52thingsayear: #28

YOUTH IS WASTED ON THE YOUNG

Part II

In a sleepy voice my dad quietly let out a whispered "Yeah". I turned the door knob and crawled into my parents room. Seeing me crawl in, my dad let out a light chuckle and asked “what the hell are you doing?” The only answer I could manage at the time was “I think I have a problem.” My father being the smart ass he is, and where I get my sarcasm from replied with “yeah you do.” Hearing my voice, Shelby jumped up and circled me giving me kisses and stopping only long enough to scratch, stretch and give a big morning shake. Her dog tags clinked against each other and her collar... Waking "It" up.

My mom sat straight up peering over the edge of her bed to see me crawling around her bedroom floor and trying to dodge the dogs kisses. It was the moment of truth, how much trouble was I going to be in. Staring at me confused and puzzled my mom rubbed her eyes and barked “what are you doing what’s wrong with you?” Again I replied with, I think I have a problem. “What kind of problem, what are you talking about?” I gave her the short version and told her I fell and twisted my foot and now it looks like theres a tennis ball sticking out the side of my ankle. As always my mother thought I was over reacting and started to go off on one of her verbal combats. Lucky for me my dad jumped in telling her to relax, be calm, be nice and that there were people still sleeping.

Derek and Renate, "The people still sleeping"

My dad was trying his best to defuse the situation so he got out of bed and came over to where I was sitting on the floor now crying and trying to tell my mom it wasn’t my fault. I Love my father but I'm not sure what he thought he was going to accomplish by coming to look at my ankle My father is a jack of all trades, I don't think there are a lot of things my dad can't figure out but in a medical situation... My father is worse then useless. Either way I stretched out my leg holing it high in the air with my hands, waiting for my dad to come over and inspect my ankle. As he walked over to me doing up his housecoat he quickly did a 180 and went straight back to his seat on the bed, telling my mom “You better go look at that.” Huffing and puffing my mom got out of bed came over and looked at my ankle. That's when all hell broke lose. I won’t tell you exactly what was said at this point, but my mother was very displeased with my injury. At that moment Mel Gibson's rants had nothing on my mother's words.

THIS

I don’t remember everything that had happened between my parents bedroom and their kitchen but I do remember lots of “quite yelling” (to not wake up our company) and my dad pulling my chair out for me. The three of us sat in the kitchen, me in tears trying to plead my case that it wasn’t my fault. Finally my parents decided that we should seek some sort of medical attention. I’m not sure if it was me crying and saying it hurt or the colour purple that my foot was turning, maybe it was the ankle that looked like there was a tennis ball sticking out of the bone. Either way I was happy that I was going to go to the ER and be out of this pain soon. (And out of my moms kitchen.)

So after a long debate, the ruling was that my dad was going to take me to the hospital and my mom would stay back and wait for the company to get up and then she would cook them this important breakfast. I still don’t know what upset my mom more, that I had hurt myself or that I was going to put a crimp in her plans of entertaining. Either way my mom left the kitchen still bitching about how irresponsible I was and returned with the big yellow phone book. She started flipping though the pages still yelling at me and stopping only long enough to lick her finger to get a better grip on the pages as she flipped angrily to the page she was looking for.

My mother picked up the phone dialed the number hitting the phone keys so hard you would have thought she was playing whack ‘a’ mole at a carnival. My dad came back in the kitchen just in time to hear the last of her angered rant. Finally the yelling had stopped and my mothers voice had turned sweet and innocent sounding.


Whack a mole

What happened next is no exaggeration, I promise you this really happened. I know most of you won’t believe what I’m about to say, but IF you know my mother you just might believe me.

The look I get when my father is not amused with me.

“ Hi there" she spoke into the receiver calm and collected, whoever was on the other end of that phone had no clue she had just spent the last 30 minutes yelling at her daughter. “My daughter seems to have tripped a little and she says her ankle hurts now.” She paused obviously listening to the person on the other end of the phone. “Yeah I would say it’s a little blue.” She paused again. “it might be a little swollen.” Pause once again. “No I don’t think it’s broken, she’s not crying that much.” Again she waited. Then replied with “Well my reason for calling, I’m wondering how long the wait for her to see a doctor is.” Pause. “Well I have company from out of town, could I make some sort of a reservation for her?” My mom was pretty quite after that letting out a few yeahs and OKs. My dad and I sat at the kitchen table listening to my moms conversation with the ER nurse. We paused and looked at each other with disbelief, Did my mother really just call the emergency room to make a reservation?

Short answer… yep!

Hello, Emergency Room Reservations

My mom finished her phone call and hung up, she looked at my father and I and started barking orders. My dad was to take me to the hospital RIGHT NOW, it was still early in the morning and as far as she had been told the ER is slow right now so they could probably see me right away. And then she went on with how displeased she was that they wouldn't make a reservation for her.

Off to the hospital my dad and I went, He pulled up to the door with the big white letters that said Emergency. He jumped out of the truck and opened my door, He watched as I did my best to jump down. I slammed the truck door behind me and started talking to my dad about how on earth I was going to get into the ER through the rotating doors. When I didn't hear a response from my father I turned around just in time to see him speeding off. Well at least I know where they live I thought.

He was only going to park the car but at that moment he mine as well have dropped me off on a deserted island. (I'm sure that thought went though my mother's head that day) Luckily a nurse with a wheelchair came out, just in time for my him to get back. My dad pushed me around from the nurses station to the X-ray and back down to my room outside of the ER, but not before making race car sounds and wheeling me around tight corners like a F-1 race and hitting my sore ankle on the corner of a wall.

I’m not sure if it was because it was my birthday or if it was because all the staff in the ER had heard about my mother calling in for reservations but either way I was seen pretty fast. The doctor came in and told us that it wasn’t broken but I did pull and tare the ligaments, It was going to be pretty painful for a few weeks and I should stay off it as much as possible and it would heal just fine. The doctor wrapped it up with a bandage and gave me instructions about icing and elevating my foot. He finished by telling me he would get me some crutches and that he would be right back. Before I could say anything my dad piped up saying that crutches weren’t necessary and that I didn’t need them.


I was never able to climb that mountain at sunset because i didn't have crutches.

So off we went heading home, my dad excited for his great breakfast and me hopping around on one leg with no crutches. When we pulled into the driveway my dad got out of the truck pressed the lock button on his key starter and went inside. Again I found myself trying to get from the front yard into the front door.

Luckily we made it just in time for breakfast. My parents friends joked around and asked how my birthday was knowing well what I had just been though. And probably hearing my mother “quietly yelling” at me about how she had company and her breakfast was going to be destroyed.

This is the true story of my 21^st birthday, and how I learned not to mess with a woman’s meal when she's entertaining.

So yes, I had embarrassed my family yet again bringing shame to their good name. Even though this is how my mother dances, and this was a picture of my sister at her engagement party ***Picture had to be removed due to ... well my mom yelling at me *** But it was a pic of my sister passed out drunk, This is what my dad does for amusement when my mom falls asleep in public places. The family dog had major anxiety issues and often dropped deuces (Dropped deuces = pooped) in peoples shoes and public places while running, That's right WHILE running. She would run though petsmart scared of having her nails clipped, and poop in each isle till she reached the front door. It was great getting her groomed! Finally petsmart decided that Shelby could only come in if she was on "Express". Meaning she went straight into the bath and then straight out of their store.

But I am the embarrassing one in our family. Just a little something to think about. Hummmmm!