Blood on the tracks

I have a habit.

When I'm driving, I pace out my journey with a supply of mints and/or chewing gum. I'll have one or two mints on the M1 and then I'll usually treat myself to a piece of chewing gum when I get to the M42 - more or less the half way point of my journey. I usually have a supply of mints to hand in the coin tray of the arm rest of my car so I can reach them without fumbling around, but today I didn't.

You may have seen a new brand of chewing gum advertised recently - namely, Trident Splash. It's quite tasty, a crunchy vanilla shell with a blob of minty stuff in the middle, although I prefer the soft gum variety that they also do. The only problem is that it comes in a sort of of blister pack, with each piece of gum in a little compartment covered with foil. Very neat and hygenic you might think.

I popped out a piece of gum from the packet by feel, driving with one hand on the wheel. As I manoeuvred the piece of gum into my hand, I caught my finger on a razor sharp shard of the foil packaging. Ouch. Think of a paper cut, but somewhat worse. To make matters worse, a fair amount of blood was now welling from the nick in my finger. I couldn't find a bit of tissue, so I had to suck my poorly digit until it stopped bleeding. Fortunately the road was relatively clear, so I could drive safely until I could get both hands back on the wheel again.

Caveat chewer, I suppose ...