Me and Emily Bronte: the difference

If you have hang around this English nerd girl for long enough, sooner or later you will hear me tell a story about Emily Bronte (the Wuthering Heights girl. Yeah, that one). Emily, see, was in charge of the kitchen in the Bronte home. So one day, she's in there whipping up some gruel, and a mad dog dashes through the open door and bites her on the arm. So what does she do? Does she run screaming for Charlotte and Anne? Does she pass out in a pool of blood? Does she hightail it to the nearest pharmacist who claimed to practice surgery?

No. She didn't do any of those things, because she was Emily Bronte and she's a pillar of the literary canon. She sticks a poker in the fire til it's nice and glowing, and cauterizes her own bleeding, rabid wound.

Apparently she didn't think this was important enough to mention, because nobody knew until 3 weeks later, when Charlotte walked into the kitchen where Emily had her sleeves rolled up, peeling potatoes. I imagine it went something like this.
           "Sister!" Charlotte said. "What injury did your limb so grievously undertake?"
          "Dog bite," Emily said coolly, and kept slicing potatoes.
Charlotte starts to panic. In a town of 88 people, news about a mad dog gets around. It's been the most exciting thing since that farmer lost control of his herd of pigs market day three months ago.
          "Shut up! Was it the mad one?" Charlotte asks. Emily nods and flicks a speck of potato skin of her apron. She nods toward the fireplace.
          "Poker," she says laconically.

*****
       I tell this story to make two points: One, Emily Bronte was a beast, and there's a reason she wrote a book like Heights (which I do love). Two, I am not Emily Bronte. When I sliced my finger open peeling an apple last night, I stared at the wound in horror, covered it from my sight with a paper towel, and called my dad. I already knew I only had two options, but I needed someone to know that I had done this horrendous thing to myself and that there was blood. I drove to the Urgent Care clinic. They were darn CLOSED. So I went to Walgreens, all the while wearing black fleece pajama bottoms covered in hearts, peace signs, and daisies. I staggered up to the pharmaceuticals counter and said, "I know you probably can't do this because of insurance and I understand if you just don't want to cause it's really gross but I cut my finger and can you please help me but a bandaid on cause my roommate's in class and I can't do it with one hand but if you don't want to that's okay."

She stared at me. "Yeah, just let me put some gloves on . . . "

So what lesson do we glean from this, children?

One: I will never write a novel like Wuthering Heights.
Two: I am immensely thankful I do not have the life experience to write a novel like Wuthering Heights. 

And that's how I cut my finger.