May stick to certain types of skin...

Here is some absolute ridiculousness I encountered today and another example of why functioning, flexible fingers and opposable thumbs was an excellent trait for our proto-simian ancestors to pass along to us down the evolutionary line.

I inadvertently super glued my mouth shut this morning.

Yeah, that's right.

What did you do today?

I have this lap desk that I often use while eating, making lunch, transporting objects around, what have you, and it has a plastic edging to keep things from sliding off of it and on to the floor. It is probably the most useful and used piece of adaptive equipment in my arsenal. The edging was something that we came up with when I was in occupational therapy, and it is not secured to the lap desk itself, just pressed and molded to the edge. Well, I broke that plastic edging off of it this morning. I knew that I needed to remedy this situation as soon as possible, because without the edging I could easily foresee future problems I didn’t want to deal with: the dropped lunch meat, spilled soup, broken dishware, crumbs everywhere. The list goes on and on. These are all things that had been avoided, for the most part, by modifying the lap desk in the first place, all those months ago now. Luckily, I had a couple of tubes of superglue, which I figured I could use to make the repairs. I had open up a new tube, however, to finish the job and that’s when things got exciting.

In what should normally be a very simple procedure, opening a new tube of superglue definitely has its possibilities for mishaps. This was something I felt extremely conscious of as I embarked on my task. The last thing I wanted was superglue all over my hands, pants, wheelchair, etc. Yet to get the tube open, you have to unscrew the applicator tip, puncture the foil seal covering the tube opening, and then screw the applicator tip and cap back on. For me, this means using my teeth to unscrew the cap to get the tube open, and using my mouth to squeeze the tube because I needed to free up my hands while gluing the edging back on the lap desk.

Somewhere in the midst of trying to puncture the foil to open the tube, I suddenly realized that the corner of my mouth was glued shut. I could also sense that some of the glue had gotten on my teeth. I'm not sure if any glue actually came out of the tube or if it was just the fumes from the glue that caused my lips to get stuck together, but regardless I was stuck.

Fortunately, even though superglue bonds instantly to skin, something about the conditions inside my mouth kept me from making, what I can only imagine to be a rather embarrassing trip to the emergency room. In fact, after a several swigs of water and a few goings over of my teeth with my thumbnail everything was back as it should be. I'm not endorsing poor dental hygiene, but I can only assume that the relative ease of my de-gluing is due to the fact that I had just finished breakfast, not yet brushed my teeth, and that a healthy layer of overnight plaque buildup and Life cereal residue prevented a super tight bond. Induced vomiting proved to not be necessary. For this, I am thankful.