wanderingsoul
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Sam and the Crochet Hook--DNA Evidence NOT Needed - Friday, April 15, 2005
You know, there are days when I truly see that Sam is my son. Not that I have any actual doubts (thanks to the DNA testing 9 ½ years ago), but there are days when the genetics are just SO confirmed. This was one of them.
I’m going leaving for vacation early Sunday morning. I will be gone until late Friday night. Consequently, my time with Mark is short and I am anticipating severe withdrawal symptoms. So needless to say, I was not leaving this computer until Mark went to bed. And Mark and I were both listening to the River Rats game—which is a cool thing, that he can listen, too, since there is a link on the River Rats web site.
So Sam came blasting in the room about the time Mark and I were saying good night. We don’t just say “Night” and that’s it. There is a process we go through. Any deviation from it and neither of us sleep restfully. Yes, we are sad. And there was about 5 minutes left of the game.
So my first words were, “Sam, this is NOT a good time right now. Go away and come back in 5 minutes.”
“But Dad, you won’t say that when you see my ankle! But please! Don’t use tweezers! Get a needle or something because it is barbed and you can’t pull it out without it hurting!”
Ok, Sam gets a sliver about 3 times a week without fail. Figured that was what he had—and he wouldn’t let me actually look at it at that point.
So I tell him to wait a minute, I'm saying good night to Mark and listening to the game. Ok, so I’m Dad of the Year… So he goes howling, and I don’t mean yelling—I mean actual HOWLING, like a werewolf (he is a werewolf these days, when he is not a vampire). So he makes such a big fuss that I told him to come over here right now--and I actually looked at his ankle.
Sam had a crochet hook sticking out of his ankle.
A nice one, with a very fine point, for fine crocheting. And it was through his sweatpants. For those who might not know, crochet hooks have a “hook” on the end (hence, the name). The hook isn’t barbed or anything and while you cannot pull it straight out of your skin without ripping and tearing your skin (yes, I have experience—no, don’t ask), you can maneuver it so that if you bend toward the opening of the hook, you can pretty much just slip it out.
Except that it was stuck in his sweat pants. Apparently before he came yelling and crying to me, he had tried to remove it himself. Natural thing to do—especially when you might actually have to explain to someone why you had a crochet hook in your ankle. But in his efforts, he had gotten the sweatpants bunched up and trying to pull them back up the crochet hook caused him to scream like a banshee. Ok, he is a bit dramatic. No clue where he gets that from.
So I had to cut through his pants. Now, he has about 6 good pairs of sweat pants—ones without holes in various places. And he has about 8 pairs of play pants—holes, stains, various reasons they cannot go to school. He now has 5 good pairs of sweat pants and 9 pairs of play pants—adding one with a slit cut in the bottom of the leg—about 9 inches, through the elastic and up.
Once I got the pants cut, the crochet hook came out easily. So I cleaned it up—amid another display of howling because the antiseptic wipe was “TOO COLD!” And I put some Neosporin over the wound and put a nice Harry Potter BandAid on it.
Then I asked the key question: “How did you get a crochet hook stuck in your ankle?”
“I was sitting in the recliner” (in the room with the TV, DVD, VCR, etc.) “and I moved my leg and the crochet hook must have been sticking out of that case with the sewing and knitting things” (my grandmother’s) “in it and it just got stuck in my ankle.”
The “case with the sewing and knitting things in it” is—when last I looked, which was yesterday—on top of a shelf in that room, about 6 feet from the recliner. Damned thing must have leapt down at just the right moment, blood in its eyes, and attacked. I’m THINKING that he was playing with the case—which he has been ABSOLUTELY told NOT to do a few times now—and dropped the crochet hook and then forgot about it. And when he went to get up, it was probably stuck in the cushions of the chair and he impaled himself on it.
Of course, he will never admit that—because he KNOWS he would be in trouble. Probably figures he would get some major punishment—which would not be a good way to start out a vacation. What he doesn’t realize—or maybe he does now—is that some crimes come with their own rather nasty form of punishment.
I think getting a crochet hook stuck in your ankle is a pretty good punishment for playing with something you shouldn’t have been playing with. Would like to think he has learned his lesson, but this is the boy who came in the house one day with a bull’s eye on the tip of his nose because he wanted to know if the cigarette lighter in the van was hot—so he smelled it.
Not much chance of learning any lessons here.
But maybe he did learn ONE lesson. When I yelled at him “There’s only 5 ****ing minutes left of the game and you have to come in here NOW? And Mark is getting ready to go, can’t you just wait?” (Which “up there” I mentioned as “So I tell him to wait a minute, I'm saying good night to Mark and listening to the game.” ), he said,“You care more about hockey than you do about me!”
So I looked at him and said, “And your point?”
So, yeah, Dad of the Year. But at least MAYBE he learned not to bother me when there are only 5 ****ing minutes left to the damned hockey game!
So maybe next time, when he impales himself on a knitting needle (there are some of those in that case, too—which are likely to go deeper, but be easier to remove), he’ll wait until the end of the game. Better still, do it on a night when there is no hockey.
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And by and by my Soul returned to me, And answered "I Myself amd Heav'n and Hell"
Omar Khayyam
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