A Call to Arms

2018

It was a failure of imagination. Yes, that describes it well.

You see, my son couldn’t imagine anyone else daring to drive on his Ranch Roads while he raced the Quad around. 

This, despite the fact that he saw me driving down to the nursery to check on some trees. 

I guess I too, lacked imagination. Yes, I was concerned about the possibility of Xander racing around and me driving the same road... 

So I traveled at about 2 MPH with both my headlights and emergency blinkers on. And even considered honking my horn every 5-10 seconds but, you know, talk about overboard. 

Well, as I slowly start making my way back across our pasture, just going over the small bridge which goes over the spring run off when who should come flying right at me but my son, Xander “No Survival Instinct” Hardy.   Had I not been on that tiny bridge, it wouldn’t have been a problem. He could have just gone past me on either side, but the spring run-off has created a ditch about 6-8” deep. 

   So, he did get over the ditch, kind of. To my surprise, he stayed on the Quad but came down very hard after his brief Evel Knievel impression. 

I don’t recall him ever looking so terrified; both during his brief flight and as I got out of the car and stormed towards him.

  After apologizing profusely, he said his wrist was hurting; It didn’t look bad to me but the fact that he asked me to ride the Quad back was disquieting. 

   And that bastard, my brain, kept replaying the same 5 second clip of near disaster.

By the time we got back to the garage, and upon hearing the boy’s 20th apology, I finally yelled at him, “I’m. not. $%#+ing. angry. I’m. +^£¥ing. terrified! They look the same on a parent!!”

   So we put some ice on and wrapped it up. By this time, cousin Hunter had show up (yes!) along with his current girlfriend (boo!). 

    Tina and I thought maybe we should have somebody look at it so we called the Winthrop clinic and they were able to squeeze him in at 4:30. Off we went. I didn’t expect too much hassle. The wrist looked a bit swollen but not terrible. Maybe a sprain or perhaps a dislocation. Both of which could be treated right then and there.

   But no. Once the nice doctor unwrapped it, I was able to provide a more medically sound diagnosis of “That ain’t right!”. 

My colleagues concurred but didn’t think they could handle snapping it back into place.

So, after doing a better wrap up, giving X and shot of pain medication (in the ass-cheek to my son’s great indignation) and checking with the two large (we’ll, large adjacent) county hospitals, it was off to the Mid-Valley Hospital in Omak. 

   After a very long check in process (why exactly do they need my wife’s SS#?!?) they took many X-rays. Yup, it was broken.

  With the terror subsided; the fatherly annoyance came back. Every time a medical professional stopped by, he or she would politely ask about the cause of said broken wrist. Swear to God, his first response was something like:

   “Well, my Grandma has this Ranch and it has all these dirt roads and I love to go quadding. You ever go quadding? Well, it’s my cousin Hunter’s...” 

By the 3rd or 4th iteration of the story, I had browbeat him into, “I crashed on a quad.”

Eventually, the nice doctors were able to yank everything back into place and get a better temporary cast on. 

(“Be brave, son!” shouted the father from hallway.) 

  Sadly, Walmart was out of the pain medication so we drove home. However, Tina contacted our local pharmacist Bob Ulrich, who; despite being asleep 10 minutes earlier, drove to his pharmacy in Twisp to fulfill the RX. 

Local pharmacies rock! Support them!!!

So, when we got home, I wrapped up his cast in a garbage bag and sent him to take a shower in GPa Harold’s Old Fart shower.

Then it was reading and giving him 1/2 a dose of the medication. I’ve checked on him twice so far to see that he’s still breathing and will do so at least one more time.

  In theory, I will be returning to Silverdale tomorrow, Xander will start Rivercamp on Monday while the Mrs. and I fly down to Vegas for 4 days of wild romping.  

   That’s not going to happen; at least the first two. Doubtful the trip will happen either. Before he gets his permanent cast, we’ll need to take him to an orthopedic surgeon sometime next week but of course, they don’t work on weekends. We’re in a holding pattern just waiting to see whether the KP surgeon or the Omak surgeon can schedule us first. If I had my druthers (and why not?), I would prefer the Tacoma option as that would be in network which might save us a bit of money. 

  This is not how I pictured things going. You’d think I would be used to it since:

A) A summer trip to Vegas from 6 or 7 years back was mildly messed up by another broken wrist (that time it was Tina’s) and... 

B) Xander first broken bone happened at the Ranch as well. (See below) This evil place can even bring down the Man of Steel.

   I could go on further but it’s now nearly 1:00 and I would just love this shitty day to be done. Tomorrow, I can worry about next week. What will we do? Not a clue. 

  Just this last thought. Being the only child of two overprotective parents, Xander has gotten the idea that this whole universe was placed here for his education and enjoyment. (With an emphasis on just one.) And since that’s the case, he doesn’t spend much thought to keeping himself safe. I wasn’t joking about the lack of danger sense. Well, I really hope this near-death experience has scared the crap out of him. Made a profound difference in how he views and approaches the world. Maybe even change his life a bit.

I call it his

  Road to Dumb-asscus Conversion. 

(Copyright 2018)

Let’s hope.

Must sleep now.