Don’t Know Which Story To Put Your Finger On

(My grandfather was missing a finger. As a child I had asked Dad if he knew how it happened.)

Dad: “Well, you know how Pop was in the war?”

Me: “Yes.”

Dad: “Well, someone told him it was raining one day so he put his finger outside their hideout and it got shot off.”

(He tells my sister a completely different story about Pop putting his finger in his mouth and someone hitting him in the back of the head so he bit it off. He tells her that he swallowed it. Later, as an adult, I ask Mum about it, telling her of the stories Dad had told. Seeing as it’s her father she should know the truth.)

Mum: “You should know not to believe anything your dad says. The real story is much more unusual and a bit funny. Well, one day he was working in his parents’ clothing factory. He was cutting out a thick layers of fabric with an electrical cutter that had spinning blade on it. The cutter got stuck so he pushed on it too hard and it took his finger off.”

Me: “What so funny about that?”

Mum: “He knew that he had to get the pattern cut out so he wrapped up the stump, put the finger into a box and finished the job, then worked for the rest of the day. When he got home from work that day, his mother was cooking dinner and he told her that he had cut his finger off. She didn’t believe him until he got the finger out of the box.”

(I’m still not sure which of the stories are true.)