There are so many things not for the faint of heart.
Parenting: What do you mean, you want to drop out of school and (insert your worst nightmare HERE)
Sports: And the (insert your favorite losing team HERE) lose by one...
Now, add the two together and you have a double whammy of heart-rending material. The latest tale of rendering-o-the-heart comes to you by way of an All-Stars tournament:
Morning. Bottom of the second inning, Mauraders are up to bat, Nathan hits a solid single, next batter up, Nathan steals 2nd, on the first pitch -- he's safe. Which is good, 'cuz he's not exactly built with wheels. Second batter hits a single, Nathan's on 3rd now.
Third base coach calls for a suicide squeeze (Batter will bunt and Nathan will slide into home -- if catcher is in the way, you hope you can knock the ball out of his glove or get in under the tag) Nathan nods, he's ready, batter bunts Nathan's got a good lead and he slides into home -- perfect form -- ball is knocked loose and he's under the catcher...He's SAFE.
Nathan's not taking his eyes off the ump until he hears those words. Then he he starts to curl up into a ball. By this time I'm hitting my husband and saying, he's hurt, he's hurt. Husband starts to go to him -- dad has to go first, it's one of those made up rules in baseball, like a balk, or a delayed steal to home -- one of the coaches is there, helping him up -- I'm clutching the fence behind homeplate. Nathan reaches down, pulls at his sock -- it's ripped, then he sees his shin and starts to scream.
That's when I go -- made-up rules are stupid anyway. By this time he's got all the coaches, both teams and the ump surrounding him. Luckily, there were some medical people at the tournament who could check on him. I'm on the ground at his head, holding his hand and saying mom things. His dad's at his side -- letting him know, it's okay (totally lying -- because this shit sucks) The EMT tells us, he needs stitches and someone's called the ambulance.
Ambulance! We did accept the cart that drove Nathan and me back to the parking lot while Rick ran to get the car...we got to the ER in about 10 minutes with lots of creative driving, perhaps not always following the letter of the law, yet making sure we wouldn't add more injury. So, for the weak of heart, this is where you don't want to look -- for everyone else, here's the before and after pics. Nathan thinks they're really cool.
See? He really does HEART baseball!
There are so many writing analagies here -- but, I'm still so tired, that adrenaline is a killer, I'll talk about those later.
Quick ROW80 check-in: Still outlining steampunk YA -- lots of new plot twists, love that. Otherwise, pretty much nothing. But I'm gearing up for a big push here...any day now.
What did you do on your summer vaca?
Wow! That is quite a unique injury. He will have lots to tell his classmates.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to hear some of the writing ideas you get from that story - I know my head is going strong.
Hope your son heals up real nice and enjoys the rest of his summer!
Whoa! That is quite the story. I tried not to LOL at the "He really does HEART baseball" because it looks so painful, but I couldn't help it. Hope it heals and he's back to the next thing soon. :)
ReplyDeleteWow, coolest injury ever (in terms of looks). Hope he's doing well
ReplyDeleteYeah -- he thinks it's pretty cool. And he liked it that it started out as a heart and ended up as a V.
ReplyDeleteJodi -- I think I'll probably post something tomorrow -- just in time for my wed check-in!