This—#%^*&+!—is one of the reasons I rarely do paper edits these days: I just managed to stab myself in the palm of my writing hand with a Col-Erase green pencil. Hurts like #%^*&+!
My computer keyboard never bites me like that.
#%^*&+!
freelancer self-employed copyeditor copyediting editor editing publishing EditorMom
I'm laughing. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteSometimes my keyboard doesn't respond as lightly as it should, and my pinkie gets sore...
It was so freaky how it happened:
ReplyDeleteI had a pencil in my hand. I stopped writing. I raised my hand to move the pencil away from the paper. The pencil stuck to my hand; it was humid indoors and out. The pencil unstuck itself from my hand and began falling toward the table. It bounced on its eraser. I reached to grab the pencil so that it didn't fall onto the floor. The pencil point, being upward instead of in the usual downward writing position, poked my palm. I was startled and reflexively pushed my hand downward, which pushed the point into my palm. All of this seemed to happen in slow motion, and I gazed in wonder at how I actually made the pencil-stick worse.
I hate that slow-motion stuff because when you can clearly see what's about to happen, you just know that you can stop it ... but you can't.