Have a Nice Trip
“A foolish son is the anger of the father:
And the sorrow of the mother that bore him.”
Proverbs 17:25
I am an attention whore. It’s that simple. I love being the life of the party, telling jokes, making people laugh, and generally acting like a mental patient. Combine that not so horrible quality with being a drama queen, which my wife has called me many times, and you have got a recipe for disaster. I don’t think I’m that dramatic, but when it comes out in my kids, I’m the one blamed for it. What can you do? It is what it is. I remember an incident when I was 12.
Hurricane Gloria ravaged Long Island in September 1985, and the first or second night after the storm passed, we were all still without power in the neighborhood. I remember noticing outside how dark the skies were, because there was so much less light pollution from the surrounding areas. The stars were so bright, I’d never seen anything like it. We all were outside on the front porch, enjoying the cool autumn air, since we had no power.
Dad suggested I go get the small telescope we had upstairs, so we could check out the night sky. I ran upstairs with a flashlight, and retrieved it from the closet and hurried back downstairs. As I ran out the front door, I tripped and twisted my ankle real bad on the bottom step. I flew forward violently, dropping the telescope, and landed flat on my stomach and chest.
Being the 12 year old “drama queen” that I was, I immediately started screaming and writhing on the ground like an idiot. I can tell you, that I wasn’t hurting nearly as bad as I was letting on, and as a matter of fact, my foot wasn’t hurting at all. I landed on my hands and stomach, and my palms were burning from the concrete rash, but it was my foot I was screaming to my Dad about.
Dad tried to console me, and I think Chris went inside to get what little ice we had left in the now thawing freezer. Nothing was going to help. I was “in so much pain”, I just knew it was broken. Finally, after 10 minutes of my charade, Dad and Mom agreed to take me to the hospital to have an X-ray done.
Dad and I went to the emergency room, and I think Chris or Jay tagged along. The time was about 9 pm I believe. After what seemed like hours, they finally took me in to see the X-ray tech. Keep in mind, I was in no pain at all. To this day, I still feel bad about this. The doctor came back after a while with the films, and much to my surprise, my ankle was actually broken. Apparently I had crushed one of the small bones on the right side of my foot at the top of the bridge. REALLY? Broken?
I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, practically faking it, and it really was broken. In a weird, macabre sort of way, I was glad. I guess I thought that since it was broken, the trip to the hospital wasn’t a waste of time and money. The doctors wrapped up my leg in a cast, rigged me up with adjustable crutches, and sent us on our way. When we got home, mom was so upset that I hurt myself, she almost started crying. I didn’t have the heart to tell her, that I was “faking it”. Well, I guess after all, I wasn’t.
Many years later, when I was well into my twenties, I told mom about the “faking it” the night of the fall. She and I had a good laugh about it, after she called me a “stinker”. Mom uses that word almost as much as her elephant joke.
I still feel bad about lying that night. It wasn’t right. I put my need for attention ahead of my family’s needs. I guess I got what I deserved with the six weeks of healing afterward. Six weeks of sitting out of gym class, six weeks of no bicycle, six weeks of not going out to play. I made my bed. I had to lie in it.
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