On my morning break I happened to look down at the palm of my hand while waiting for the microwave to boil water for a cup of tea and I noticed that there was an impressively large chunk of wood sticking out of the side of the pad at the base of my little finger. By “impressively large” I mean big enough to see without squinting, and these days I have to squint to see anything smaller than a housefly.

I take my break at ten o’clock. The last time I handled any splintery wood was in the afternoon the day before. Therefore, I’d had a pointy chunk of wood stuck in the side of my hand for almost eighteen hours, its blunt end up in the air like a cat’s butt, and hadn’t noticed it.

There. Now you know how unconscious a guy can be.