Waking up after a head injury is always a relief. Granted, the lump on my head wasn’t huge, but I did fall asleep thinking, “Blood could be squirting all inside my brain. Eh, probably not. Boy, I sure am sleepy…”
It’s been quite a week really, even without the head injury. It all started when I smashed a mom in the bus doors. It wasn’t on purpose exactly. I mean, it was intentional, I just didn’t mean to smash her. The mom met me at the stop, and when I opened the door, she stood on the street and leaned into the stairwell to discuss something about her kid. As the conversation grew longer, I glanced in my giant bus mirror and noticed my stop signs were still out and traffic was piling up behind me. I thought, “Oh shoot! Stop signs, blocking traffic. Hit button!” I slammed the sign button, completely forgetting it was the same button that operates the door. Then I hear, “Aaahh Aahh AOWW!” and turn to see the mom bracing herself as the doors attempt to compact her. I tried to apologize, but it’s hard to convince someone you weren’t trying to smash them on purpose when they clearly see you hit the smash button right in front of their face. Anyway, I’m sure she’s fine.
The oak tree limbs are a little lower than I thought in one neighborhood. I usually drive in the middle of the road to avoid hitting limbs, but this week there was a car in the other lane, so I eyed the height of the branch in my lane and thought, “I’m probably ok…” and hit the gas. Then I heard, “CAHFUMPPABLUHGRAHGGR…” across the top of the bus. Simultaneously, the emergency exit alarms started blaring. The branch had ripped the ceiling emergency hatch loose and broken some plastic thing into in a million pieces on the floor. Whatever the plastic thing used to be was necessary to trip the switch and make the emergency alarm to stop. On a school bus, if the emergency alarms are on for longer than 30 seconds, the horn starts honking. So there I am, bus parked on the side of the road, alarms blasting and horn honking, and I am standing on the bus seats trying to shove shards of plastic into the emergency hatch. My efforts were fruitless. I decided I would have to just honk and alarm my way through the neighborhood like a giant ambulance. Then I remembered that when the alarms are going, the engine won’t start. So I finally had to call in on the two way radio. “Um, Transportation, this is 74, I just hit a tree…” They had to send the rescue bus.
After a busy week of smashing people and trees, I wanted some soup. As I was taking the bowl out of the microwave, I dropped the bowl and spilled soup all over the floor. I cleaned the floor, stood up, and slammed my head into the open microwave door so hard that the door flew off, landed on the rest of the soup, and sent soup flying everywhere. I instantly dropped to the ground and did that thing where you’re crying because it hurts and laughing at the same time because you know how stupid you just looked, and the people watching aren’t sure if you’re hurt, so they keep asking you if you’re ok, which is motivated both by concern and the fact that they’re trying really hard not to laugh until they know you’re ok, so to give them the green light, you squeak out, “I’m ok” and you hold your throbbing head as they die laughing. So anyway, I have a little gash in my head. It hurt real bad, but didn’t kill me in my sleep, so we’re good.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
I have a black light. You probably don't.
My friend Danny ran into the meeting room at camp screaming that he had just been stung by a scorpion. The panic on his face proved he thought he had been stung by the Indiana Jones kind of scorpion, the kind that causes blood to trickle from your ears just slowly enough to make you realize something’s wrong, then you die. Texas scorpions hurt like fire, but they don’t kill. Danny didn’t know this. Anyway, he ran into the room shouting that he had just been stung, fear darting from his words. The spontaneous group overreaction could not have been choreographed more beautifully.
Paul screamed, “Hurry, take off your shirt!!”
Tim bolted out of the room, “I’ll get the ice!”
The other guys shoved him onto the couch, elevated his feet, took off his shoes, and tied a tourniquet to his arm, all faster than the secret service would have responded to gunfire.
Tim ran back in with ice, “Hurry, rub this all over your chest!!”
Paul hit a button on his watch like he was timing whether their efforts would be enough to slow the poison, and in turn, avoid Danny’s untimely death. Danny spent the next 47 seconds vigorously rubbing large ice chunks all over his chest. He eventually clued in, but not before he freezer burned his entire torso.
I’ve always thought scorpions were kinda funny because of that memory.
Yeah, killer sharks are kinda funny too, until one ATTACKS YOU IN YOUR SLEEP.
So there I was, minding my own business, dead asleep at 2:37am, when I felt an intense searing pain on my rib. I jumped up and clasped my hand over the rib where the freakish pain originated. Something instantly moved UNDER MY SHIRT. As my shirt was flying across the room, I saw the scorpion bail out and sail to the floor. He defiantly scampered toward the dresser waving his stinger tail in the air shouting, “Boooyah! You thought you were sleeping! Bwahhaha…”
At that point, I was not only awake, but I was convinced there were at least 20 more scorpions hiding in my hair. I started awkwardly thrashing my hair around, hoping to dislodge the scorpions before their next attack. The scene reminded me of Julie Efferson’s sixth grade slumber party where we decided to make our own Def Leopard video.
By 2:43am, I was researching how to annihilate scorpions from the earth. Apparently scorpions glow in black light, much like those plastic stars that stick on the ceiling in your bedroom. So I did what every normal 35 year old does, I bought a black light. The bulb fits into a typical lamp, so every night for a few weeks I turned off all the lights in the house and went scorpion hunting. I know, real mature. I have no idea what the neighbors thought as I walked around our pitch black house with my homemade light saber.
We haven’t had any scorpion sightings in a while, so I’ve chilled out and stopped hunting at night. I still have a cool black light though, which I’m pretty sure secretly makes everyone a little jealous.
Paul screamed, “Hurry, take off your shirt!!”
Tim bolted out of the room, “I’ll get the ice!”
The other guys shoved him onto the couch, elevated his feet, took off his shoes, and tied a tourniquet to his arm, all faster than the secret service would have responded to gunfire.
Tim ran back in with ice, “Hurry, rub this all over your chest!!”
Paul hit a button on his watch like he was timing whether their efforts would be enough to slow the poison, and in turn, avoid Danny’s untimely death. Danny spent the next 47 seconds vigorously rubbing large ice chunks all over his chest. He eventually clued in, but not before he freezer burned his entire torso.
I’ve always thought scorpions were kinda funny because of that memory.
Yeah, killer sharks are kinda funny too, until one ATTACKS YOU IN YOUR SLEEP.
So there I was, minding my own business, dead asleep at 2:37am, when I felt an intense searing pain on my rib. I jumped up and clasped my hand over the rib where the freakish pain originated. Something instantly moved UNDER MY SHIRT. As my shirt was flying across the room, I saw the scorpion bail out and sail to the floor. He defiantly scampered toward the dresser waving his stinger tail in the air shouting, “Boooyah! You thought you were sleeping! Bwahhaha…”
At that point, I was not only awake, but I was convinced there were at least 20 more scorpions hiding in my hair. I started awkwardly thrashing my hair around, hoping to dislodge the scorpions before their next attack. The scene reminded me of Julie Efferson’s sixth grade slumber party where we decided to make our own Def Leopard video.
By 2:43am, I was researching how to annihilate scorpions from the earth. Apparently scorpions glow in black light, much like those plastic stars that stick on the ceiling in your bedroom. So I did what every normal 35 year old does, I bought a black light. The bulb fits into a typical lamp, so every night for a few weeks I turned off all the lights in the house and went scorpion hunting. I know, real mature. I have no idea what the neighbors thought as I walked around our pitch black house with my homemade light saber.
We haven’t had any scorpion sightings in a while, so I’ve chilled out and stopped hunting at night. I still have a cool black light though, which I’m pretty sure secretly makes everyone a little jealous.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
I Got the Lice
My Yahoo account was hacked and I unknowingly sent shady e-mails to every contact I’ve met over the last 6 years. I feel dirty. Like I have lice and now everyone knows.
Stephanie Flanders always had lice in third grade. The nurse would come to our classroom, put on blue gloves and would somehow use a pencil eraser to check each person’s hair. The nurse would leave and suddenly Mrs. Morgan would need someone to run an errand. Who did she always choose? Stephanie Flanders. In our little judgmental third grade minds, Stephanie probably never bathed and clearly never washed her hair. Hence the lice.
I need to be honest. I have subconsciously, but piously blamed some of my friends for their own cyber lice. I have assumed because of their shady e-mails, that they simply weren’t technologically savvy. They must be the dorks who actually open attachments on cheesy forwards, and now they have cooties. I’ve even assumed on occasion that the pills or the magazine subscriptions they accidentally sent everyone were probably a mere one degree of separation from something for which they were actually shopping. I mean, let’s be honest.
I was wrong. I was judgmental. I got the lice.
I'm sorry Stephanie.
Stephanie Flanders always had lice in third grade. The nurse would come to our classroom, put on blue gloves and would somehow use a pencil eraser to check each person’s hair. The nurse would leave and suddenly Mrs. Morgan would need someone to run an errand. Who did she always choose? Stephanie Flanders. In our little judgmental third grade minds, Stephanie probably never bathed and clearly never washed her hair. Hence the lice.
I need to be honest. I have subconsciously, but piously blamed some of my friends for their own cyber lice. I have assumed because of their shady e-mails, that they simply weren’t technologically savvy. They must be the dorks who actually open attachments on cheesy forwards, and now they have cooties. I’ve even assumed on occasion that the pills or the magazine subscriptions they accidentally sent everyone were probably a mere one degree of separation from something for which they were actually shopping. I mean, let’s be honest.
I was wrong. I was judgmental. I got the lice.
I'm sorry Stephanie.
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