Do you know what this gaping, bloody gash needs? Some hydrogen peroxide from the back of my linen closet that expired five years ago. I will wash the oozing cut with warm water and soap to make sure it’s clean. Then I will dump this rancid old chemical into the open meat of my hand.
Wow, that really burns. The fizzing and pain mean it’s working. You have to let it froth for a few seconds to ensure there’s not an ounce of living matter left in that flesh, even the good stuff. Then you do it again.
The thing about hydrogen peroxide is you don’t want to use a cotton pad to apply it; you just want to spill it all over so that most of it goes down the drain. No one knows if it works for wounds or not, so the more putrid and unstable the oxidizing agent, the better. When the cut hurts more than it initially did, that’s when you’re good to go.
After a quick Google search, I just learned that hydrogen peroxide is detrimental to wound healing. Apparently, it’s better to use on kitchen counters and garbage cans, which I guess is pretty different from pouring it onto the largest protective organ of the body. That’s surprising information that won’t stop me from doing it.
Google says it’s actually bleach and should not be anywhere on or inside your body. That’s funny since I’ve been cleaning my ears out with it for decades. I like pouring it into my ear holes and listening to everything in there fight for its life. It makes them so dry that I have to stick a Q-Tip way down deep, where my doctor says not to put it. Everything is bad for you now. Can’t even pour old, rancid bleach into the most vulnerable parts of your body.
You know what else this wound needs? A twenty-year-old tub of Vaseline. The reason you slather this spoiled jelly all over your severed skin is for health. It keeps everything moist, which you need after drying the wound to dust with bleach. Petroleum jelly doesn’t really go bad; it’s like Twinkies that way. It will be the only thing left at the end of the world. Oh, wait, there is an expiration date, and it has expired four times over. That’s probably fine.
Once I have this rotten gelatin of the earth on my vulnerable wound, I seal it with a Band-Aid from the bottom of my junk drawer that isn’t the right size. It will get wet and fall off in four minutes when I do the dishes anyway. Now that I’ve treated the cut with old chemicals, it will be good to clean it out in some warm, soapy dishwater full of dirty food bits.
