You are NOT the only idiot...and I didn't have a TV to blame the accident on!! I blame it on my youth at the time. I was in Home Economics class at school when it happened to me which put me at the age of about 15. I was so intent on what I was sewing that I didn't realize how close my fingers were to the needle until it came down on my left pointer finger--right in the side of the nail quick and all the way though my finger. Of course I stopped sewing and called my teacher, Miss Quinley, over to help me. Very calmly, she just turned the machine head until the needle came out of my finger--no thread. No bleeding as I recall. Took my project home to finish it. That next day at home, with my swollen finger still guiding the fabric, I got too close again. Needle went back in the same place on the same finger. That time I jerked my hand away so hard I broke the needle off...still in my finger. My mother got to remove that. Last time that ever happened to me and I'm now 58 yrs. old. Well learned lesson!!!