Adam Blumer

I had just bought the utility knife from Home Depot. It was brand-new and razor sharp. Combine that with my inexperience with cutting old carpet from an even older flight of stairs, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Always cut away from your body, never toward it, I’d been told. Especially with a knife that’s that sharp. But I forgot. Or wasn’t listening, as sometimes the case may be. The accident happened in a flash. It was so quick, I’m not even sure how I did it. But the cut on the side of my hand was deep, the wound resembling two lips with plenty of blood oozing in between. The cut didn’t even hurt, but I instantly knew this was no Band-Aid-variety wound. Light-headedness prompted by the shock of what I’d just done descended on me for a few minutes. “I’m so sorry,” I said to Kim, my…