Any way, I realized that I have some fun stories to tell, so maybe i'll do that here... Let's start with my main source of amusement: my little bro, who I endearingly call Midget. That's only because once upon a time he was much shorter than me, but now, in the eighth grade, he's like 5' 7" or something. Actually, now that I think of it, I may offend anyone who happens to read this with the term 'midget', so let's just call him The Boy. That'll work.
Anyways, when I was about 10, we had our house remodeled. This meant knocking out a wall in between the kitchen and family room, knocking down the cabinet wall harboring a stove and oven combo, and converting the screen porch separated by sliding glass doors into a sun room. On this specific day, however, our kitchen was finished and the last element of our makeover-the windows for our sun room- were being delivered. Mom had gone outside to be present when the window delivery guy and the carpenter were talking about the delivery, making sure the details were right. My sister, who I don't yet have a nickname for, had just started to realize that she was getting older and as such obviously needed to act more mature. To achieve this, she also stood there with her arms crossed, acting like she knew what was going on, just like mother was doing. I was running around, amused by the enormity of the truck and it's contents and messing with The Boy. He decided to run off, so I thought he was headed inside. Next thing I know, he's on his bike, with no helmet, headed around the giant truck in our driveway, not applying any brakes.
From my angle I saw his bike-riding-self come around the front of the truck and right up to a large stick. the combination of the stick and his application of the front wheel brake flipped him over the handle bars, and he came down on his chin. I counted down: 3... 2... 1... and then he screamed in pain, drawing Mom's attention to him immediately. She ran over, picked him up, examined his chin, and decided that it was worthy of a hospital trip. Since Dad was still at work, Mom didn't feel comfortable leaving us with the workers, so we all piled into Olaf (That's our van, by the way. One of two), gave the workers permission to stay, and rushed to the hospital.
I don't think I've ever been so afraid for my life.
And it wasn't The Boy's injury that scared me. Oh no.
It was Mom's driving.
In retrospect, I guess I should've expected it, being as how her youngest of five children had just bashed his chin into the ground with enough force to have broken his jaw, but her recklessness was endangering our lives. Before we left the neighborhood, she took out someone's mailbox, swerved onto the wrong side of the road and nearly hit a parked car, and ran a stop sign. After that, she was speeding, running lights, and constantly looking back to his booster seat, presumably to make sure The Boy was still conscious, despite the fact that his wailing should have been a good sign of his consciousness.
We eventually made it there, but it still wasn't fast enough for Mom. She hastily filled out the paperwork, turned it in, and came back to our seat to cradle The Boy (who was five at the time) and try to get him to quit wailing. They finally got us in, stopping at the halfway station to get his weight, temperature, basic details about the injury, and other random info that I suppose was necessary. The nurse who was helping us found this to be an opportune time to lecture The Boy, my sister and I about the safety of wearing helmets, and berate Mom for not making sure we used them, because she was obviously at fault for The Boy's injury. The nurse was insistent that if The Boy had been wearing a helmet, the buckle under his chin would've protected hime from this injury. Pfft.
Anyway, they finally got him to a room, and the doctor came to inspect the gash. After some measuring, poking and much wailing from The Boy, it was determined that stitches were required. About that time, Dad got to the hospital from work, and took my sister and I home for the evening.
And that was all.
Just kidding. Mom brought The Boy home about 9 o'clock, and he was in some sort of drunken state. He had to be gassed so that he wouldn't feel the pain of a needle going through his chin. He was also given a toy, because it was fairly close to Christmas, and our hospital gives gifts to kids who have to be there near the holiday season. He was pretty much out of his head, so went he managed to mumble something about needing to go to the bathroom, I figured I'd make sure he didn't hurt himself (you know-because he's my brother and I care?). Mom told me to let him do it himself, but, per my persistence, I followed him into the bathroom anyway. I watched in horror as he dropped his pants, and peed into the bathtub.
I'm pretty sure I didn't shower for at least a week after that.
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