightening of the angle section to the frame I put all my weight on my left knee and then felt, and perhaps heard a faint popping akin to a skewer puncturing a bag of mince. A wave of nausea followed as I rocked backwards to discover that I had forcibly introduced a nailless sawtooth picture hanger (illustrated above) into the soft tissue of said knee. The most unpleasant aspect of the situation was that it was still attached; the two slightly barbed tines that are normally driven into the reverse of a box canvas were instead going about their business - not falling out, essentially - in my lower leg. I pulled it out, and a sucking sensation, broadly antonymous to the entry pain but significantly more acute caused me to make a noise like a very elderly man might under torture. Twice. And I still had to finish rebuilding the bed. I soldiered on, leaving perfectly circular bloodmarks, about the size of an old penny and with the colour and definition that one would expect from a recently refurbished franking machine, all over the newly laid laminate floor. This was Friday evening. It's still pretty sore.