Life Story #1: Almost Dead Thanks to Fred

For those of you who doubt the possibility of miracles happening, you've obviously forgotten your own childhood. The fact that kids even survive into adulthood is a miracle in itself. I mean, unless you were a nerdy kid who sat in a chair reading books all day with no desire to ever do anything remotely cool, then you should understand the point I am making here. If you were anything like me your childhood consisted of scars, scrapes, sprains and so on. These were usually the end results of climbing trees, jumping off stuff that was not meant to be jumped off, not paying attention to your surroundings, or having stupid friends. My goal for these next few blogs is to demonstrate, by using my own life experiences, how truly fortunate we all are to have survived being a kid.

Almost Dead Thanks to Fred...

There I was, having the time of my life with my cousin. The year is 1996 and I am Six years old. Its late in the evening and my cousin and I are sliding around on our knees on his living room floor that is made with wood. This, for me, is like going to Disney Land because all we have at my home is carpet (Note: Sliding around on carpet is definitely not as fun nor as friendly to the knees as wooden floors).

Crappy ten cent toy that almost got me killed.

Now, like most kids, my cousin and I are completely unaware and unfazed by our surroundings. My focus is not on the large TV in the room or our parents sitting on the couch near us. I don't give a second thought to all the fragile items around me nor the glass table that is placed dead center in the middle of the room. Where is my focus you ask? My focus is on the Flintstones toy I just got from McDonald's or Burger King. (I don't remember where I got it exactly because when you are a kid you don't care about the food all you want is the crappy 10 cent toy that comes with the food.) My cousin had Dino and I had Fred Flintstone. They came in small cars that you would roll back and let go of to make them drive forward on their own for a short distance. My cousin and I are captivated by this leap in technology from the old way of just pushing the car around with your hand to make it move. Despite this technological advancement we are somehow still left wanting. What could possibly make this experience more thrilling? Sliding around the room after the cars full force on our knees, thats what!

So at this point (for those of you having difficulty placing yourself in this scene) you have two kids speeding around a room chasing after toys with numerous ways to injure themselves scattered all around. Their eyes focused not on these potential causes for a hospital visit, but rather on the toy cars darting around in front of them. It's moments like these that serve as a lesson for how life works. One moment you are gliding along loving life without a care in the world and the next you are getting staples in your head (this is a metaphor of course).

Everything happened so fast. The glass table in the center of the room made its presence known and now had my full attention. My laughter and joy turned into screaming and crying. A casual conversation between my cousin's parents and my own turned into panicked yelling. My sweat mixed with blood as I was rushed to a nearby emergency room with a head wound deathly close to my temple. The time between the toy, the table, the car and the emergency room went by in an odd fade in fade out movie like fashion. The only moment sticking to this day in clear clarity in my mind is the moment when the Doctor ( I am realizing now maybe this is the moment that made me hate Doctors) took some form of stapler and, without administering any type of anything to mask the pain, went "Clank" Clank!"

"Clank, Clank! Got you sucka!"

This action on the Doctors part saved my life, sure, I realize that now. But at the time I couldn't understand why, when we live in a time where we can make toy cars move without pushing on them, did the doctor fix me in such a barbaric way. Anyway the point of telling you this story is to teach a few lessons.

1.) I could have died that day and yet did that change the way I observe my surroundings? Nope. So as Gregory House, the only Doctor I like, once stated, "almost dying changes nothing, but dying changes everything". 2.) McDonald's toys are evil  3.) Technology is evil 4.) Flintstones, specifically Fred, is evil 5.) Wood floors are awesome 6.) Glass table corners hurt really bad 7.) If you ever see a doctor coming at you with something that looks like an alien stapler run!

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