Ok, people. I only have one follower but I'm getting my ass kicked about not having any new posts. I was on vacation, and that's allowed. I'll try my best to hold up my end of the deal from now on, as I don't foresee any more out-of-town fun heading my way.
The good news is that my puffer and gramma made it through the poisoning, so the tank death seems to be done. I have a few newbies coming my way, so I'll be sure to let you know their names and what-not. Maybe I'll even post some pictures.
Considering I just got back from a week at one of the most beautiful places in the world, I'm not really looking to write about something unfortunate today. It was great times with fabulous friends and I gotta' go back to work tomorrow, so isn't that depressing enough?
Oh, here's a good story. I was living over in England during my 'abnormal' years - you know, you're a girl, you hit puberty, you get all chubby and gross looking. Well, except for you fortunate babes out there - many of us suffer the excruciating humiliation of being a 6th or 7th grader. Anyway. My dad was in the military at the time so we lived on the Air Force base and those in charge figured it would be a good idea to have a fair of sorts - with rides and everything. I was excited.
I got as dolled up as I could during this ugly phase of mine, but skipped the leg shaving, and the hairs on my legs were long, I'm not kidding. But I had stolen a pair of my sister's Levi's to wear, so they were covered up. Who cared!?
I hit the fair with my friends and we did it up big. There was this one ride I had my sights on - a humongous metal cage that imprisons up to 4 people. You use your body to get the thing to start swinging and then swing all the way around like a big ferris wheel, but much faster. I got in with a girlfriend and 2 big guys and we started gyrating all over the place to get that big chunk of steel to move. It did. And I didn't mention that none of us was strapped in in any way shape or form.
So just as we were about to go over the top (literally), there wasn't enough momentum so the cage swung back around and the 4 of us went flying all over the place. It took me a few minutes, but I realized that I had blood seeping through my jeans from my knee down to my ankle. Um. Yes, I was wearing my sister's jeans. My older sister's jeans.
I started screaming and hollering for the guy to stop the ride, but since it wasn't controlled mechanically, there was nothing he could do but watch until we all stopped shooting around like human popcorn in the f'n cage.
When I got out I started high-tailing it to the port-a-trailer. It was an actual trailer versus a porta-potty so I was at least having good luck there. But then, who did I run into but my sister, and when she saw my jeans (her jeans) she threw daggers at me out of her beautiful brown eyes (she wasn't one of those awkward looking puberty victims). Thank God I was all bloody, because suddenly she was on me like white on rice, asking if I was OK and walking me to the trailer to help 'clean me up.'
We got in there. She told me to pull my jeans down so she could clean my knee. She went to wet some paper towels. I pushed the blood-red fabric over my kneecap and she turned around to look at it. Her face went white. My face. Well, I don't know what color my face was, but I imagine it was a mixture of purple, red, white and yellow. We were looking at the sickest sight ever. My right knee was split open a good 3 inches long and an inch wide. Tendons and flesh were sticking out. I'm not even shitting you.
You can imagine that not only is it bad enough being an ugly 7th grader. Throw an ambulance ride on top of that in the middle of a fair where all your friends are and you may as well throw in the towel. I felt like a real a-hole - not to mention that I had this blow-up thing on my leg and everyone could see all my leg hairs sprouting out of it.
I ended up with a boatload of stitches, which felt really great because they stuck the numbing needles right into the gash (yeah, I hate that word, too). I was crying my head off, but my dad's face was about an inch away from the entire procedure. For some reason he was fascinated and managed to watch the whole thing without puking. I don't remember where my mom was. Maybe she hyperventilated and was forced to stay in the waiting room, but I think all of us were in the car when I finally got to go home.
As much as it sounds like a real crap day, I got away lucky. Turns out, that ride was such a rickety piece of shit, some guy busted his head open on it and they shut the thing down. Never having it there in the first place would have been my choice.
And there you have it. An incident that wasn't life threatening, but lifelong. Not just because of the scar. That day, I knew that despite all the fights and nasty words between us, my sister cared about me.
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