Broke a Bone
In my early teen years, I hated this one kid...With a vengeance.
That's right HATE.
I remember his name but I'm not going to type it out, liable laws being what they are...Let's just say that his first name rhymes with Dumb and his last name rhymes with Ass.
I don't really remember now why I hated Dumbass so much back then.
I do remember that Dumbass was Uber-Annoying and liked to push my buttons, he had a way-too-big forehead, thought he was the best at everything and challenged me to beat him at virtually anything he happened to be doing at the moment.
And I do mean ANYTHING. I'm talking about Basketball, Football, Foosball, Air Hockey, Soccer, video games, running, walking, breathing, holding breath, eating, vomiting, starving, making paper airplanes, flying paper airplanes, building model cars, destroying model cars, handstands, pumpkin stands, kick stands, duck walks, high jumps, triple jumps and anything and everything else that could be done as a competition...In short he was Lex Luther to my Superman, Tom to my Jerry, Boss Hog to my Bo...or Luke.
That's the background, we didn't get along and we were always competing.
So, at this time I was around 13 or 14 years old...you know, still pretty dumb, practically cro-magnon really.
My family (2 parents, 2 teenagers, 2 grade schoolers, 2 pre-schoolers) had befriended this other family that was also huge, by all accounts, I mean they were HUGE! I'm pretty sure they outnumbered us by at least 3 kids and to my understanding the mother of this family continued shooting out kids until only a few years ago...Holy Uncontrolled Child-Bearing Batman!
And, you guessed it, Dumbass was one of the kids that made up this hoard. He was the second oldest, just like me, and ever since the day that our two families started hanging out Dumbass lived his life like a fire was under his ass...He was in constant motion and stuck on Code Level Annoying 24-7-365.
On this particular day Dumbass's Dad had built a skateboard ramp...The skateboard ramp of doom. It was sort of a launch ramp for future astronauts really, the angle on the ramp was incredibly steep and you had to have a great deal of momentum behind you as you hit the ramp to even get to the lip of the ramp and launch off of the other side...needless to say; our skinny asses were not getting much air.
In the heat of the afternoon Dumbass and his 17 brothers and sisters were taking a soda break when I got the idea of the day and began to plot out my course to fame and riches.
Imagine if you will for a moment...
A suburban side walk.
On one side a row of bushes that separate the front yard from the world.
On the other side a fairly unused surface street.
Before me a stretch of sidewalk that ends at the ramp about 20 feet away.
The ramp sits couched between a telephone pole and the sidewalk shrubbery.
12 feet up the telephone pole a crossbar the width of a baseball bat's handle crosses over the sidewalk.
The telephone pole crossbar hangs 12 feet above and slightly ahead of the skateboard ramp of doom.
Perfect.
This is how I imagined it going in my mind...
I would set the skateboard aside, kneel in a sprinters starting stance and bolt from that position of calm readiness into a frenzy of spinning arms and legs like Fred Flintstone on a Brontosaurus steak. My mind focused on the crossbar, my body tense and ready for the jump. As I near the skateboard ramp of doom I look briefly to my right at Dumbass and his hoard and say something smart, like "Watch this!" or "Heads up!" or "You suck!"...Then, turning my attention back to the ramp at the last possible second; I'd run up the ramp at terrific speed and jump at the last second straight up into the air. In slow motion now, arms reaching, teeth gritting, soaring like an eagle...I'd grab onto the telephone poles crossbar and swing in the air with the greatest of ease with a laugh on my lips and a twinkle in my eye as Dumbass sits dejected and alone as I deal out the final trump card that he can not match or dispute. The neighborhood girls would be impressed by my athleticism, naturally, so they would come from several blocks around and cheer for me and chant my name.
Eventually I would get down from the pole and walk up and down the block signing autographs while surrounded by admirers and lovers until the sun went down on the glorious day that I had created.
This is how it actually went...
I set my skateboard aside and knelt in a sprinters starting stance. I bolted from that position of calm readiness into a clumsy ambling gait worthy of a newborn deer. My mind a jumbled mess of confusion, my body turning to jelly and telling me to stop. As I near the skateboard ramp of doom I look briefly to my right at Dumbass and his hoard and say something dumb, like "Hey!"...Then, turning my attention back to the ramp at the last possible second; I'd run up the ramp at a fast walk and jump at the last second straight up into the air. In slow motion now, arms reaching, teeth gritting, trembling like a leaf...I reach out for the crossbar and only manage to brush my two longest fingers against the cold hard steel before the momentum of my body plus the brush of my fingers against the pole set my body in motion. I begin to twirl in mid air completing a double backwards flip before landing on the sidewalk. When my body slams down on the concrete sidewalk my arm has hit the ground a millisecond before my face. My chin slams squarely into the middle of my right arm breaking both of the bones in my arm into two pieces and twisting my arm into something resembling Gumby in the hands of a sadist.
I raised my head and looked around, a little dazed, a little confused. I saw my arm all twisted and broken and it definitely did not click in my brain that I had done some damage until I turned to Dumbass and his family to point out that my arm looked funny. When I saw his face and the other kids screaming and running away I got a new perspective on the condition I was in. I immediately became aware of the numb sensation coming from my arm and after I looked at it again I knew that I wasn't feeling weird because my idea hadn't worked, I was feeling weird because I'd broken my body!
So, an air splint administered by a hot looking blonde EMT and an ambulance ride to an emergency room brought me to the point in the story where the doctor injected some kind of three wisemen of shots into my veins and I started feeling sleepy right away, but I did not fall asleep before witnessing the doctor taking a firm grasp on my hand with one of his hands and my shoulder with his other and proceed to pull the broken bones in my arm apart and then reset them...after that it was 3 days of drugged-up bliss eating popsicles and ice cream in between naps and TV watching.
If I had it all to do over again I think I would've put a little bit more steam in my engine before jumping off that ramp.
It would have been glorious!
Anywho, that's the first time I ever broke a bone.
That's right HATE.
I remember his name but I'm not going to type it out, liable laws being what they are...Let's just say that his first name rhymes with Dumb and his last name rhymes with Ass.
I don't really remember now why I hated Dumbass so much back then.
I do remember that Dumbass was Uber-Annoying and liked to push my buttons, he had a way-too-big forehead, thought he was the best at everything and challenged me to beat him at virtually anything he happened to be doing at the moment.
And I do mean ANYTHING. I'm talking about Basketball, Football, Foosball, Air Hockey, Soccer, video games, running, walking, breathing, holding breath, eating, vomiting, starving, making paper airplanes, flying paper airplanes, building model cars, destroying model cars, handstands, pumpkin stands, kick stands, duck walks, high jumps, triple jumps and anything and everything else that could be done as a competition...In short he was Lex Luther to my Superman, Tom to my Jerry, Boss Hog to my Bo...or Luke.
That's the background, we didn't get along and we were always competing.
So, at this time I was around 13 or 14 years old...you know, still pretty dumb, practically cro-magnon really.
My family (2 parents, 2 teenagers, 2 grade schoolers, 2 pre-schoolers) had befriended this other family that was also huge, by all accounts, I mean they were HUGE! I'm pretty sure they outnumbered us by at least 3 kids and to my understanding the mother of this family continued shooting out kids until only a few years ago...Holy Uncontrolled Child-Bearing Batman!
And, you guessed it, Dumbass was one of the kids that made up this hoard. He was the second oldest, just like me, and ever since the day that our two families started hanging out Dumbass lived his life like a fire was under his ass...He was in constant motion and stuck on Code Level Annoying 24-7-365.
On this particular day Dumbass's Dad had built a skateboard ramp...The skateboard ramp of doom. It was sort of a launch ramp for future astronauts really, the angle on the ramp was incredibly steep and you had to have a great deal of momentum behind you as you hit the ramp to even get to the lip of the ramp and launch off of the other side...needless to say; our skinny asses were not getting much air.
In the heat of the afternoon Dumbass and his 17 brothers and sisters were taking a soda break when I got the idea of the day and began to plot out my course to fame and riches.
Imagine if you will for a moment...
A suburban side walk.
On one side a row of bushes that separate the front yard from the world.
On the other side a fairly unused surface street.
Before me a stretch of sidewalk that ends at the ramp about 20 feet away.
The ramp sits couched between a telephone pole and the sidewalk shrubbery.
12 feet up the telephone pole a crossbar the width of a baseball bat's handle crosses over the sidewalk.
The telephone pole crossbar hangs 12 feet above and slightly ahead of the skateboard ramp of doom.
Perfect.
This is how I imagined it going in my mind...
I would set the skateboard aside, kneel in a sprinters starting stance and bolt from that position of calm readiness into a frenzy of spinning arms and legs like Fred Flintstone on a Brontosaurus steak. My mind focused on the crossbar, my body tense and ready for the jump. As I near the skateboard ramp of doom I look briefly to my right at Dumbass and his hoard and say something smart, like "Watch this!" or "Heads up!" or "You suck!"...Then, turning my attention back to the ramp at the last possible second; I'd run up the ramp at terrific speed and jump at the last second straight up into the air. In slow motion now, arms reaching, teeth gritting, soaring like an eagle...I'd grab onto the telephone poles crossbar and swing in the air with the greatest of ease with a laugh on my lips and a twinkle in my eye as Dumbass sits dejected and alone as I deal out the final trump card that he can not match or dispute. The neighborhood girls would be impressed by my athleticism, naturally, so they would come from several blocks around and cheer for me and chant my name.
Eventually I would get down from the pole and walk up and down the block signing autographs while surrounded by admirers and lovers until the sun went down on the glorious day that I had created.
This is how it actually went...
I set my skateboard aside and knelt in a sprinters starting stance. I bolted from that position of calm readiness into a clumsy ambling gait worthy of a newborn deer. My mind a jumbled mess of confusion, my body turning to jelly and telling me to stop. As I near the skateboard ramp of doom I look briefly to my right at Dumbass and his hoard and say something dumb, like "Hey!"...Then, turning my attention back to the ramp at the last possible second; I'd run up the ramp at a fast walk and jump at the last second straight up into the air. In slow motion now, arms reaching, teeth gritting, trembling like a leaf...I reach out for the crossbar and only manage to brush my two longest fingers against the cold hard steel before the momentum of my body plus the brush of my fingers against the pole set my body in motion. I begin to twirl in mid air completing a double backwards flip before landing on the sidewalk. When my body slams down on the concrete sidewalk my arm has hit the ground a millisecond before my face. My chin slams squarely into the middle of my right arm breaking both of the bones in my arm into two pieces and twisting my arm into something resembling Gumby in the hands of a sadist.
I raised my head and looked around, a little dazed, a little confused. I saw my arm all twisted and broken and it definitely did not click in my brain that I had done some damage until I turned to Dumbass and his family to point out that my arm looked funny. When I saw his face and the other kids screaming and running away I got a new perspective on the condition I was in. I immediately became aware of the numb sensation coming from my arm and after I looked at it again I knew that I wasn't feeling weird because my idea hadn't worked, I was feeling weird because I'd broken my body!
So, an air splint administered by a hot looking blonde EMT and an ambulance ride to an emergency room brought me to the point in the story where the doctor injected some kind of three wisemen of shots into my veins and I started feeling sleepy right away, but I did not fall asleep before witnessing the doctor taking a firm grasp on my hand with one of his hands and my shoulder with his other and proceed to pull the broken bones in my arm apart and then reset them...after that it was 3 days of drugged-up bliss eating popsicles and ice cream in between naps and TV watching.
If I had it all to do over again I think I would've put a little bit more steam in my engine before jumping off that ramp.
It would have been glorious!
Anywho, that's the first time I ever broke a bone.
posted by Benji at 2:13 PM
2 Comments:
YES, I agree Liz...
Funny story Bro. I remember that like it was yesterday. You were crying like a wee baby. You forgot to mention that part didn't you? Anyway, remember about a week or two after you got the cast off and I accidentaly closed the sliding van door on your arm? OUCH!!!
I felt so bad. We're so lucky that didn't break it again. Dad would have killed us.
It's too bad you that you didn't have those late night taco bell lessons in "The mastered art of cussing", to help you when you broke your arm. It might not of eased the pain, but it would of got quite a rise out of "dumbasses'" family for sure! Oh, and, we can all sleep better tonight knowing that Katie taught you how to cuss.
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