I shouldn't have done it. I know immediately after looking at it that I
shouldn't have done it. My horoscope for
the day says to watch out for accidents.
Why, oh, why did I look at my
horoscope? I'm telling you, I
shouldn't have done it.
But I digress.
Kid #1 decides to accompany me to kid #3's
lacrosse event over the weekend. Now,
this is not the Portapotty Mania event; this is on the home field, complete
with food, refreshments, and a multitude of flushable toilets. Kid #1 also
decides to stay in his old room for the night.
I change the sheets on his brother's bed, which used to be his bed
because his brother's bed is actually now a daybed that's covered with various
things that need sorting and is hidden under a pile in the spare room. After I do that, I start packing us up for
the next day. Depending on what the
weather holds, we need hats, gloves, coats, layers, Arctic gear, and
sunscreen. By the time Kid #1 rolls in
from the pub that evening, which used to be one of my hangouts so I guess it has
become a multi-generational place, there is a fresh, warm bed for him, and we
are mostly packed for our all-day lacrosse adventure.
I sleep like crap all night, actually
dreaming that I can't sleep, which is both ironic and mortifying. We finally get rolling for the morning, and
it seems like the stars are aligned for a quick getaway. All we need to do is pack the cooler with a
huge batch of pasta salad for the lacrosse players and a case of ice cold beer
for the lacrosse parents (which I'm probably not even supposed to say out loud,
but since I'm technically typing, I can claim a strong defense). Kid #1 has to make a quick stop at the bank
to replace his debit card, which has busted a seam due to over-use. While I wait for him to return, I decide to
check Facebook.
And this is where all the damn trouble
starts. I see a post from a friend about
her horoscope, and I think to myself, "Hey, Self, you haven't checked your
horoscope in years … decades. Check your
horoscope… hahahaha." So I find
what appears to be a reliable horoscope website (which altogether sounds a bit
like an oxymoron), and I read it: Blah blah good times today blah blah friends
and family blah blah grasping concepts that usually take you longer (so I
won't have to yell at the refs as much)
blah blah watch out for accidents…"
I say, whaaaaaat? Accidents?
Watch … out … for … accidents. The information creeps up on me like Ralphie
Parker in A Christmas Story: "Be
… sure … to … drink … your … Ovaltine … A stinkin' commercial?!" And I think, "A stinkin'
accident?!" Damnation.
Kid #1 returns, and we start to leave to
head north. He has moved his car into
the driveway, and I back in behind him so we're ready to go. When he jumps into my car, I almost hit the
gas -- while I'm still in reverse.
Ooopsies, I almost wipe out his car.
Phew, that was a close … almost-accident. Shit.
We see the highway is moving nicely, always
a crapshoot around here when traveling north, and I start to merge into my
lane. All of a sudden a car shoots by me
out of nowhere. I never even see it as
it screams into my blind spot, but I sense its presence and don't quite move
fully into the road. Wow, I almost wiped
us out merging onto I-93. Shit.
Again.
The rest of the journey is reasonably
uneventful except for a few cars driving like they're on the autobahn and the
sighting of one Statie tucked into a great hiding spot with his radar gun in
full force. We arrive so early that I
decide to drive by Lake Massabesic for the view. I explain to Kid #1 how there are three
versions of Route 28 here, which is the same street we've lived on or right off
of for almost all of his life. I tell
him how Route 28 leads to the mall, Bypass 28 leads to the lake, and Route 28A rolls
into the city by way of Elliot Hospital.
His eyes glaze over. This is
information he truly doesn't want or need.
(Hold that thought, folks.)
We pull into the parking lot at the
university, head down to the back lot where the cookout after the two games
will be, and get a spot just as a visiting team's bus pulls down into the
restricted area. I park on an inside
spot instead of backing into a side spot, get my gear organized, and Kid #1 and
I start trekking up the hill to the field.
Suddenly we hear whistling and someone
yelling, "Whoa, whoa, stop!"
The giant luxury motor coach bus decides that continuing straight to the
exit makes too much sense and starts backing up. Right into one of our team parent's parked
truck. The bus is actually pushing it
out of its space. Damage is minimal, no
one is hurt, and, as I continue heading to the field, I think, "Well, that
must be the accident. Aren't I a lucky
bastard since it wasn't my vehicle for a change!" Haha! Beaten fate yet again.
Not
so fast, sister. Not so fast.
Kid #1 and I walk around the field and
enter at the far gate. We see some of
the parents there who are already talking about the motor coach incident
seconds earlier. Then I see something
else. Out of the corner of my eye I see
movement. The hair on the back of my neck
stands up. I get a stabbing pain behind
my left eye because I suddenly feel like Phineas Gage. Something awful is about to happen, and I can
feel it in my skull as surely as if I just had a spike driven through my
cerebral cortex.
Trotting across the field is Kid #3 and
he's wearing a little sock on his thumb.
Yes, that must be what it is, a doll sock on his thumb because it's pink
and fluffy. Oh, if only my biggest problem today is that my kid likes to wear doll
socks on his fingers. I may not be able
to take him to family functions, but I might be able to get rid of this
head-splitting sense of foreboding disaster.
It is not a sock. On my son's thumb is a wad of gauze, a huge
wad of gauze that is rapidly turning from white to pink to scarlet to brick red
in the time it takes him to get from the mid line to the gate, which is about
thirty feet. Fucker. Mother. Motherfucker.
Kid #3 is a goalie. Right now he is the goalie because two days earlier the other goalie was hit in the
hand by an errant shot, broke his thumb and damaged some ligaments. Kid #3 informs me that just ten minutes
earlier, while Kid #1 and I were enjoying calm lake views, he, too, was hit in
the hand by an errant shot. Only his
thumb didn't break. It broke open. Wide open.
Disgustingly gapingly open. And
he is shooting blood out of his finger.
Like Kid #1's debit card, Kid #3's digit has busted a seam.
For those who don't know me well or who
haven't seen me in a very long time, my favorite Mom-ism when my kids were growing
up was, "Walk it off." Mom, I lost a tooth when I accidentally
planted my face in Jacob's head at judo.
"Walk it off." Mom, I took a huge chunk out of my chin and
elbow in a roller blading accident. "Walk
it off." Mom, I severed a limb. "Walk
it off." My kids have grown to
understand that "Walk it off" means a little bit of what it truly
says and a lot more of "Don't fuck with Mama; she hasn't had her meds yet
today."
While the coaches are, I'm certain, holding
their collective breaths, and while the other parents are horrified at the
sight of his finger, I smile a smile that is a good deal denial and a helluva
lot more insanity and say, "Walk it off."
Kid #3 makes it through two games, changing
the dressing often, and meets me at the after-festivities. His coach insists the thumb will need
stitches since four hours after it split, it is still bleeding profusely. I am thinking it's nothing a few butterfly
bandages won't fix. I mean, come on. It's a digit, for cryin' out loud. He didn't cut open an artery … or … Hey kid, didn't you just get that
re-dressed? You did? And it's already bleeding through? I purse my lips and shift my eyes. I don't think any amount of medical supplies
we pick up at CVS is going to solve this one.
Reluctantly we pile into the car, leaving the pasta salad and a few of
the beers behind, and we take off in search of one of the three Route 28s - the
A one. The one that leads to Elliot
Hospital.
When we walk in, the ER receptionist asks
if he has ever been to their ER before.
He had been there just recently for stitches in his mouth, so I say,
"Oh yeah. He's a frequent flier
here." It is here that Kid #1 and I
finally get to see the cut on Kid #3's thumb as we haven't seen it unwrapped
yet. As soon as the medic removes the
gauze bandage, blood starts pouring out of the cut.
Wait.
That's not entirely true. Blood
isn't pouring out. It's spurting
out. It's going everywhere. It pools into the medic's gloved hand, gets
onto the poor guy's pants, drips on the floor, and starts to look like a mini
Lake Massabesic right there in the ER, only it's red not blue, and there aren't
any little sailboats floating in it. It
is one of the most impressive and persistent slices I have ever seen in my
life.
I call Kid #2, the nurse, and tell her
what's going on. She says, "Get a
picture of it!" to which I reply that it's too gross. It's just too horridly, hideously,
gruesomely, terrifyingly gross. Had I
known the ER was going to take three hours, though, I would've told her to
drive the forty-five minutes up there and see it for herself. Then it would've been a true family
experience, a story to be handed down to my grandchildren, The Tale of the Bloody Thumb Stump.
Three hours and five stitches later, we are
all relieved that there are no broken bones nor torn ligaments, and that
possibly both goalies will be in complete fighting condition come spring. I am also impressed that my limited knowledge
of the multiple Route 28's has managed to get us to the hospital and back again
without getting lost. Plus the GPS. The GPS helped, too.
As I drop Kid #3 back at his dorm, it dawns
on me that my horoscope came true, after all.
There was an accident; it just wasn't mine exactly, but it was mine to
tend to, so it all worked out in the end.
P.S. Note to self;
Don't ever read your horoscope ever again. Never.
Ever.
