As of late my son has been dunking on his mini hoop hanging on the door in his room. His long arms and his abnormal height for an eight year old give him the ability to get fancy with his dunks. He goes full speed 99% of the time. I think as a boy you challenge yourself and others in physical competitions on nearly a daily basis. Arm wrestling, foot races, pull-up contests anything that can prove you are bigger better or badder. Preston has let me know on multiple occasions that he is the second fastest kid in his grade. As it turns out, he only knows he is slower than his best friend. Same difference.
Growing up you don’t always need somebody else around to see how awesome you are. In fact, I can remember jumping to touch the top of the door casing every single time I went from the kitchen to the den.
Let me preface this next little bit with a confession; I consider myself athletic. That’s right I said it! And those of you who know me can vouch for me later. I play/played multiple sports and despite a debilitating handicap of having two parents that played in the band, I overcame the odds. Football, basketball, shotput and discus, a few short distance races, a couple warrior dashes, racquetball, jousting, speed checkers, fast pitch wiffle ball, horse leaping, chariot racing, cow chip throw, frying pan toss. Moving on...
With all the athletic ability in the world there are still certain things you can’t do. Even at age 19.
It was a lovely evening at my parent’s house hanging out with my girlfriend, Jessica. Everyone was away from the house (wink). That is not what this story is about, minds out of the gutter people. She had to go home and it was time for me to kick back and enjoy some television.
Summertime meant it was very hot in Oklahoma and extra circulation to the sunroom was needed. We had a simple box fan sitting on the single carpet covered concrete step between the living room and the sunroom. The sunroom was built on to the house by the previous owners and their choice of door was sliding glass patio style.
I don’t know if I was just stoked about life in general but I reverted to being eight years old. I decided to run to the kitchen for something. Returning, running as fast as you can in a fifteen foot sprint, I made a decision, a poor decision. I knew the fan was there and I knew I had the ability to jump and clear it no problem. I knew I could jump much higher and in fact as my feet left the ground my confidence was peaking. What I did not account for was the simple math of the situation.
A simple math problem: A 6’ tall man-child is attempting to jump over a 20” box fan, his vertical leap is in the 17”-24” range. If the fan is sitting on the ground in a 6’8” door, how hard will he hit the ground when his head strikes the metal sliding door track?
As I easily cleared the fan with my feet, my head smacked so hard into the metal track it threw me to the ground. I landed with my tailbone on the concrete step and the small of my back on top of the fan. My 256lbs crushed the fan like a smart car that’s been hit by a semi-truck. If you have ever fallen on ice that is how fast it happened. Before I could figure out what had gone wrong, I immediately sprung to my feet and reached for my head which felt warm and wet. Blood was gushing so fast it filled my hands before I could make it to the bathroom. I was in the middle of a calm freak out at this point. I called Jessica and asked her to come back. I also called an ex-coach that lived across the street.
I told Jessica on the phone I had hurt myself pretty bad and in true loving fashion she was there at my side in no time.
When Coach Pierce showed up I pulled back the towel and I guess it gapped open because he flinched slightly and said “Yep, you’re going to need stitches.”
Jessica drove me to the hospital. By the time I got back in the ER my little sister and mom had shown up; little sis and Jess waited in the waiting room and mom came back with me. As they stuck needles in my head to numb the pain (hurt like a mother trucker) and sewed me up with blue stitches, sis and future wife were talking, unbeknownst to me.
One of them, “Wouldn’t it be funny if they wrapped his head like in the movies?”
The other one, “That would be hilarious!”
As I rounded the corner from the back room, my mummy wrapped head piece sent them rolling. It was funny later.
Again, no amount of athletic ability could have prepared me for the lack of commonsense. As with most non-life threatening accidents it was painful and funny. I guess I proved that math and physics are just as important as athleticism. It is only a matter of time that my son will do something stupid like this and after making sure he is okay, I will belly laugh, just like my parents and their parents and their parent’s parents before them.
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The pics on this post are not mine, I borrowed them from Google images. Thanks.
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