Buddy Taping

So picture me, gung-ho for rock climbing,just finished a relatively easy warm-up climb and I decide right at this moment is the absolute BEST chance to try a bouldering problem that I haven't been able to complete.  This is one of those climbing routes where you start with your feet underneath an overhang and your hands right on the edge, and you have to maneuver your feet around and up while holding on to the edge.  I am going to get it this time, and nothing is going to stop me.

I get into position, both hands on the starting hold.  Reach up with my right hand and crimp the next hold.  Then I steadily shift my weight into my feet, start to move them over and as I'm doing this, my weight gets transferred to the right hand which goes from this

to this

(no no, it didn't turn into my left hand!) and shortly thereafter I find myself on the ground with a lot of pain in my middle and ring fingers and wrist.  That's when I learned about buddy taping!  Which I think is just an adorable name for the most sensible thing you can do to immobilize a finger, just tape it to it's next-door finger-buddy! 

Yay for buddy taping!  Needless to say, I am going to have to do one-handed climbing for a little while now....