A short story for you.
Friday June 5th, 2009
Girl wakes up at 4 am with intention of getting a good and early start into the big city of Chicago. She doesn't feel that great and has a bit of an allergy headache. She feels pretty exhausted and for once in her life makes the prudent decision to stay home and sleep. There will always be another fun sale.
I wish this was the end of the story. Girl makes normal decision....the end. But no. Girl wakes up again at 7 am feeling groggy and sluggish. She decides to take advantage of the fact that she is home for the day and starts doing some online work that needs attending to. She can't keep her mind off the fact that there was a sale that sounded really great. It was only an hour away and its mere existence was tormenting her. This would be a good time to mention that she is easily tormented. One time she was so tormented by a bag of mini snicker bars designated for trick or treaters that she squelched the torment by eating 3/4 of the bag and literally put herself into some kind of bad bad sugar coma. To this day she can't look a snickers in the face without feeling sick to her stomach.
I digressed. Flash forward 4 hours. Girl decides at 11 am to give in to her mental torment and drive an hour east to a couple of estate sales. Her handy GPS guides her there easily and she finds a spot to park her cumbersome van. She hops down and starts the block long walk to the sale. She was noticing how cute and old the house looked when disaster struck.
One minute blissful thoughts of the approaching sale and the next pure terror because girl realized mid-fall that this accident was going to be a doozie. You know how sometimes when you fall you know it's not going to be too bad? Like....no problem I'm going to fall and then somersault right out of it. Kind of all Mary Katherine Gallagher from SNL like. Well this was not that time.
This time girl hit a six inch break in the sidewalk conveniently located right in front of the sale and she went flying into the air. When she realized that her face was going to hit first she stuck her left hand out quickly to try to save the teeth.
OUCH, HOLY BANANAS, JIMINEY JONES, FUDD RUCKERS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WILL SOMEONE HELP ME !!!!!!
As the poor klutzy girl with good intentions but a pre-disposition to disaster lay on the ground in agony moaning and whimpering out loud she managed to lift her head off the ground. She was half looking out for help and half checking for witnesses to this completely humiliating experience. She looked over about 20 feet away and saw two ladies looking at her on the ground. She saw one of them hesitate briefly and then they both got in the car and drove away. Girl lost faith in humanity.
After about two minutes on the ground the girl manages to get herself upright but was in severe pain and very shaky. She could not put any weight on the left arm without verbally expressing pain.
She was an hour from home. She was in agonizing pain. She was depressed because no one came to her aid. What do you do in those circumstances??? You go shopping!
This might be where girl differentiates herself from most of the rest of the world. She isn't prone to doing the most obvious things. Or the safest things. Some in her circle get so mad at her that they hang up the phone on her in disgust when she tells them what happened while inside the estate sale (hi bob)
In defense of the girl....she had driven an hour to go to this sale and she really didn't know the full extent of her injury. She figured the pain would go away and heck she still had one good arm and you can shop with one arm...right? So shop she did. Picture this. 42 yr old girl half hunched over with pebbles stuck to her shirt walking around visibly wincing every couple of seconds with her arm nestled up to her belly to try to create a human sling. She literally could not move the left arm so that made carrying things around interesting. She found a laundry basket which she filled and then dragged with the good arm. What other people thought of her she had no idea. And I kind of think she really didn't care either. She's like that.
About a half hour into the sale girl ran into super kind lady acquaintance named Sue and her lovely teen daughter. She told them what happened and they insisted on helping her carry her goods to the car. Her faith in humanity was restored.
After angering husband by not having driven immediately to a hospital girl decides that now that she is done shopping she will drive the hour back to DeKalb for some xrays. Girl knows that something is wrong because everytime she moves her arm an inch cuss words (not of the Disney type) come flying out of her mouth involuntarily.
Oh if you could have seen girl trying to hoist herself into her really big van with her really short legs and her one good arm I guarantee you might have laughed yourself silly. If it didn't hurt so bad trying to get in the girl would have gotten the biggest laugh herself.
Drive home was painful for girl. One handed driving in a tin can of a bumpy as heck piece of junk van.....not fun. Get's all checked in for some medical assistance and they tell her she has a fever and her blood pressure is high. She finds out both can be caused by pain. Then really nice nurse tells her that her fingers are about to explode like over boiled sausages and we need to get those wedding rings off immediately. Ut oh.
The next part truly was the most painful part of the whole day. Nice and funny nurse had to take the bad finger attached to the can't move it an inch without screaming arm and put it over the sink to try to get the rings off. Girl told her it wouldn't happen....but she wanted to give it a try. She began by pouring baby oil over the rings and then started to pull and twist and yank and tug and twist and pull and holy mother of all things good and kind what the heck was she trying to do to the girl? She had her head laying on the counter and she wasn't exactly crying but whimpering like an injured puppy might not be too far off. Girl finally called uncle and said lets just cut them off. Nurse agreed that they would not come off without doing so.
She was way more upset than girl about cutting off rings. Girl comforted nurse and told her that husband was way more important than rings. Rings could be replaced. Husband or finger.....not so much. Nurse tried to make girl feel better by suggesting girl work this into an upgrade in diamonds. Girl liked her spunk.
By now girl's husband (who was still on her poop list for hanging up on her earlier) had arrived. Just in time to witness the sawing off of the rings he had picked out for her almost twenty years earlier. I don't think he liked it too well but girl was cracking jokes to keep everyone else at ease. That is what girl does in her family. Not only do the rings get sawed off but then they get wrenched and mangled with pliers to remove them. Good times.
Two sets of xrays plus one tetanus shot later girl was informed that she had a fractured elbow. Girl wants you all to know that a fractured elbow hurts like a son of a gun. She also wants you to know that typing this "short" story with one hand took forever but what else would she do with herself while she is supposed to be doing nothing other than relaxing.
Girl is now reflecting on the fact that if you wake up feeling kind of crummy and exhausted maybe it is the universe trying to tell you ....hey stay in bed today. You'll be happy you did.
We all make mistakes and don't always listen to our inner voice of reason. Girl is no exception. She has a broken elbow and mangled wedding rings to prove it.
But hey it could have been worse. Imagine girl without her two front teeth. Yikes.
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