It was a brisk fall morning, and my sister and I were running late for school, as usual. We were clamoring around each other, throwing backpacks in the car, and shoving power bars in our mouths. In all the haste, I slammed my car door, catching my left index finger in the crease. I was in shock for a moment and simply stood there with my mouth open, not screaming, crying or even moving. My mom told me to stop horsing around and get in the car; we were running pretty late by now. After she told me to get in the car for a second time, reasonably annoyed by now, I shook myself out of a state of panic and calmly told her, “I closed my finger in the door.” Seeing as I have a very odd sense of humor that slips past most people, she thought it was just another joke she didn’t understand. Then the tears began to roll, and my mother’s face went from peeved to petrified. The door had locked itself after I shut it, so she unlocked the car, opened the door, and prepared to catch my finger she believed to now be a severed piece of my hand. It wasn’t. She handed me a bag of ice and ushered me into the car. My family lives about an hour away from my school when there’s traffic, so I was blubbering for about an hour while I waited for my sister to be dropped off at school. My sister spent that hour telling me to stop whining and that it’s probably not even broken. One x-ray, two doctors’ offices and about half a school day later, I got a lovely little splint, a slightly curved finger and an interesting anecdote to remember the experience.