Kobayashi Maru

So I realize that if I had lots of time and an complete lack of need for income, I could regale you with Muppet stories pretty much every day.  So if you love reading this as much as I love living it and sharing it, we can definitely strike some kind of deal.  You give me money, I provide you with consistent enjoyment, amusement, hilarity, breaks from your daily grind.  Just wanted to throw that out there.  Run it up the proverbial flagpole and see if anyone salutes…

Anyone?

Anyone?

Buhler?

Buhler?

Ok, guess not.  Well, then fine.  Have it for free.  But no more bitching about the quality of service on the lido deck then.  And we are moving to well drinks in all the bars now.  All the fine liquor will be in the captain’s quarters from now on…come to think of it, it always has been.  Move along -nothing to see here.

Alright, you know something mush have happened to drag my sorry butt back to the keyboard.  So let me get to it.  Once a month, I have to be in K-town now to do some work.  It’s a good situation, but it does take me away from Ferf and the Muppet for short stints and that part can be trying.  The Muppet has been surprisingly nonplussed about it.  Ferf has been fairly good about it.  I have been accepting all forms of sympathy however and milking it for all it is worth - but that’s just how I roll.  With the advent of such wonderful technology like Skype and internet phones I can all but touch my family while I am gone.  If I could actually touch my family, or at least Ferf, while I was gone then I am pretty sure that this would quickly become a little too personal a post for most of you to read.  That or I would make it a members only site and start making some real money…but I digress.

SO one morning, I got a phone call from Ferf.  This is not that unusual, but normally we do our calls in the later afternoon or right before the Muppet goes to bed so we can stick with the whole bedtime ritual and routine.  But this day I got a call fairly early in the morning.  So I answered it (cause that is the normally accepted response to a ringing phone.  In fact, it has become almost Pavlovian these days, which you would think would mean that I should be able to get my dog to answer the phone, but the best I can do is get him to run to the phone and slobber…).  Anyways, I picked up the phone and seeing it was a call from m ever-lovin’ wifey, answered it.  (cause with caller ID that whole Pavlovian response things is less relevant.  In fact, you shouldn’t even bother trying to get your dog to answer the phone.  If you could get him to read the screen and tell you who was calling however, that would be a neat trick and could probably score you an appearance on David Letterman’s Stupid Pet Tricks.   Unless he was busy destroying his show by sleeping with people who work for him.  Maybe he might want to sleep with your dog…you know what.  Let’s put this whole dog, phone, David Letterman affair behind us shall we.  It leads to dark, awkward places.)

So, lets go back to the beginning.  The phone rang, I saw it was Ferf and I answered it.  See, that wasn’t so hard was it. There is absolutely no reason to go delving into things like dead Russian psychologists and whether or not David Letterman has a predilection towards bestiality.  Why do you people do this!?

SO I answer the phone with out a single thought outside of answering the phone…and Ferf tells me that the Muppet doesn’t think she should go to school that day.  Now, understand that this is a HUGE thing.  The Muppet likes school.  In fact, the Muppet loves school.  She’s a role model for goodness sake!  She loves the kids, the teachers, the uniforms - she loves it all.  So her not wanting to go is well, huge.  So she gets on the phone with me.  And I ask her how she’s doing the fine morning.  (Cause you don’t want to play into anything unwittingly.)  She tells me that she is not doing well.  I can tell this is going to be a bit of a drawing out process.

Me:  Why are you not doing well?  Isn’t today a beautiful day?

Muppet: I don’t know if today is beautiful  I haven’t seen it yet.  And I probably shouldn’t see it.

<Now, to be fair, and in the interest of full disclosure, she did have a bit of a cough - and evidently a tickle in her throat judging by the horrid sound she was making that was more than clearing one’s throat, but less than anything else I could imagine.  I realized that at some point it would be my fatherly duty to teach my little princess how to “hock a loogie”.  I have come to understand that this is not a practice that girl daddies normally participate in.  One doesn’t see a lot of little girls all dressed up in frilly lacy pinky things spitting hocked up snot onto the sidewalk like they might see a teenage boy doing.  But even if one is reviled by the concept, one must admit that said teenage boy had to have been taught how to both hock and spit said loogie at some point - either through intentional tutelage or by personal practice from mimicry.  However it happened, there was a definite exchange of knowledge, and as I am less inclined to allow others to teach my daughter things “on the playground” I figured that it probably fell to me to cover that particular portion of the life curriculum - mostly because I know for a fact that her mother doesn’t have the knowledge to share with her.  I know this because her mother once asked me to teach her how to do it.  We were already engaged, so I guess the gloves we off and she figured I had made enough of a commitment that she did not have to fret over whether or not I would call her the next day if she asked me how one does it.  Being the good and kind fiancee I was, I acquiesced to her query.  We were sitting in Queeny Park in Vancouver - overlooking the entirety of the place, which by the way, is gorgeous. That fact plays little part in the story, but it does help with setting and sometimes context matters.  It was late morning, so we had the place pretty much to ourselves.  We were sitting on a park bench that was placed with a perfect view of the city, but probably not with loogie hocking practice in mind, but hey, you cannot anticipate everything.  So Ferf got the hocking part pretty quickly.  (She does have a younger brother and I know for a fact that ScottyBear can bring up quite a loogie, so I assume that she learned the internal portion of the project from mimicking him.)  Evidently, though, she never had really “gotten” the concept behind spitting.  So there was a gap in her learning that she desired to close.  I showed her a couple of times with what were, I must admit at the risk of sounding prideful, beautifully arching blobs of the perfect mixture of saliva and mucus that flew no less than 7-8 feet before impaling themselves on the blades of grass on the lawn before us.  I talked at length at the importance of rolling the tongue, the science of creating an airtight seal with your lips until the last moment to achieve maximum velocity, and the art of the perfect trajectory.  In fact, it might have been one of my finest off-the-cuff lesson plans.  When she finally worked up the courage (and the loogie) to try, she was giddy with anticipation.  We were sitting side by side and both looking forward in order that we might together view her first successful attempt so we could do an after action review of her performance.  I counted it off for her….three…..two….one….GO!

The sound that emanated from her cheeks, as well as the flakes of spittle on the side of my face gave me instant informational feedback that she had indeed not made an airtight seal like we had spoken of.  It was then that I felt the delicate pressure on the top my shoe.  That perfect amount of pressure that only comes from a dainty loogie being deposited by gravity onto the top of your foot.  I looked at her briefly before looking down to survey the carnage that was my Nike Air.  I knew two things instantly.  One, the girl before me who would become my ever-lovin’ wife, was not going to “get it” when it came to this activity.  And two, she was getting a cold.  But I digress…>

So the Muppet had a tickle in her throat that she was unsure how to scratch, but the noises she made suggested that she was not going to scratch that itch before she made anyone around her with a half decent sense of auditory awareness really uncomfortable.  Also, she had a bit of a dry cough.  Not quite Swine Flu, but evidently annoying enough to her to be worthy of a “I can’t go to school today” intervention.

Me: Muppet, what’s the problem?  Are you sick?

Muppet: Oh yes daddy.  I am SO sick.

Me: How sick are you?

Muppet: Too sick to go to school!

Me: How sick is that?

Muppet:  Well daddy, I have a cough.  I couldn’t sleep last night because of the cough.

Me: Baby girl, Daddy went to school lots after not sleeping all night.  You can do it.

Muppet:  Daddy…<sniffing like tears were beginning to well up in her puppy dog eyes> you don’t understand.

Me: What don’t I understand baby girl?

Muppet: I am exhausted and catastrophied!!!

Me:

Muppet:  Daddy, did you hear me!?

Me: Ummmm, yeah.  I got you there chief.  Exhausted and catastrophied.  That sounds bad.

Muppet: Oh it is bad Daddy.  So very bad.

So Ferf let her stay home from school.  The cough was not very nice and the sounds she was making would have been distracting even to the most dedicated kindergarten student.  And through it all, I got a new vocabulary word.  One that I am certain we have all felt at one time or another.  Catastrophied.   Yep, we’ve all been there baby girl…we’ve all been there.

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Has it really been almost a month since I posted??  I have been too busy on the ever-lovin’ wifey’s internet presence and have let my own go a bit.  I am truly sorry about that to you whom look to the Maru as a constant (or at least consistent) source of…source of…ummm…whatever need it is you have that somehow goes unmet in any other place in your life.  I can only imagine how difficult these last few weeks have been on you.  Seriously, I can only imagine because I wouldn’t actually know in a personal way.  But I am here to empathize with you.  I feel your pain.  Let’s move on.

So Ferf broke her foot this weekend.  Yep.  Broke her right foot - and know I don’t mean she broke it off in my arse.  I mean she broke a bone in it.  Fracture of the fifth proximal metatarsal.

So now she has a big black air cast boot on her foot.  Very sexy.  She wears it well - makes it look good.

But how did she break it you ask.  I’m glad you asked.  She tripped over thin air whilst walking across the bedroom floor.  She swears that she tripped over my house shoes, but I think that’s bunk.  My house shoes are not something easily tripped over.  They are size 12 after all.  How on earth does someone overlook a freaking foot-yacht parked in the middle of the floor?  If it were me, I would rather have people believe that I tripped over thin air.  But she stands by her story…well, sits by it really. She doesn’t stand so much right now.  heehee.

She did it right as I was leaving for the weekend.  Friday morning and it is literally 10 minutes before my ride was coming and she takes the dive upstairs and I run up to find her doing a full frontal face plant on our bedroom floor - her head landed 4 inches from the door jam.  The good news is that she didn’t brain herself as well.  But we got her up and down stairs and her foot elevated and iced.  It was already swelling by that time and she couldn’t put weight on it.  So she asked me if I could go to the store and get her some crutches before I left.  Dutifully I checked on line and made some calls to drug stores and such.   No luck.  No crutches to be had.  I had the dubious honor of letting her know that there would be no crutch based assistance coming.  I offered to cancel my trip, but she wanted me to go.  When my ride showed up I took my bags out to his car and when he opened his trunk, there was a set of crutches.  I asked him if he were planning to get injured to which he responded that they were a set he used after ankle surgery and he was taking them to the Salvation Army.  I laughed and took them into the house for Ferf.  She used them all weekend and waited until Monday to even go see a doctor.    Ahh my wifey.  She’s a keeper!

Evidently the Muppet was quite the trooper this weekend.  She took care of everything that Ferf needed.  She carried food and dishes to Ferf, she brought her drinks and kept the house “tidy”.  She did her chores and never once complained.  She was awesome.  In fact, she tried to do everything.  She tried to not only bring Ferf a bottle of extra strength Advil liquid gels, she tried to open them and give her some of them.  Unfortunately she was foiled by the child proof lid.

She tried and tried to get the bottle open, but to no avail.  Frustrated she handed the bottle to Ferf and told her that she could not get it open.  Ferf smiled and told her that it had a safety feature - a child proof lid.  The Muppet thought about that for a moment and said “it’s child proof?”

Ferf said, “yes honey…it’s child proof.”  Again, the Muppet thought about that and finally said with a deeply sincere look on her face,

“But HOW does it know that I am a child???”

Later I told the Muppet that it is magic, like a thermos.  It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold, but nobody knows how it can tell the difference.

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And so it’s Earth Day.  A day where we celebrate…uhh…Earth.  I guess. If you area at all like me - yeah I know, scary thought and not something that you would publicly admit to anyway, but still, if you are, then you would suddenly feel this overwhelming urge - nay, NEED - to Google “earth day” and find out what this whole thing is about anyways…so, let’s do it.

Kneel down, close you eyes and say, “great oracle Google.  Please tell us…”  What!?  Oh sure, you don’t pray to Google.  You just use Google like a harlot.  Getting your needs met whenever YOU feel like it, but never giving back.  Have you ever even said Thank You  once?!  Well.  Have you?  I thought not.  Ok, Google whore user person.  Lets just go get what we want from Google and then move on to the next tab in our browser like we don’t care shall we?  FINE!

So Google tells us that

Earth Day, celebrated in the US on April 22, is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in in 1970 and is celebrated in many countries every year. This date is Spring in the Northern Hemisphere and Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.

The United Nations celebrates an Earth Day each year on the March equinox.

That sounds all warm-fuzz doesn’t it?  Like we should take some time each year and nurture nature?  Let’s hug trees and dance naked in the forests at midnight in the light of the full moon…

But I digress…there is more that Google is willing to give us, if we would just be patient and a little kinder.

Like this:

In September 1969 at a conference in Seattle, Washington, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin announced that in spring 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on the environment. This occurred during a time of great concern about overpopulation and when there was a strong movement towards “Zero Population Growth.”

Nelson viewed the stabilization of the nation’s population as an important aspect of environmentalism and later said:

“The bigger the population gets, the more serious the problems become … We have to address the population issue. The United Kingdom, with the U.S. supporting it, took the position in Cairo in 1994 that every country was responsible for stabilizing its own population. It can be done. But in this country, it’s phony to say ‘I’m for the environment but not for limiting immigration.’”

OH OK!!!  So Earth Day was originally a big push to have people stop breeding.  I get it.  Love the Earth more and each other a little less…nudge, nudge, wink , wink, know what I’m sayin??

SO Earth Day is where we celebrate a pledge to stop procreating.  It’s like a birth-control celebration!!!  Only, don’t use condoms, cause those things don’t recycle.  (If you somehow think differently on that - Please, for the love of God and all that’s holy, don’t explain your position in the comments.  Seriously.)

I’m starting to understand now!!

Wait…what?  Google has more for us?  See how much better it is when you treat Google right Mr. Man?

Five months before the first April 22 Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the rising hysteria of “global cooling”^.

“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’…coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned….”

OHHHHH….So Earth Day is to warn up about the dangers of Global Cooling!!!  I get it.  So we all go outside in parkas and mittens and then go out in the forests in the dark of night and rub our naked bodies together to create a natural heat that can turn the tide against this global cooling epidemic that will kill us all with the new ice age!

Wait a minute…what the hell am I going on about?  Global COOLING??  I am confused…I need me some more Google.

Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his old staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Alllriiiighty then…so on Earth Day we protest.  We are angry about deteriorating environments, and oil spills, and factories and power plants and raw sewage (I prefer my sewage medium well personally) and toxic dumps (as opposed to innocuous dumps I suppose), pesticides, and freeways (I hate those big things that are paved and allow me to go visit people and see things that I would otherwise never see or die on the journey to), the loss of wilderness (cause I need more wild in my life) and extinction.  These things all really chap  my hide.  Individually, I would probably just stew in my own proverbial juices, but when looked at collectively, it is a rallying cry to people all over to stand up and say, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08[/youtube]

I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GONNA…what?  I’m sorry, what?  What do you mean there’s more?  Oh ok, what now?

Earth Day on April 22 in 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide

Recycling??  Seriously?  I thought we were mad as hell?  So what, we’re so mad that we’re gonna create blue plastic bags…and we’re gonna put cans and bottles and plastic stuff into different blue bags and neatly set them on our curbside every week!  Yeah…that’ll show them…Geez.  That’s not even worth getting undressed in the forest for.  Earth Day sucks…

Errr…WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? What does that Google biatch want now?!?!  I’m starting to understand your emotional detachment to Google.  That is one seriously high-maintenance relationship.  Even act like you care for one minute and it just won’t shut up…

Ok.  What now?

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy.

NOW JUST A FREAKING MINUTE HERE!!!  We started this whole thing because of global cooling!  Oh, alright, so we actually started it because of over population, but we moved onto global cooling pretty quickly there at the start.  So what’s the deal?  We did such a good job keeping the planet from getting cold that now folks are pissed that it’s too warm?  Are you kidding me??  It’s like my wife wants to be in charge of the Earth’s thermostat too!  “It’s too cold…now it’s too hot.”  Is the Earth pregnant?  Is this really global warming, or just a hot flash?  Honestly, the Earth could just be in menopause.  I’m not sayin’…I’m just sayin’.

Ok, so now (for the moment anyway) we are running off to the forest to dance naked in the moonlight…cause it’s too darn hot to do it durng the day?  Cause a sunburn on your hoohoo would not be pleasant? I’m confused.

Can’t we just go hug a tree and be done with it?

I for one have been celebrating Earth Day all week long.  It’s true.  I swear.  No really.  Ok, I’ll prove it.

On Monday, for some unknown reason, I started getting up at 6am - which is the butt crack of dawn.  Honestly, if you get out there early enough you can see the horizon hitching its pants up in the back and going from galactic plumber to morningscape.  Anyway, I started running.  It’s not like it is the first time in my life.  I was on the track team in high school.  Yes, this year will be my 20th reunion…so what!?  Point is, I have run before.  Sure, not in a while.   But running is like riding a bike right?  Only harder and you can’t coast downhill…and you can’t buy a spiffy new runner that has 12 speeds like a bike does so you can pick the right gear to make peddling easy like on a bike…and there’s no cushy seat (with a gel seat cover) to rest your fat bum on…you know what?  Running is NOTHING like riding a bike.  I don’t know why I said that.  Bike riders are lazy compared to runners.

Anyway, I started running again.  Not particularly fast.  Not particularly far.  And definitely not particularly pretty.  But I do it early so people don’t have to see me.  They shouldn’t be looking out there anyway unless the want to see the butt crack of dawn and that’s voyeurism anyway and worse, who wants to see buttcrack?  People don’t even do Google image searches for buttcrack…

ok, go ahead.  you know you want to now.  Do a google image search for buttcrack.  We’ll wait.  Oh for Pete’s sake…make sure safe search is on you sicko…ok.  Back now?  Happy you did that?  I didn’t think so.  Did you see the one really fat guy that had a…errrrr, I mean, none of us want to hear about your perverted little foray into pictorial buttcrackdom.

Butt I digress…heh…get it?  BUTT I digress….with two T’s…it’s a double entendre…

Anyway, I am running again.  Not right at this moment, but conceptually I mean.  I run.  I have been running for 4 days straight now.  And I get up WAY early and put on sweats and nice comfy new runners.  (ok, they aren’t NEW new.  I bought them like 4 years ago actually.  But I had never worn them until Monday when I started running again. So…new.)  I grab my ipod with 500 sngs on it, you know, in case I ever get to the point where I need more than the 4 I listen to now…during warm-ups and stretching and running and cool down.  WHAT?  I’m efficient!!!  I plan to do more.  I’m working up to it.  Next week…FIVE songs!

Again, I digress.  So I was proving to you that I have been celebrating Earth Day all week long.  So Monday I was hugging a tree on our street cause I needed something to hold onto when I started retching and puking from not having run in freaking years and suddenly thinking it was a good idea and just up and starting again without consulting my body who was OBVIOUSLY a little upset and not fully on board with the idea.  Then Tuesday, I hugged a tree - no not the same one, I made it a little further - to steady myself when the world started spinning as I hyperventilated…from not having run in freaking years and suddenly thinking it was a good idea and just up and starting again without consulting my body who was OBVIOUSLY a little upset and not fully on board with the idea.  Then today I hugged yet another tree as I desperately tried to stretch out the cramp in my calf because while the rest of my body seemed to be coming around to the idea of running, my legs have taken it as a personal affront and are united in their desire to cause me as much pain as physically possible without there being an infant at the end of the ordeal.

SO there!  I have indeed been hugging trees all freaking week.  Earth Day is like apathy…I have been doing Earth Week.  AND I went to an Earth Day celebration at the Muppet’s school today.  That was a treat let me tell you.  They all sang a song, that I can only assume they have been practicing, because as much as the Muppet likes to think that life is a musical, the probability of 40 something pre-schoolers and kindergartners suddenly breaking into song spontaneously is pretty slim.  I leave you to do the math if you are that interested in probability…plus they all knew the words:

Don’t throw your junk in my backyard, my backyard, my backyard

Don’t throw your junk in my backyard, we must recycle.

Yep…when sung, it sounds about how it reads.  No rhyme, no rhythm, nothing that one usually mentally connects with the word “song”.  But those details did not stop them from singing it.  Over.  And over.  And over.  And over.

You’d think being an institute of learning they would know that Earth Day and recycling is SO 1990!  Obviously they don’t Google there.  Bet they didn’t hug three different trees this week.  Posers…

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I like viral when it is used with other words like “marketing” or “video”. Those things are cool. I can even deal with certain uses of virus like simple computer viruses. But when it’s put into full phrases like “gastro-intestinal virus”, then it really sucks. Then it’s like the evil gift that keeps on giving.

The Muppet picked up a virus from someone and then shared it with me and, being the spectacularly generous and giving person I am, I promptly shared it with Ferf. Who shared it back to the Muppet, who gave it back to me. Etc, etc, ad nausium…

So, there’s a reason that I haven’t posted in a bit. I will be back soon…once I have passed this on to someone else who takes it away!

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Wow. I cannot believe that I am able to even type yet. My finger are still a little shaky and it’s been 19 hours since it happened. It was one of the worst things that you can imagine. Ferf went out to work about 6pm with our one family vehicle. It was a normal Saturday night really. She called me at quarter to 7 to see if Obama had given his victory speech in South Carolina yet, and then she turned off her cell phone as she always does when she is doing a presentation. No big deal.

The Muppet and I hung around the house eating a lovely dinner in front of the TV while she asked me questions about who the man was on TV (Obama) and who the “old lady” was on TV (Hillary) - and she told me that the old lady looked mean and she didn’t like her. Then we discussed the difference between a Democrat and a Republican. To her credit, she sat there, making eye contact, listening to me wax eloquently about platforms and philosophical differences, and the upcoming election in the US. When I finally took a breath, she said, “That’s nice daddy…can we play turtle now?” Which, in fact, about how I feel regarding the whole thing right now. “That’s nice…let’s go play turtle.” What the Muppet means by that is what most of us refer to as a pony ride. Namely, I get on all fours, she climbs on my back and away we go.

She calls it turtle, because every now and then I will pull my head into my shirt and tell her I can’t go down the hall because I am scared. Then she pats my head and says, “It’s okay daddy, you don’t have to be scared, I am right here with you and I am not going anywhere.” Then I pull my head back out, nod, and continue my way toward her bedroom. It’s a fun game really. Last night, after I was too scared to go down the hall, and she gave me my security affirmation, we started going down the hall and she decided that we should close all the doors as we went. (It would make me less scared.) So we shut the bathroom door. Then we closed the door to Ferf’s office. Then we only had 2 doors left, my bedroom and her bedroom. We went for mine first. I reached for it and began to close it, and that is when the Muppet put her hand out and caught the end of her middle finger caught in the door jam.

As the door closed, I heard her yell. I looked around and it was obvious that she had pinched her finger in the door. I was turning around to pick her up and kiss her and get some ice for her, I looked at her hand. That is when I saw the blood dripping off her wrist. I then thought, she must have ripped a fingernail and that is going to hurt, so I went to the bathroom with her to wash the blood off so I could get a better look. She was crying and it was getting louder. As I rinsed the blood off, I got my first good look at the finger and that is when shock sat in for me. I realized (all at the same time):

1. it was very bad
2. the end of her finger was only attached at the very top and had been literally torn off
3. it was bleeding profusely
4. the Muppet had no idea how bad this was - nor could I let her know
5. Ferf had the car and I was vehicle-less
6. I only had a cell phone, so when I called 911 - I had to be calm in order to keep the Muppet calm as well as so I could give detailed directions to dispatch
7. I needed to get some ice on the wound and some clean towels to staunch the bleeding
8. I had to let the 911 operator know exactly what had happened, what the situation was, and how urgent it was that the freaking ambulance get here like a bat out of hell, and all without the Muppet catching on to ANY of that. As well as give her the address and landmarks
9. I had about 30 seconds before the shock wore off of the Muppet and the screaming began in earnest
10. I was going to have to do all of this while carrying the Muppet becuase if I sat her down, she would invariably look at her hand and all hell would break loose - including, but not limited to vomiting and passing out (neither of which was I going to be equipped to handle given the previous 9 things

I got them all done and then just held the Muppet to me and talked to her while waiting for the ambulance and walking around the kitchen. I then realized that I needed to clean up all the blood in the bathroom and kitchen sinks where most of the blood had been spilt. I needed to do this because:

a. Ferf’s phone was turned off

b. She often forgets to turn it on when she leaves work to come home

c. She could conceivably get home with no knowledge of what had happened, and find the place empty with blood in two areas of the house and COMPLETELY FREAK OUT

d. At which point she would be useless to drive to the hospital to pick us up because she would be COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT and this was not a conversation one should have over the phone after one party has started COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT.

This meant that I had to clean up the blood while holding the Muppet and not letting on to the Muppet that I was in fact cleaning up HER blood. Again, mission accomplished.

The ambulance arrived in 12 minutes exactly, and yes I know that to the second. And Paramedic Dean, gave the finger a quick look and said, “grab what you need and get in the truck.” Now, I kinda figured that this was outside the scope of what the paramedics were ready to do there at the house, but somewhere in the back of my head, I was hoping that they would say, “I know it looks bad, but that ain’t so bad. Let’s throw a band-aid on it and see how it goes.” Silly, if not completely asinine, I know, but it was what I was hoping for.

We grabbed my cell phone, my wallet and the house keys - because I realized in that moment that Ferf had decided to take what we still call “the diaper bag” with her to work cause it was large enough to hold her clipboards. This is relevant only because it contains (amusingly enough “in case of emergency) the Muppet’s care card, her red card from the hospital as well as our letter from the doctor about her Neutropenia and how they should handle that. So, with that little thought in mind, I said with all the confidence I could muster, “I got everything I need, let’s go.” I figured, worst case scenario, I could…uh…make them understand. I do have that capability in me, and it was and has been itching to get out for quite a while and this seemed like one of those times where I could explode on all living things, and I’d probably even get a pass after it was all said and done under the auspices of “momentary insanity brought on my severe stress.” (None of that happened or was necessary it turns out - in case you are wondering, or are my mother who would be highly displeased by that type of behavior from me.)

So we get into what the Muppet refers to as the “really big truck” and off we go. The Muppet plastered to me in my lap, her finger being unwrapped from my obviously non-medically trained job with the dish towel and re-wrapped with sterile gauze. I watch the paramedic’s eyes as he does this and think two things - (1) it is bad and (2) I would kick this guys ass in poker if he ever tried to bluff. We get to the hospital and get the “they called 911 and get to go to the head of the line” treatment. I carry the Muppet to a waiting wheelchair and we are pushed directly into the back area. I do want to note that the Muppet picked the right day and time to have this happen, as the place was nowhere near full and we were in and out in less than 2 1/2 hours. The paramedic took care of all paperwork - I was never even asked for her care card, red card, or my extended medical card. We were put in a bed and the nurse came over to give it a look. As I had with the paramedics, I just told the Muppet that this was a doctor going to look at her (most understated euphemism in the history of my family) “owwie.” He too would be my bitch in a poker game. He re-wrapped it, and with strong forethought, put the topical numbing cream on her where an IV “might go later”.

The Muppet then started looking around and asking me about everyone else there. I was in a quandary. I wanted to keep the Muppet distracted, but not at the expense of all the other folks who were not looking so hot themselves. SO, I told her that I didn’t know, but what did she think. She said, “we should play the imagination game like Mommy and I do.” (God bless Mommy!!!) Then the Muppet begins to tell me about each person and why they are here. The man with what looked like 5-6 rods in his leg and back, according to his x-rays, had a “broken toe.” The lady who was having some kind of reaction to the surgical procedure they had preformed on her neck, was here with a “head cold”. And the doctor (male nurse that had re-bandaged her finger) was just walking around bringing milk and cookies to those who needed them.

By this time I had left a message on Ferf’s phone. Like there’s an easy way to do that…with much lilt in your voice, “Hey babe. It’s me. I wanted to let you know that you need to give me and the Muppet a ride home before you go there. We had a little accident. Everything’s fine. We’re up at KGH, so come on down here and meet us. Love you!” Yeah, even the nurse looked at me a little funny with that one. He said, “uhh…wow, that actually sounded believable. What do you do for a living?” I told him I was a pastor. I kid…I kid. I just said, “hey, it is in everyone’s best interest that certain people be kept as calm as possible for as long as possible.” He smiled and nodded a knowing nod. Then I called a buddy and told him what was going on and asked that he continue trying to reach Ferf and let her know. I told him that is was one of those times where you wished to God that you had not been there, and thanked God profusely that you were the one there. He, a father of 3 adult children, laughed and said, “You wish you weren’t there from a culpability standpoint and are glad you were from a “nobody freaked out” perspective.” At which I simply laughed and understood that I was not the only father to have those same emotions. For some reason this made me feel much better.

Eventually the doctor on call come in to look at the finger. He was a huge guy - well over 6 feet tall. He looked at the finger and said to me, “smashed in a door eh? See this a lot.” (that as well made me feel slightly better) “These little fingers are like salamander tails - they grow right back together no problem. We are going to give her a little something to keep her quiet and still and she won’t remember a thing about what we are going to do.” To which I replied, “Can you give some to her mother when she gets here too?” I was the only one who even smiled at that. They are a serious bunch those life-saving types. Anyway, we walk back to another room where I lie down on the bed and the Muppet lies on me. They start working with the IV stuff and suddenly realize that overhead surgical lightening is going to be beneficial to everyone. So they decide to take us to trauma room 1. I know that this means a larger room with overhead lighting and all pertinent accoutrements for anything them might do, but I do wish at the time they had just said, “Let’s go to that big room down the hall.” Trauma Room 1 sounds so ER-ish. And not very comforting. So to punish them I go for the assumptive close and tell the Muppet that we are going to get to ride in a bed! They look at me funny, shrug their shoulder and say, “sure, why not.’ And away we go on a magical moving bed.

We get to the aforementioned Trauma Room 1 - which by the way, is really a well lit storage room right by the back entrance. But I digress. We get there and they have 3 nurses looking after getting an IV started in the Muppet through which they will drug her good. The big Dr. walks in followed by what I assume is an intern. (I know this from watching Grey’s Anatomy with Ferf all the time. I am watching her and cannot help but think to myself - I bet she is sleeping with an attending. TV really screws you up dude. Seriously.) The intern is maybe 5 foot tall. Maybe. The Muppet lifts her head and says, “Why are they bringing in such a little doctor?”

Usually, I try to correct this type of verbal faux pas from the Muppet, but I figured she deserved a bit of latitude, so I let it hang. The Big doctor kinda smiled and said, “Well, I am much to big to doctor a little girl like you, so we have her here to be the little doctor for little people.” The Muppet nodded with understanding and the nurses all stifled laughs. They pushed 15ml of some white liquid into the Muppet’s IV, to which she asked, “why are you giving me milk?” The nurse replied, “you looked thirsty.” And about that time the Muppet’s head lolled to one side and they announced that she was out. (Keep in mind that I am laying on the bed with the Muppet laying on top of me this while time. I don’t know why that’s important, but it happened so why should I not allow you the full story?)

At this point they cleaned up the finger pretty well. And the doctor even cringed a bit. He told me that there was no use even thinking about keeping the fingernail - at which I almost thought I head him say no use keeping the finger. Once I realized what he said, I was like, “uhhh…on the scale of priorities, that’s really no big deal doc.” He nodded and pulled the fingernail off. Then they went to stitching. At that point the Muppet started coming out of the drug induced haze and they pushed another 10. Then back to stitching. They stopped long enough to tell me that she would probably have ridges in that nail because they were going to have to sew right through the nailbed. Again, it seemed more like an FYI than an inquiry as to tactics, so I nodded at him. And they put the first stitch through the nailbed. That got her another 10 pushed into the IV. Seems like my daughter has inherited at least thing from me - a disturbingly strong tolerance against medication. Whatever you think you ought to give her - go ahead and double that.

They got the finger reattached and reconstructed with no other issues. As they were finishing up my cell phone rang. It was Ferf. She had not checked her messages and so when I answered the phone, I got this perky voice: “Hey babe! I’m on my way home! It was a great night!” I gently asked if she had checked her messages. Now, it was intuitively obvious, even to the most casual observer that there was no way in hell that she would have said that to me if she had heard my message. But I said it anyway, I think it was to (a) get her prepared mentally that there was in fact news to hear from me of some level of significance and (b) give me a chance to shake my head and quickly figure out how to get her to the hospital without having an accident. Evidently it was time well spent, because I was able to communicate with her in such a way that she came to the hospital with no real scare. When she got there a nurse walked in and asked if a visitor could come back. I looked at the nurse who was left in the room (everyone else had moved onto other emergencies) and said, “she has a law degree, a nasty temper and a baby girl in trauma room one. I suggest you let her on back.” (the temper thing I made up, but it got a point across and it was fun to say with a straight face.)

The Muppet finally woke up enough that we got to take her home and she was in bed by like 10:30. Scarily efficient. Now she has her middle finger on her right hand all gauzed up and 7 dissolving stitches holding it all together. On a side note, she hasn’t cried or even complained today. She mentioned that he owwie hurt once, and Ferf gave her some Tylenol. That’s it. She even fell once and caught herself with both hands on the ground - not a peep. It boarders on weird really.

Her two biggest concerns, while I was holding her and waiting for the ambulance, were (1) her nail polish that she got at a friend’s birthday party was going to get messed up and (2) she couldn’t practice piano with a hurt finger and she wouldn’t get a sticker. (I am going to let Ferf deal with explaining to her that there is not going to be a nail to polish for a couple of months.)

One last humorous thing about the Muppet. When we got to the hospital the lady paramedic asked the Muppet if she wanted some stickers. She nodded and the lady started to hand her 3 or 4 stickers. The Muppet (ever the pro at doctor visits because of her neutropenia) smiled at her and said, “silly, you don’t get the stickers until after you are done.”

Now, I am here to tell you that when I got home all I wanted to do was pass out, but all my body wanted to do was shake uncontrollably. This parenting thing can be brutal on your emotions. By the way, when the Muppet woke up at the hospital and saw her mom sitting there, she sat up, pulled up her hand to show her mother her bandaged hand and said, “Look Mommy, I pinched my finger a little.” Then she lay back down and smiled the smile of the heavily sedated. I wished they had given me some of whatever they had given her. I could still use some. Or lots.

By the way…I wish someone had told me about these things:

Yeah, that’s fricking genius. MARKET THIS CRAP FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!!!!

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