Facebook Saved My Skin

In the Native American culture, the art of making an arrow has been passed down from generation to generation. I say "art" because it truly is - selecting the perfect wood for the shaft, the perfect feathers for the fletchings, lining everything up just so in order to ensure that the arrow will fly straight and true. It's a skill that is practiced for years to get it right.

In today's Cub Scout culture, we buy arrow kits at the Scout store, and when the Cub Committee leader is out of town, she asks the Cubmaster to make the arrow.

I'm a crafter from way back. Assemble an arrow? Piece of cake. Everything was going great until I had the bright idea to make the fletchings a little more secure with a bit of Super Glue. It adhered beautifully. That fletching isn't going anywhere.

And neither were two of my fingers.



Embarrassed? Yes. Amused? Sort of. There I sat in my jammies, thinking about the inevitable trip to the emergency room with makeup smeared under my eyes and my hair in a ratty ponytail.

The Super Glue package said to pour vegetable oil over the adhesion and rub the oil into the skin. Ten minutes later, I was still rubbing.

Then the idea hit ... like a bolt out of the blue.



The place where I have thousands of friends at the click of a button. I sent my son to the computer with a distress signal, and within seconds, I had the answer:

Fingernail polish remover.

My daughter grabbed the bottle, and seconds later, I was free.

Free at last! Free at last! Thanks to Roger and echoed by Midge, Debbie, Angie, and Kendra, I'm free at last!

Some people knock social networking. They say it's a waste of time, that nothing good ever comes out of it. Well, if it weren't for social networking, I'd either still be glued to myself or sitting in the ER in my jammies right now.

And would you like to see the final product?



This is going to be a very personally meaningful Arrow of Light ceremony, I assure you. I've put a lot of myself into it, including, I'm sure, a few skin cells.