Driving in our fair city can be rather trying. In even the idyllic suburbs, well beyond Pittsburgh proper, it's quite clear that post-modern driving skills continue to decline rapidly. I'm not sure how some of these people were legally granted driver's licenses... Alas, they were.
I am not proud to tell you that my personal battle-of-the-potty-mouth is waged most strenuously when I am behind the wheel. (Hey, I'm not a sailor's daughter for nothing! It's a constant struggle.)
Lately, other drivers have been even more lax, more rude, and more self-absorbed and distracted than normal. So, I've come up with a whole slew of other words to use in place of the vitriol that springs to my lips after I am cut off yet again, or watch a person cross the center center repeatedly only to find upon passing them that they are texting illegally, eating a meal, or fixing their hair...
Jagoff is always a nice word to swap in, being specific to Pittsburgh and rather enjoyable to utter. Jackaninny works well, as does asinine person or simply "big git" (thanks, H. Potter, for that one!) I won't lie, though; none of these substitutes can deliver the same mean satisfaction that the true bad words offer... However, these weaker word choices also carry less guilt than the "real" words.
That is, they used to carry less guilt. Then, we were re-reading the big commandments in Exodus. The one about murder. And the other one about lust. And how even just thinking about such acts was pretty seriously bad.
Which took me to Matthew 5. There are various references therein about how out of the heart come evil thoughts, and how to look upon a woman with lust is the same as committing adultery with her... Which, of course, translates to the concept of speaking about a fellow driver with murder in my heart... Yep, even when I use my cutesy little psuedo-swear words, God knows what I meant. He knows my heart—and therefore knows the word that I was thinking when I subbed in a less offensive moniker for that other driver.
There goes my awesome plan to stay verbally pure while driving.
?#*!.
Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
A flippin' victim
I have really struggled, since becoming a Christian, with a number of tenets of Christianity. The toughest ones to follow, it seems, are the building blocks of the whole saving grace. Of course they are. If it were simple, I wouldn't need grace, right?
The one that stumps me daily is the need to love others. This is how the world will know the followers of Jesus—by the way we love one another. Yikes.
I was not feeling love yesterday. I was feeling many other emotions. Not love.
It was my turn to take my son to his little Lego class (snapology.com). I had just dropped him off, and I prepared to pull out of the parking lot, making a left turn so I could then turn left again to reach the gas station for a refill. It was a messy, rainy night, the shiny road surfaces reflecting bright headlights like mad. People were going too fast, as people who drive big killing machines on sleet-y nights are wont to do. I made sure I had lots of time and space, pulled out of the lot, and then drove a short way and into the turning lane in the middle of the highway. I used my left turn signal. Maybe I went too slowly? Maybe the poor visibility made me a tad more cautious and timid than usual? Or maybe I did nothing wrong. Maybe I was just in the path of someone's misdirected rage.
I had come to a stop in the turning lane, blink blink blink went my turn signal, and a large pickup truck pulled in front of me on a slight angle. It halted. The window rolled down with a fervor, and I looked with shock as a clean-cut young man threw his left arm out in my direction and flipped me a very angry, deliberate middle finger.
He glared at me as he saluted me, looking right into my eyes to ensure that I knew this bird was for me and me alone. It took a second or two for it to register in my mind that he was, indeed, flipping me off. Me. Why? I did not know. How to respond? I gathered my wits, smirked at him, and waved a friendly hand. He pulled his arm back in, rolled up the window, and sped back into the moving traffic lane.
How to respond to that? I sat, shaking slightly with bewilderment, perplexed as to what I had done to merit his supercilious assault. Then I got a break in the oncoming lanes, and I pulled into the gas station and filled the tank. Still confused. Still wondering what crime I had committed.
I ran to the grocery store for a few items, still replaying the scene in my mind. Still uncertain what wrong I had done.
I parked and went to get a cup of coffee to waste the remaining half hour before Lego class wrapped up. It began to dawn on me that it might be a good thing that I don't carry a loaded weapon. I began to realize, too, that no matter what I had done, it would not have merited such a mean-spirited, personal attack. I could only hope that the enraged kid had gotten the ire out of his system when he sent his clear message to me, and that his evil would end there.
I know, it's just a finger. Worse things happen to people every day. I guess it was just the senselessness of the act, the sheer meanness of it, and his utter lack of consideration for anything that might be going on in my world. And I pondered, for the millionth time, how God can love us, and how in God's name I can ever rise to the occasion of loving my fellow men and women.
We are, so help me God, an unlovable, awful, wretched, ignorant, smug, self-righteous bunch of jerks.
The one that stumps me daily is the need to love others. This is how the world will know the followers of Jesus—by the way we love one another. Yikes.
I was not feeling love yesterday. I was feeling many other emotions. Not love.
It was my turn to take my son to his little Lego class (snapology.com). I had just dropped him off, and I prepared to pull out of the parking lot, making a left turn so I could then turn left again to reach the gas station for a refill. It was a messy, rainy night, the shiny road surfaces reflecting bright headlights like mad. People were going too fast, as people who drive big killing machines on sleet-y nights are wont to do. I made sure I had lots of time and space, pulled out of the lot, and then drove a short way and into the turning lane in the middle of the highway. I used my left turn signal. Maybe I went too slowly? Maybe the poor visibility made me a tad more cautious and timid than usual? Or maybe I did nothing wrong. Maybe I was just in the path of someone's misdirected rage.
I had come to a stop in the turning lane, blink blink blink went my turn signal, and a large pickup truck pulled in front of me on a slight angle. It halted. The window rolled down with a fervor, and I looked with shock as a clean-cut young man threw his left arm out in my direction and flipped me a very angry, deliberate middle finger.
He glared at me as he saluted me, looking right into my eyes to ensure that I knew this bird was for me and me alone. It took a second or two for it to register in my mind that he was, indeed, flipping me off. Me. Why? I did not know. How to respond? I gathered my wits, smirked at him, and waved a friendly hand. He pulled his arm back in, rolled up the window, and sped back into the moving traffic lane.
How to respond to that? I sat, shaking slightly with bewilderment, perplexed as to what I had done to merit his supercilious assault. Then I got a break in the oncoming lanes, and I pulled into the gas station and filled the tank. Still confused. Still wondering what crime I had committed.
I ran to the grocery store for a few items, still replaying the scene in my mind. Still uncertain what wrong I had done.
I parked and went to get a cup of coffee to waste the remaining half hour before Lego class wrapped up. It began to dawn on me that it might be a good thing that I don't carry a loaded weapon. I began to realize, too, that no matter what I had done, it would not have merited such a mean-spirited, personal attack. I could only hope that the enraged kid had gotten the ire out of his system when he sent his clear message to me, and that his evil would end there.
I know, it's just a finger. Worse things happen to people every day. I guess it was just the senselessness of the act, the sheer meanness of it, and his utter lack of consideration for anything that might be going on in my world. And I pondered, for the millionth time, how God can love us, and how in God's name I can ever rise to the occasion of loving my fellow men and women.
We are, so help me God, an unlovable, awful, wretched, ignorant, smug, self-righteous bunch of jerks.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Against the wind
There are seasons in your life when you feel palpable resistance. A lot of resistance. What was simple so many times before, now becomes suddenly complicated. Easy, mindless actions require more thought and planning than you would have believed possible. People who supported you are nowhere to be found, or worse yet have had a change of heart; decisions that would have been made in a heartbeat now flutter around in your mind like moths near a dim light, endless quandaries to be painfully pondered, situations that have grown so many sides it seems you've gained a couple of new dimensions in your mind.
That's pretty much where I am these days. If I were the kind of person who posted pictures of myself, I'd find one where my eyes are squeezed shut tightly, lips pressed together to keep out the dust, hair whipped frenziedly in all directions, because that's the sort of resistance I've been encountering of late. From the universe, some would say. From Satan, I believe. But there it is. Against the wind.
The most recent example? My car keys don't work reliably anymore. The car is old but still good, and without warning, my car keys, BOTH of them, have decided they no longer hold the necessary information to start the car when inserted into the ignition. I have jiggled, wiggled, and sworn at the keys, to no avail. They go neatly into the ignition, and then they mock me by refusing to turn. I turn the steering wheel with increasing force, wiggle the keys more roughly, and sweat breaks out on my brow... Nothing. And then, usually, after a couple of long-suffering minutes (with my child witnessing all this madness from the back seat), then the car starts. And we're fine.
The solution? Hopefully, a newly created key, etched from its source file instead of copied from the weary keys in my purse, will do the trick. No guarantee, of course; something called "tumblers" could also be the problem, I was told by a mechanic. But we are required by common sense and thriftiness (since lock replacement is far more expensive than a new key) to try the cheap key replacement method first.
Except, remember, I'm moving against the wind. Because I am a slacker, and I never got around to it, I have never changed my name officially with the people who issue car registrations. My correct married name is on my driver's license, on my car insurance, and I've repeatedly written the corrected name each time I've renewed the registration... but the people in PennDOT never changed it, nor did they tell me that they required a copy of my marriage license in order to do so.
And to get the key re-cut, from the car records, any dealer requires that your registration name and the name on your license match exactly. EVEN IF YOU HAVE EVERY DRIVER'S LICENSE EVER ISSUED TO YOU, AND BOTH YOUR OLD AND CURRENT SOCIAL SECURITY CARDS, AND THE *!@?&% TITLE OF THE CAR BECAUSE OH, BY THE WAY, YOU'RE THE ONLY OWNER. And did you know that every blasted PA Department of Motor Vehicles is closed on Mondays? I know that, NOW. I remembered it as soon as I'd sweated and sworn my feeble key into action at the cursed dealer's garage, and then driven my angry self to the DMV to beg for an updated registration. Which I found out, yesterday, would not have been possible anyway. AAA was kind enough to help me, but apparently because we live in an archaic state, Pennsylvania processes all name changes only through Harrisburg, the old-fashioned way.
I called AAA today, after almost getting stranded at the grocery store. Could they at least plead my case? Could anything be done? We're afraid to go anywhere. I have a little son. It's summer. We don't want to be stuck in the grocery store parking lot, cursing the melting ice cream. We have a perfectly good car! We have every document known to man EXCEPT the bloody registration with a perfect name match! Our lives and safety are in jeopardy here, people! (Dramatic music rising in the background)
Can AAA help us? No. Sorry. Does PennDOT care? No. I called them, too. Could they please do it quickly? Process it ASAP? Make a note on my file? No, no, and no. They're not allowed. They get 4 days to process it once it's in their hands. Getting it back to me via good ol' U.S.P.S. snail mail can take up to 10 days. That's 10 business days, mind you. Remember how many holidays these people get?
So, this is just one little example of the forces that have worked against me lately. I never dreamed that getting a replacement key would cause such stress, duress, and fury. And the other thought that's coming to me again and again is that this is such a small matter, really. I honestly don't have any right to get really upset. People all over the world are truly suffering, the economy is staggering and tripping its way further into a malodorous cesspool of debt, there are natural disasters and helicopters crashing and sickness and poverty and drought... I truly have no right to complain. I know that.
Okay, I'm done now. No more self-pity. The key issue will get resolved in time, although not my time. And these are all small issues in the big picture.
Thanks, Lord, that we haven't really been stranded yet. Thank you that this is the biggest problem on my mind right now.
P.S. Can you help us out with this key madness, Lord? Please?
That's pretty much where I am these days. If I were the kind of person who posted pictures of myself, I'd find one where my eyes are squeezed shut tightly, lips pressed together to keep out the dust, hair whipped frenziedly in all directions, because that's the sort of resistance I've been encountering of late. From the universe, some would say. From Satan, I believe. But there it is. Against the wind.
The most recent example? My car keys don't work reliably anymore. The car is old but still good, and without warning, my car keys, BOTH of them, have decided they no longer hold the necessary information to start the car when inserted into the ignition. I have jiggled, wiggled, and sworn at the keys, to no avail. They go neatly into the ignition, and then they mock me by refusing to turn. I turn the steering wheel with increasing force, wiggle the keys more roughly, and sweat breaks out on my brow... Nothing. And then, usually, after a couple of long-suffering minutes (with my child witnessing all this madness from the back seat), then the car starts. And we're fine.
The solution? Hopefully, a newly created key, etched from its source file instead of copied from the weary keys in my purse, will do the trick. No guarantee, of course; something called "tumblers" could also be the problem, I was told by a mechanic. But we are required by common sense and thriftiness (since lock replacement is far more expensive than a new key) to try the cheap key replacement method first.
Except, remember, I'm moving against the wind. Because I am a slacker, and I never got around to it, I have never changed my name officially with the people who issue car registrations. My correct married name is on my driver's license, on my car insurance, and I've repeatedly written the corrected name each time I've renewed the registration... but the people in PennDOT never changed it, nor did they tell me that they required a copy of my marriage license in order to do so.
And to get the key re-cut, from the car records, any dealer requires that your registration name and the name on your license match exactly. EVEN IF YOU HAVE EVERY DRIVER'S LICENSE EVER ISSUED TO YOU, AND BOTH YOUR OLD AND CURRENT SOCIAL SECURITY CARDS, AND THE *!@?&% TITLE OF THE CAR BECAUSE OH, BY THE WAY, YOU'RE THE ONLY OWNER. And did you know that every blasted PA Department of Motor Vehicles is closed on Mondays? I know that, NOW. I remembered it as soon as I'd sweated and sworn my feeble key into action at the cursed dealer's garage, and then driven my angry self to the DMV to beg for an updated registration. Which I found out, yesterday, would not have been possible anyway. AAA was kind enough to help me, but apparently because we live in an archaic state, Pennsylvania processes all name changes only through Harrisburg, the old-fashioned way.
I called AAA today, after almost getting stranded at the grocery store. Could they at least plead my case? Could anything be done? We're afraid to go anywhere. I have a little son. It's summer. We don't want to be stuck in the grocery store parking lot, cursing the melting ice cream. We have a perfectly good car! We have every document known to man EXCEPT the bloody registration with a perfect name match! Our lives and safety are in jeopardy here, people! (Dramatic music rising in the background)
Can AAA help us? No. Sorry. Does PennDOT care? No. I called them, too. Could they please do it quickly? Process it ASAP? Make a note on my file? No, no, and no. They're not allowed. They get 4 days to process it once it's in their hands. Getting it back to me via good ol' U.S.P.S. snail mail can take up to 10 days. That's 10 business days, mind you. Remember how many holidays these people get?
So, this is just one little example of the forces that have worked against me lately. I never dreamed that getting a replacement key would cause such stress, duress, and fury. And the other thought that's coming to me again and again is that this is such a small matter, really. I honestly don't have any right to get really upset. People all over the world are truly suffering, the economy is staggering and tripping its way further into a malodorous cesspool of debt, there are natural disasters and helicopters crashing and sickness and poverty and drought... I truly have no right to complain. I know that.
Okay, I'm done now. No more self-pity. The key issue will get resolved in time, although not my time. And these are all small issues in the big picture.
Thanks, Lord, that we haven't really been stranded yet. Thank you that this is the biggest problem on my mind right now.
P.S. Can you help us out with this key madness, Lord? Please?
Thursday, January 13, 2011
OMG (a.k.a. Tough kid, sissy mama)
When people ask me what's new, I usually say, "Nothing." And I'm usually thankful to say that. Boredom is often the opposite of chaos in my life, perhaps in other lives as well, and I'm happy to embrace boredom much of the time because I prefer it to the alternative.
We got the alternative Tuesday night.
It was a totally normal night. I was nagging the "boys" about bedtime, and finally managed to make my husband understand that the next morning our child would need to rise at the same old time, and that he needed adequate sleep in order to tackle the day with success, etc. My son ate a quick snack (pizza-flavored Goldfish crackers and water) and I herded him into my bedroom to get his clothes off and into the hamper so that PJs could be donned.
Apparently, after I left the room, the kid had an undeniable urge to run, naked but for socks, and see his father in the living room; when he didn't show up, I had to call out and remind him to stay on task and come in for pajamas and tooth-brushing. I was selecting the pajamas from a drawer when suddenly, I became aware that my child was running from the living room into his bedroom. I saw him approaching from the corner of my eye, not really registering the speed with which he came, and a second later there was a loud thump. I glanced up in time to see his feet literally flying out from under him, up in the air—and then saw him hit the floor, landing right on his back.
Now, there have been a few times when my son hit the wall—with his head, or his foot, or his back end when he was crawling around in a clownish manner. So, we'd seen similar situations before; panic did not immediately ensue. He lay there for a second, and my husband and I both scurried over from opposite directions to ascertain the damage. Marcus was still on the floor, and he seemed to have hit not only his face, but also the back of his head when he fell; our home is tiny, and the space in that little hallway outside bedrooms is quite unforgiving.
I was totally unprepared for what met me at close range: my son's forehead was gashed, straight up and down, and blood was spilling out in spurts. I thought I would be sick, and one look at his dad told me he was feeling the same. We sat him up a bit, I grabbed a washcloth and we held it on the forehead, and all the while Marcus was huddled there unclothed, red splashes landing on his bare legs, crying full tilt. Todd remembered to tilt his head back a little, to minimize bleeding, and when the washcloth did not stem the flood, we grabbed a dry hand towel to better soak up the mess.
A minute passed, I threw a blanket on my boy (can kids go into shock from a gash? no matter, it's winter and he's naked), and we worked up the nerve to take another look at the cut. This was the OMG moment, people: it was unspeakably horrific. It looked like a hockey injury. The giant slash running between my child's eyes could have come from a skate blade or a big, sharp stick; it could have been carved in with a knife. It was a perfectly straight line, because (we've since determined in hindsight and re-enactments) he hit it squarely, somehow, on the frame of his bedroom door.
Todd and I both stared at it, trying not to reveal in our faces just how awful it really was. In my head, I was screaming, "OH MY GOD that is so DEEP! I can't believe it! He needs stitches! Holy CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!" but on the outside, I was trying to remain calm and tell my son that everything would be okay. He kept saying, "It hurts," and I was thinking, no *!?# it hurts because I can practically see your SKULL in there!!! But I couldn't say that. So I murmured useless, soothing phrases, and Todd and I spoke with our eyes. Yes, we agreed, yes; we must go out on this snowy, slippery night, to the nearest hospital, right now.
We resigned ourselves to our fate, put some zip-up PJs on the wailing child, fashioned a headband made from destroyed T-shirt in order to secure the blood-soaking cloth, and got ourselves into the car, praying for safe travel, for quick treatment, for the best possible scenario. Thankfully, we made it out of our snow-covered driveway, and the roads were passable.
Let me take a moment to rave about Suburban General Hospital in Bellevue. The folks there were wonderful: quick, thorough, calming and friendly. We were the only ones in the ER, and they saw to us immediately, talking through what had happened, chatting with Marcus who had since stopped crying and was looking quite pitiful. One look at the depth of the cut and they knew it needed stitches; no skin glue for this one. To their credit, they were honest with my little guy, and told him (not all at once, but as needed) what they were going to do. There were three of them prepping him; a matronly type wrapped him in a sheet tightly, to immobilize his arms, but she talked with him as she worked, joked a little, made him as comfortable as possible. The assisting nurse, an affable fellow who was blind in one eye, was warm and friendly with all of us and put everyone at ease. The doctor who washed, gave numbing shots, and stitched was confident, very capable, and worked with speed.
Here's where I must confess that after they began to wash the cut, and I got a better look at just how horrible it was, I had to sit down and I missed most of the really gory stuff because I was fighting the simultaneous urges to throw up and fall down. I didn't see the stitching; I simply could not look. I saw the doctor's hands lifting, going down with the needle, pulling it up again, but I certainly wasn't counting; I couldn't watch for that long. (He got 5 stitches, according to his dad.)
But as much as a wimp as I turned out to be, my son was beyond stoic. The only crying he did was at home. When the doctor told him there would be stitching, and shots to numb the injury, his mouth turned down on the outsides—the telltale pre-cry face. Yet somehow, it never became full-blown. He set the mouth back to a normal line, he nodded or answered when asked a question, he allowed the nurse to hold his small, frightened face perfectly still while a man with a sharp object laced a nylon thread through his lacerated forehead. He never made a sound. Nothing.
The ER folks were impressed. I was speechless. What a tough guy. He was lying there, we were encouraging him and telling him it was almost done, and I was too sick to feel proud of him at that moment—but I knew, even as I fought the urge to hurl, that his behavior was pretty amazing.
Marcus bounced back just fine. When the procedure was finished, he stood with boots back on; since his face was still numb, he was in very good spirits. His dad and I? Both of us were sitting, ashen-faced, glad it was done but shocked it had transpired at all—and wondering which of us would be able to drive home. (Todd was; he thankfully did all the driving that night.) The amazing thing was the timetable from start to finish: On a treacherous winter night, my boy had run into a wall at approximately 8:45, and we pulled back into our driveway, stitched and bandaged, a couple of minutes after 10pm.
God is good. He put all the pieces in place, so that while my poor child had to go through that experience, it was as painless as possible. He didn't even miss kindergarten the next day (I'd been planning on keeping him home) because the weather turned very sour again, and the school district cancelled classes.
It's alarming to realize you are not nearly as tough as you would like to believe. Happily, my weakness was more than balanced by my offspring's strength. It would have understood if he'd cried, if he'd been a bit uncooperative, but it was as if he knew that his behavior would make or break the whole incident.
Thanks for listening, especially to my bragging about my boy; I try not to do that, especially here, but I feel it's more than merited on this occasion. And by the way: absolutely NO RUNNING in the house.
To quote Pulp Fiction, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go have a heart attack."
P.S. Stay tuned for a future post about the bill. Haven't got that yet... but I'm anticipating ugliness, as our plan has a ridiculously high deductible.
We got the alternative Tuesday night.
It was a totally normal night. I was nagging the "boys" about bedtime, and finally managed to make my husband understand that the next morning our child would need to rise at the same old time, and that he needed adequate sleep in order to tackle the day with success, etc. My son ate a quick snack (pizza-flavored Goldfish crackers and water) and I herded him into my bedroom to get his clothes off and into the hamper so that PJs could be donned.
Apparently, after I left the room, the kid had an undeniable urge to run, naked but for socks, and see his father in the living room; when he didn't show up, I had to call out and remind him to stay on task and come in for pajamas and tooth-brushing. I was selecting the pajamas from a drawer when suddenly, I became aware that my child was running from the living room into his bedroom. I saw him approaching from the corner of my eye, not really registering the speed with which he came, and a second later there was a loud thump. I glanced up in time to see his feet literally flying out from under him, up in the air—and then saw him hit the floor, landing right on his back.
Now, there have been a few times when my son hit the wall—with his head, or his foot, or his back end when he was crawling around in a clownish manner. So, we'd seen similar situations before; panic did not immediately ensue. He lay there for a second, and my husband and I both scurried over from opposite directions to ascertain the damage. Marcus was still on the floor, and he seemed to have hit not only his face, but also the back of his head when he fell; our home is tiny, and the space in that little hallway outside bedrooms is quite unforgiving.
I was totally unprepared for what met me at close range: my son's forehead was gashed, straight up and down, and blood was spilling out in spurts. I thought I would be sick, and one look at his dad told me he was feeling the same. We sat him up a bit, I grabbed a washcloth and we held it on the forehead, and all the while Marcus was huddled there unclothed, red splashes landing on his bare legs, crying full tilt. Todd remembered to tilt his head back a little, to minimize bleeding, and when the washcloth did not stem the flood, we grabbed a dry hand towel to better soak up the mess.
A minute passed, I threw a blanket on my boy (can kids go into shock from a gash? no matter, it's winter and he's naked), and we worked up the nerve to take another look at the cut. This was the OMG moment, people: it was unspeakably horrific. It looked like a hockey injury. The giant slash running between my child's eyes could have come from a skate blade or a big, sharp stick; it could have been carved in with a knife. It was a perfectly straight line, because (we've since determined in hindsight and re-enactments) he hit it squarely, somehow, on the frame of his bedroom door.
Todd and I both stared at it, trying not to reveal in our faces just how awful it really was. In my head, I was screaming, "OH MY GOD that is so DEEP! I can't believe it! He needs stitches! Holy CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!" but on the outside, I was trying to remain calm and tell my son that everything would be okay. He kept saying, "It hurts," and I was thinking, no *!?# it hurts because I can practically see your SKULL in there!!! But I couldn't say that. So I murmured useless, soothing phrases, and Todd and I spoke with our eyes. Yes, we agreed, yes; we must go out on this snowy, slippery night, to the nearest hospital, right now.
We resigned ourselves to our fate, put some zip-up PJs on the wailing child, fashioned a headband made from destroyed T-shirt in order to secure the blood-soaking cloth, and got ourselves into the car, praying for safe travel, for quick treatment, for the best possible scenario. Thankfully, we made it out of our snow-covered driveway, and the roads were passable.
Let me take a moment to rave about Suburban General Hospital in Bellevue. The folks there were wonderful: quick, thorough, calming and friendly. We were the only ones in the ER, and they saw to us immediately, talking through what had happened, chatting with Marcus who had since stopped crying and was looking quite pitiful. One look at the depth of the cut and they knew it needed stitches; no skin glue for this one. To their credit, they were honest with my little guy, and told him (not all at once, but as needed) what they were going to do. There were three of them prepping him; a matronly type wrapped him in a sheet tightly, to immobilize his arms, but she talked with him as she worked, joked a little, made him as comfortable as possible. The assisting nurse, an affable fellow who was blind in one eye, was warm and friendly with all of us and put everyone at ease. The doctor who washed, gave numbing shots, and stitched was confident, very capable, and worked with speed.
Here's where I must confess that after they began to wash the cut, and I got a better look at just how horrible it was, I had to sit down and I missed most of the really gory stuff because I was fighting the simultaneous urges to throw up and fall down. I didn't see the stitching; I simply could not look. I saw the doctor's hands lifting, going down with the needle, pulling it up again, but I certainly wasn't counting; I couldn't watch for that long. (He got 5 stitches, according to his dad.)
But as much as a wimp as I turned out to be, my son was beyond stoic. The only crying he did was at home. When the doctor told him there would be stitching, and shots to numb the injury, his mouth turned down on the outsides—the telltale pre-cry face. Yet somehow, it never became full-blown. He set the mouth back to a normal line, he nodded or answered when asked a question, he allowed the nurse to hold his small, frightened face perfectly still while a man with a sharp object laced a nylon thread through his lacerated forehead. He never made a sound. Nothing.
The ER folks were impressed. I was speechless. What a tough guy. He was lying there, we were encouraging him and telling him it was almost done, and I was too sick to feel proud of him at that moment—but I knew, even as I fought the urge to hurl, that his behavior was pretty amazing.
Marcus bounced back just fine. When the procedure was finished, he stood with boots back on; since his face was still numb, he was in very good spirits. His dad and I? Both of us were sitting, ashen-faced, glad it was done but shocked it had transpired at all—and wondering which of us would be able to drive home. (Todd was; he thankfully did all the driving that night.) The amazing thing was the timetable from start to finish: On a treacherous winter night, my boy had run into a wall at approximately 8:45, and we pulled back into our driveway, stitched and bandaged, a couple of minutes after 10pm.
God is good. He put all the pieces in place, so that while my poor child had to go through that experience, it was as painless as possible. He didn't even miss kindergarten the next day (I'd been planning on keeping him home) because the weather turned very sour again, and the school district cancelled classes.
It's alarming to realize you are not nearly as tough as you would like to believe. Happily, my weakness was more than balanced by my offspring's strength. It would have understood if he'd cried, if he'd been a bit uncooperative, but it was as if he knew that his behavior would make or break the whole incident.
Thanks for listening, especially to my bragging about my boy; I try not to do that, especially here, but I feel it's more than merited on this occasion. And by the way: absolutely NO RUNNING in the house.
To quote Pulp Fiction, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go have a heart attack."
P.S. Stay tuned for a future post about the bill. Haven't got that yet... but I'm anticipating ugliness, as our plan has a ridiculously high deductible.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Reality check
Driving along a local highway, Saturday morning. On my way to run an errand. Traveling a little over the speed limit, listening to the radio, checking the clock, enjoying the sunshine. Without warning, a police car ahead, on the shoulder, lights flashing. Great, a speed check. I’ll probably get a ticket, since there aren’t many people out yet—slim pickins increases my chances. Nice.
But no. The cop doesn’t budge. He’s just sitting there in his cruiser, watching the cars in his rearview, undoubtedly noticing the distinct decrease in speed that comes as soon as each driver spots him. And then I notice that from the cop car onward, there are flares. Lit flares. And more police cars, a handful of them. And a fire truck.
And a wrecked car.
The car is a PT Cruiser convertible. It’s literally crumpled into an embankment along the road. The car is on its side, and thankfully there’s no sign of a driver or passenger. But I can see that the roof was down when it wrecked. I can see it’s in pretty bad shape. And I can also see, now that I’m passing the destroyed vehicle, that there is an ambulance at this scene. An ambulance that, while sitting along the roadside with lights revolving, does not appear to be in a hurry to go anywhere.
That’s not a good sign.
And in that second, I’m reminded of the tenuous filament that holds our souls to this little revolving rock. One minute, someone was joy-riding, wind in his hair, no cares. And now? Who knows. The stationary paramedic vehicle isn’t filling me with much hope.
Then, I am past. The open road stretches before me once again; accident and flashing lights and rescue personnel are left behind to pick up the pieces—perhaps of broken headlights and mirrors, perhaps of a life lost. I leave the scene, but not the moment. I slow down a tad; I turn the radio off. The image of that ruined car and the ambulance sitting still remains with me like a distant wail: bearable because it is not mine, but impossible to ignore.
But no. The cop doesn’t budge. He’s just sitting there in his cruiser, watching the cars in his rearview, undoubtedly noticing the distinct decrease in speed that comes as soon as each driver spots him. And then I notice that from the cop car onward, there are flares. Lit flares. And more police cars, a handful of them. And a fire truck.
And a wrecked car.
The car is a PT Cruiser convertible. It’s literally crumpled into an embankment along the road. The car is on its side, and thankfully there’s no sign of a driver or passenger. But I can see that the roof was down when it wrecked. I can see it’s in pretty bad shape. And I can also see, now that I’m passing the destroyed vehicle, that there is an ambulance at this scene. An ambulance that, while sitting along the roadside with lights revolving, does not appear to be in a hurry to go anywhere.
That’s not a good sign.
And in that second, I’m reminded of the tenuous filament that holds our souls to this little revolving rock. One minute, someone was joy-riding, wind in his hair, no cares. And now? Who knows. The stationary paramedic vehicle isn’t filling me with much hope.
Then, I am past. The open road stretches before me once again; accident and flashing lights and rescue personnel are left behind to pick up the pieces—perhaps of broken headlights and mirrors, perhaps of a life lost. I leave the scene, but not the moment. I slow down a tad; I turn the radio off. The image of that ruined car and the ambulance sitting still remains with me like a distant wail: bearable because it is not mine, but impossible to ignore.
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