Obviously, your answer cannot be an
expletive-filled, Lord's-name-in-vain laced observation on the
unfairness of life. Well, it can be, and it is part of the answer,
but I guess what I'm looking for from you now is what else was going
through my head as my ribs prepared to meet the ground with a fair
amount of force, directly contrary to medical orders which had
demanded that I do not fall again?
Let me help you. The thought was one of
the following: a) This is going to leave a mark; b) Boy. This is
going to really hurt; c) Who's going to tell my physician's assistant
that despite her looking me directly in the eye and saying, “Do not
fall down ever... ever again,” because it certainly isn't going to
be me?; or d) Fall out of bed, breaka bone.
The answer is d). But more about that
in a moment.
First this: just about every piece of
physical damage I have done to myself in recent years has happened
when I was doing some random act of gardening. I don't really care
for gardening, it's really Sheri's idea of a great way to spend time.
But the fact that I was stung 15 times by bees and have now just done
some serious damage to my already damaged ribs while mowing the lawn,
certainly gives me reasons for what had been heretofore just a random
lack of interest to become a very strong dislike.
True, being stung by the bees led to
the discovery of my multiple myeloma, but, then, how's that working
for me? Right?
But back to the “Fall out of bed,
breaka bone” thought.
My younger daughter Alison, who is
about to turn 44 years of age (maybe 43) and her sister Jennifer
developed two of the most basic skills in opposite manners. Jennifer
chose to focus on learning how to walk and took a while to make
speech a goal. Alison was much more interested in talking than
moving, figuring, in retrospect, I suppose, that she could voice her
opinions to people as they passed by, as opposed to going to where
people were and then having nothing to say.
We were actually worried that there may
have been some developmental issue involved. It soon became apparent
that she had simply been storing up smartass remarks so that she was
ready to effectively interact with those around her.
She quickly learned that she could say
things and people would react. If nothing else, they would stop
ignoring her and pat her on the head. One of the first times she
noticed this, I think, was when she fell out of bed one day and broke
her collarbone. One and all were told, “Fall out of bed, breaka
bone.”
Well, we all felt bad about that, and
initially she kept it to herself except when people asked why she was
wearing her little figure eight brace to mend the collarbone: “Fall
out of bed, breaka bone.”
But as the queries began to dry up, she
added to her sad saga: “Daddy bad. He no watch. Fall out of bed,
breaka bone.” I'm not quite sure where she came by this thought,
her sister perhaps, but it quickly became fact that I was in charge
of her for the day, she fell out of bed and landed on her collarbone,
and it was my fault, never mind that it happened before I went on
Alison-watching duty.
The fact that she insisted on telling
this story, over and over was bad enough. The fact that she was just
learning to speak made the whole thing sooooo much more agonizing:
“Daddy... daddy... daddy bad. He... he... no... he no... he no
watch... Fall out....Fall out of... fall out of bed....breaka bone.”
Oy.
Let me tell you, a sweet little
blond-headed cherub looking sad with a figure eight brace pulling her
shoulders back labeling her father as the perpetrator of the need for
her brace... You can say it was an accident until you feel that you
may need your own figure eight brace to keep your shoulders from
slumping, but you would not want to take the witness stand and
compare stories. When people heard “Fall down, breaka bone. Daddy
bad...” Perry Mason couldn't have helped my case.
Anyway, that's what was going through my mind as I headed for the ground, ribs first. I was right- it did leave a mark, it really did hurt, and no one at the cancer clinic was especially pleased that I had fallen down and hurt myself again when I had been specifically instructed not to do that.
The damage was done to the same spot
that has been sore from the beginning of my feud with multiple
myeloma. Nothing was broken, but it still hurts a lot and keeps me
awake. But at least lying awake at night, gives me more time to think
about why all these things keep happening to me. On the plus side, I
did break my fall with my face (insert your joke here).
Maybe Alison's sad report on her
accident was actually some sort of curse. Maybe I shouldn't have told
her that Shetland wool came from Shetland ponies subsequently causing
her ridicule when she was older... Oh, wait a minute. I told her
sister that and it led to a whole other tale of woe. Let's save that
for another day.
There are a variety of versions of
the story that gives this blog its name. The pony is the constant in
all of them. A man is on his way to a party when he comes across a
young boy shoveling ass over tea kettle at an enormous mountain of
manure. The man asks the child if he wouldn't rather go with him to
the party than shovel all that poop. The kid says, “No way man.
With all that poop... there must be a pony in there somewhere
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