This is the story about one of the two times I broke a bone in my body.
Both of the stories are funny in their own ways, but one of them is more sad than funny, and I don't want to tell that one. Yet. Maybe if I get low on material.
Anyway, my Aunt and Uncle used to live in a pretty awesome house. My Aunt is an amazing decorator. She can have a house be spotlessly clean, and yet completely comfortable at the same time. I have never, ever seen somebody else able to pull this off. Either a house is filthy and cozy like a hibernating bear or clean and sterile like a needle.
My apartment is filthy and cozy, if you don't mind the smell. Personally, I blame the fugue on roommate, but he's been showering more often of late, so I'll have to come up with a different plausible excuse, instead of admitting the truth.
So, my Aunt and Uncle lived in a cool house. Right. They had a crawlspace that had a small stream running through it, where I used to catch crawdads. I'm pretty sure that it wasn't good for the foundation to be right over a small creek, but I wasn't a safety inspector, so whatever. They had a computer room that smelled of lemons and was always cold. They lived on a 45 degree slope.
In case you were wondering, that last part was the important bit. 45 degrees. If it were a professor, it would be a television one, with a truly stupid, impossible amount of graduations under his belt. Or a celebrity that solicits honorary degrees like most celebrities solicit sex and unspecified drugs. If it were a thermometer, it would either be extraordinarily hot or "pretty chilly," depending on where in the world the thermometer was from.
But it is neither of those things. It is a hill. A tall, steep hill.
And my Aunt and Uncle have a scooter.
Scooters are ridiculous things. Tiny wheels that can't even get the stupid thing over a bump in the driveway properly without scraping, a metal board, and a handle that comes up to your crotch if you happen to be really short. They are not designed to be fun, safe, or for any discernible purpose at all, in fact. They are, in fact, pointless kill machines that I personally believe Darwin himself invented in order to improve the human race.
As you may have guessed, I have felt the fury of an underestimated scooter.
I wore a helmet, which was a smart thing to do, stood at the top of this ridiculously tall hill, and let myself go with an abandon that emo teenagers and their razor blades would have envied.
I made it to the bottom going at approximately warp 7, smashed the brake with my back foot, and skidded for maybe twelve miles before coming to a full and complete stop. Completely unharmed.
It was awesome. So I did it again. Still made it to the bottom safely.
The third time, my brother saw me. He wanted to try.
A little more history is required here. The last time we had visited my Aunt and Uncle, my brother had broken his arm by falling off a bed.
I may or may not have pushed him.
The time before that, my sister broke her leg by falling down some stairs.
She may or may not have jumped after I dared her to.
Basically, when my Aunt and Uncle were around, I was an accidental psychopath.
So, not wanting anything bad to happen to my brother on this trip, the correct thing to do would have been to tell him no and to put the scooter away some place out of reach so he couldn't hurt himself.
Instead, I told him he totally could, but I had to come with him.
On a two foot long, three inches wide piece of metal. It was a tight squeeze.
I pushed off, and we began travelling fairly quickly. Wanting more control than I had, I reached with my back foot for the brake...
There was a person in the way. And then I realized how phenomenally screwed we were.
There was only one way to stop, and that was the ground, which was now whizzing beneath us faster than a commercial airliner equipped with Nitrous Oxide.
So there we were, travelling at a significant portion of the speed of light, with no brakes, down a hill so steep I was pretty sure we were going to leave the ground in moments. I only had one choice.
I bailed.
I hit hard and rolled, my helmet absorbing most of the impact my head would have suffered.
My brother wasn't wearing a helmet, but it was okay, because his head landed RIGHT ON MY FREAKING WRIST SNAPPING IT IN TEN BILLION PIECES.
And then he went and told mom, and I got in trouble.
Also, the doctor who set my wrist was a dirty filthy liar. Count of three my ass, you quack.
No comments:
Post a Comment