Rattlesnakes, Monkeys & Massive Head Trauma

Hello, my goodness don’t you all look so wonderful today – doing something new with your hair?

Maybe you finally get that one hinky tooth sticking out of your mouth like an olympic javelin fixed? You know, behind your back everyone calls you sabre tooth.

I’m sorry that was mean. There was really no reason for me to bring that up, none. I’m sure you’re only too aware of how goofy you looked, that little piece of enamel jutting out from the rest of your chicklets like the steel reinforced prow of a Canadian Forces Icebreaker crashing through the Bering Strait in January. That one little incisor trying desperately to distance itself from the remainder of the mashing, gnawing multitudes blossoming from your mouth. Some kind of demonic Julia Roberts mouth, swallowing everything in its path and scaring children…

Again unnecessary, I guess today I’m a bit ornery, not to be confused with wanting intimate relations – that is called being onerous. Wait nope, I’ve got that wrong, that’s horny, whatever…. Which of us hasn’t used the word ornery in some funny story about our mules or a rattlesnakes we ran into whilst out in the fields threshing wheat, our monkey by our side?

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So last post I explained how wonderfully proud I am of my daughter and her burgeoning driving skills – Hello Next Danica Patrick – Now I’d like to take you through a magical page from my own personal archive.

It too is about being 16 and wanting your driver’s license so bad you can taste it. I’m quite sure I would have stabbed someone in the eye with an ice-pick if they dared get in my way the morning of my 16th birthday. Wait, did that happen? No, now I remember, I didn’t start carrying the ice-pick until I was 18. I also remember it was God who threw down the gauntlet that day and quashed my dreams.

I woke up so freaking excited that I was almost vibrating, Ok I was vibrating.

In those days it used to take me a long time to get ready, my hair had to be just right, the perfect amount of feathering, the right flip at the back, it had to have a Ph balance of between 1.7 and 3.2, I also needed the sheen index to be at least a 5, 7 if I could manage it but with those cut-rate shampoos my mom insisted on buying…. well, it was hard. Finally, I was able to achieve a solid hair 8, and I left the house. Mom was generous enough to give me my day off from school and so I needed to get to the bus, then to her, I was using her car – a gigantic 1969 Cadillac Eldorado with steer horns on the hood and flames down both sides and pink shag interior. Mom had bought it for a bargain off the local pimp, Slick Willy.

How did my mom come to know Slick Willy? Well I ‘d rather not bring my sister into this….

Anyways back to the story, I was in a real hurry and decided I would ride my bike to the bus stop, lock it up.. get on the Bus and be reborn as a Driver, after passing the test with 119% – because of my exceptional hair. But, and here’s where God makes his first appearance, my bike has a flat tire. So, and this is an indication of how single-mindedly focused I was – without a thought I got on my sisters bike AND I WAS GOING TO RIDE IT OUT IN PUBLIC. At 16, are you kidding me, why didn’t I just put on make-up and a bright pink tu-tu… Didn’t care – needed to get to the bus…

Now at age 16 I was already a giant, 6’7″ – 419 pounds and I won’t lie – that little Schwinn of hers earned it’s keep that fateful day.

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Now I may have taken some literary liberties to this point, but I swear to you the rest is completely true – you can ask my mom. I proceeded to destroy Tokyo and then I…. Just Kidding – Godzilla joke…. couldn’t resist.

I was blazing pretty quickly on my sisters bike, and I made it almost the whole way, as I was riding up a slight hill towards the bus, which was parked – I was catching it at the end of the line turn-around. I get no less than 30 feet from my destination and I raise off the seat for one last hard crank on the right side pedal, well didn’t that pedal snap off at that exact moment and I did the most spectacle flip and slow motion Hindenburg like, utterly devastating destructive crash since James Dean. The comparison is quite apt, I assure you. Anyways, as I was making my third majestic rotation, I briefly caught the horrified bus drivers eyes watching me…. two cars passing on the street SKIDDED TO A STOP, so spectacular was my crash, to see if I was dead I assume.

I jumped up with only the thinnest grasp of what planet I was on, but managed to say I was OK to the passing motorists, fueled by embarrassment and adrenaline and the desire to get my license. I laughed it off, managed to lock up the bike and got on the bus, “that was some wipe-out, looked really bad, are you Ok?” the Bus Driver asked, “yea, heh heh,  I think so” and I walked to the back of the bus, which was empty.

A nano-second after sitting down I knew things were not right. For some reason the bus was floating and the earth and sky had switched places and how the beautiful stars did dance to and fro about my head. Using the backs of all the seats I made my way up to the front of the bus and asked the driver “when you bump your head, you aren’t supposed to go to sleep right?” and then I did, total black out, fell down the front steeps of the bus into a heap on the ground, when I next woke up I was in some office lying down and they were asking for someone they could contact, I kept trying to get up saying I needed to get my licence… they held me down and eventually I gave them my mom’s work number and she came and got me.

That was my excellent adventure, trying to get my learners permit at 16, and the only person who could have stopped me that day, did – God made the metal on my sisters pedal snap at that exact moment and it could only have been for one reason…… I suspect it was because he was jealous of my hair…

Have a Great Day

Next Post I’ll tell you about my most recent Doctors visit.