“I bet they greet Greg by name now,” My Much Better Half said the other day about our son and the staff at his local urgent care center, so many visits has he made the past few weeks for himself as well as with his young daughter and infant son.
We can joke because everyone is doing fine.
I am also laughing because I am reminded of my late mom taking either me, one of my two older brothers, or younger sister, to the E.R. pretty much on a weekly basis when we were growing up to get stitches, X-rays, plaster casts, emergency treatment for bad reactions to spider bites, and so on. Just typical 1960s free-range childhood stuff.
And then there was the time an embarrassing trip the E.R. was avoided by instead going to the Fire Department. Let me set the scene . . .
Kiddie Korner, our local toy store, had a number of swing sets on display with multiple signs that even five-year-old me could read: “Do Not Touch.”
One particular swing set featured a see-saw-like ride with bright-yellow hard-plastic seats shaped much like a conventional bicycle saddle. These see-saw seats had a constellation of dime-sized holes which My Big Brother could not resist seeing if his fingers would fit into.
They did!
Blood quickly pooled in MBB’s fingers, causing them to swell. Two of his fingers, and thumb too, got stuck. The harder he pulled, the more they swelled.
Adding to his panic, MBB knew he was not supposed to touch the swing set. He told me to get Mom, who was next door shopping for clothes.
Mom shooed me away.
MBB sent me again.
Again Mom sent me away.
By now MBB was in tears, from pain and more so out of fear of being discovered and scolded by the store’s owner.
On my third attempt, filled with urgency, I finally convinced Mom to come rescue MBB. Seeing the situation, she was deeply worried – less about MBB’s fingers than the thought of once again having to take one of her kids to the E.R., and this incident would top them all. Trying to avoid such embarrassment, she confessed MBB’s transgression to the store’s owner and asked for help freeing her son’s hand from its plastic prison.
The owner retrieved a wrench from the back storeroom and unbolted the seat from the swing set frame. He then told MBB to raise his hand high overhead, hoping this would improve blood circulation and help the swelling go down.
MBB, understandably, was crying because his eight-year-old fingers, now the size and color of grilled hotdogs, throbbed.
“Look on the bright side,” Mom consoled MBB. “It’ll make a great baseball mitt!”
MBB laughed and his tears stopped, but his hotdog digits were becoming bratwursts.
The toy store’s owner kindly drove us all to the Fire Department and suddenly I was thrilled MBB had ignored the “Do Not Touch” sign because we got to go inside the firehouse!
More excitement followed as one fireman after another slid down the giant silver pole, examined MBB’s hand and the hard-plastic swing set seat attached to it, shook their head in equal parts wonderment and bafflement while suppressing laughter, then called for a fellow firefighter to take a look.
Lubricating MBB’s fingers with oil, then grease, both failed and tin shears proved as futile as bullets to Superman’s chest.
In the end, one of the heroes carefully cut MBB’s plastic baseball mitt off with a hand jigsaw and Mom was set free from her weekly E.R. visit.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.
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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.