Argh my fingers!
One summer I got a job at a place that tested soil samples. Mainly to see if it would support structures etc.

One of the guys there, Alan, was a fantastic laugh and always pulling pranks on us. Alan only had two fingers on one hand. I forget the exact reasons but he'd had to have his pointer and middle finger lopped off just below the first knuckle and they were also joined together by a thin layer of skin. I think that part was a birth defect, but he managed fine with them and only very occasionally would the skin split due to catching or knocking it, in which case we would get him to make us all tea until it had stopped.

Alan was also a keen cricket player and used to play every Thursday and bore tell us the tale on Friday. Turns out he had received a warning the previous day as on catching the ball, which was traveling slightly faster than he anticipated, it had struck his stump and split the skin causing a reletivly high amount of blood to gush out.

However when the umpire, who was rather pleased about umpiring his very first match, ran over to see how Alan was. Alan decided to scream "Argh it's taken my fooking fingers off" and run around with blood spraying everywhere.

Apparently causing an umpire unnecessary grief is violation of some rule or the other....
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 15:35, Reply)