This I Believe (article for class)

I believe in paper cuts.

Not that I want to.

But they are real.

And they are very powerful.

Paper cuts are mood swingers. You are going along at your task and the paper slides across your flesh in such a way to make your tender skin slice open. A happy moment of crafting with your child, ruined by red blood as it pools on your finger tip; you try to wipe it away before it ruins the mystical rendition of a flying car being driven by a teddy bear.

Sometimes, you can escape before a red tear drop stain leaves it mark on the construction paper below, sometimes you just ruin someone else’s prized art work—the work that could have sold for millions one day in a gallery if only you hadn’t been so careless.

Whether you save the craft or not, your mood is changed---now in pain, there is not much fun to be had. And where did all of that blood come from anyway? Didn’t the Chinese use paper cuts as an early form of torture—like water torturing. Drip. Drip. Drip. But slice, slice, slice. Small narrow painful cuts making it impossible to think---sounds like torture.

Paper cuts can bring a big man to a wince. They are equalizers. Even a calloused hand can be a victim to an unruly piece of ultra white 16-pound copy paper. It slices like a machete through the epidermis and dermis. Big man needs little band-aid.

Have you ever cut your lip as you licked an envelope? It’s days before you can enjoy orange juice again. Or have you ever gotten a paper cut from a paper plate as you opened them for a party? That will taint a festival.

When the paper slices through my finger, I cannot help but to gently pull my flesh apart. I don’t understand why: it makes the pain worse. Paper cuts remind us that we need to be put back together like humpty dumpty. They feel better with a snug fitting band-aid or superglue to hold the flesh together. Whole. In pieces. Whole again.  

Paper cuts force Sabbath. I actually like this about them. It may be their only redeeming factor. They force us to stop working: even if just for a moment.  They force us to look at ourselves. To examine what we have become; to peak inside our flesh. Even if we are too busy or too self-conscious or just without a first aid kit, they force us to pause from our important tasks and yell, “ouch.” They bring about a moment of humanity in all of us.