A Faint Recollection

Vasovagal Syncope: a fancy way of saying you passed out for almost no reason.

I watched a couple of lunch regulars make their way to my section as I finished the last of the pre-shift duties, quartering lemons in the bar for iced tea. I needed to go wait on them at their table, make the most of the typically slow lunch days. As I tried to quickly slice the last lemon, I felt the blade of the knife engage ever so slightly with the meaty part of my index finger followed by the immediate alarm signal enhanced by (you guessed it) the lemon juice that was anxious to intensify the experience.

I instantly grabbed the bar towel and clenched it as tightly as I could, wrapping it around my fingers and back into my fist. I was so mad. I was mad because I had been careless, mad because I knew I was about to miss not only these customers but probably my shift and the extra cash that I would have added to the stadium cup on the dresser at my mom’s apartment. I was also mad because it had only been a few months since I had cut myself on the tip of the thumb on the same hand. The lemon cutting incident took place while I was waiting tables in Monroe, Louisiana planning to enroll in seminary the following August. The previous incident had occurred while I was working in the “back of house” at a restaurant in Auburn, AL.

I had lost my focus for half-a-second while I was chopping squash for the roasted vegetable medley that was served as a side to several dishes at the now defunct Vagos Cafe & Gallery. I had been working there, prepping food and making salads, washing dishes and whatever else was needed. I did not love the job, but I learned a lot¹ and was on my feet for several hours at a time. I was probably in the best shape of my life simply trying to figure out how God wanted me to put to use my newly acquired B.A. in History. I worked hard, thought and read a lot, and exercised hard. My friend Brian and I would run 5 miles as fast as we could and then tread water for just as long afterward in the apartment complex pool.

I sat on the table at the Urgent Care letting the nice lady numb the end of my finger before stitching it up through the nail. (Yes! stitches through my thumbnail, but that is surprisingly not where the passing-out takes place).

I sat their thinking about my guitar and my golf clubs and how I liked using them, and how long it would take me to learn to use them minus one of my fingers. I thought about the 4 year college degree that I had squeezed into 5 years² and how this was a bit of a wake up call to inspire me to start moving towards whatever career lay ahead that I did not expect would involve the constant employ of sharp blades.

I left Auburn, moved back in with my mom who was living in Monroe, teaching school and doting on me in between my shifts at the restaurant when I was not on one of my 2-3 hour bike rides that I relished during this brief intermission between my two stints in academia.

The bike rides are important information here because I had been on one that morning. I am not sure how long I rode, but it was enough to have that amazing shaky feeling that seems to be accompanied by a clear mind. The decision to use my 75% off meal after, instead of before my shift, may have dulled that clarity a little. I had been careless and cut my hand and was now walking back to the managers office clenching the towel and preparing to tell him what had happened.

We stood in his closet-sized office mutually assessing the situation. These were tight quarters for any one-on-one meeting and I remember that I was at least a head taller than he, and probably 50 pounds heavier (even in my cyclist days). He was not a big fella.

Me: “Hey, I cut my hand quartering the lemons.”

Boss: “Ah man, I am sorry… is it bad?”

Me: “I think it might be, but I wrapped it so fast that I didn’t get a good look, the blood hasn’t made it through the towel yet.”

Boss: “Listen, man, we have all done it. I have grown up in restaurants my whole life, no telling how many times I have cut my fingers. You can take off, we will cover your shift, let me know if you need to go get stitches”

I thanked him and admitted that I had actually cut myself not too long before then, working in the back of another restaurant… “Yeah, actually stitched it through my thumbnail.”
As guys do, we exchanged a few stories about cutting ourselves or second-hand accounts of related traumas. At some point he began to tell me about something involving a hunting knife, field dressing a deer, an oak tree, the mixture of deer blood and his own blood.

And then I hugged him. It was a hug in the way that the KJV describes the Father hugging the Prodigal Son. I more or less “fell on his neck”. The last thing that I remember was his looking up at me from his styrofoam cup of un-sweet tea (no lemon yet). His eyes got big and then very close to mine and then I was on the ground in the office looking up as him while he held the back of my head and some other waiters brought in cold wet towels.

I barely knew any of these people, and I had just taken a knee, and then a seat and then laid down in this office right in front of them. That is how I like to think it happened. Truth be told, that poor guy probably caught me and lowered me all the way down to the ground trying not to spill tea all over us both.

This was the perfect storm, a combination of a calorie deficit, the hopeful anticipation of the shift that lay ahead, the adrenaline from the lemon juiced laceration, and the swirl of shame and regret that passed over me as I clenched the towel with a thumb that was still numb on the tip from an eerily similar event just weeks prior.

I sat on the floor, pretended to call my mom, and then made my way towards the lobby where I would slip out and drive home. Just before I made the front door I looked down under the towel. Nothing. The equivalent of a paper cut. No blood, just the slightest sting of pain that may have just been my nervous system trying to cut my ego some slack. I stayed home for a couple of days anyway.

1. Things I learned working a restaurant include recipes for great sauces and salad dressings that I swore I would never forget but have forgotten, that people “smoke” in the walk in freezer because it sucks the smoke out so fast that you can’t tell, and many more things…

2. 4 1/2 if you consider that I took off one semester completely in order to have surgery on my shoulder which involves another episode of Vasovagal Syncope during a contrast MRI.