More than once I have started a post without having any idea what I was going to write about. I've decided to write about past experiences when I don't have a recent one to use. With this in mind let's go back to my childhood. I was a pretty typical six year old boy. I liked playing with guns and swords and I wanted to be a superhero. However, unlike most I found evidence that I was a superhero. You know how you get a sort of double vision when your eyes have a different perspective on some objects? I didn't really know that everyone had this. In fact I only knew of one person who could "see through" things like I could; this was Superman. Some children might carelessly divulge their secret to their parents or siblings, but I knew better. I knew that a hero's secret identity had to be carefully guarded. I told no one. Still, I wasn't convinced entirely. I decided I needed a way to test out whether or not I was indeed the man of steel. The first thing that came to mind was that Superman was really strong and really tough. It just so happened while I was thinking this over I glanced at our fireplace; it was stone. Already being decked out in my Superman pajamas, I took a couple of bounces on our little exercise trampoline and ran off it full speed, headfirst, into the fireplace. It turns out I'm not from Krypton. I'm slightly fuzzy as to the details immediately thereafter, but I do remember my brothers hastily gathering me up and putting me one of the many VW bugs native to our house. They then sped (probably even more than usual) to the church. There they told me to stay put just inside the building, bleeding I might add from the rather nasty head wound. They ran off to find my mom who was attending relief society. A few sisters got a rude start when they came to see what I was crying about. Before they could do anything but draw back in horror, my mom came rushing over and drove me to the emergency room. I had stitches for ten days. So lessons to learn from this:
1. Kids do have reasoning skills; though not a great grounding in reality
2. If you want to test to see if you're Superman try using eye lasers rather than testing strength or, as is common, the ability to fly
3. Sometimes what you don't know can hurt you...a lot
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Of Capes and Kids
Posted by Aaron at 10:03 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
When I was in the first grade I stuck a semi-small rock in my ear because I wanted to pull it back out again like magicians do with quarters. Unfortunately my efforts to remove it only resulted in a shoving it further down my external acoustic meatus.
The sad effects of which ended with me missing out on making one of those pictures of the easter eggs on paper that are watercolored and covered with black wax, then some of the wax is carved away to make patterns, to go to the doctor's and have him remove the rock with a device that looked like a miniature shop vacuum. My plan made perfect sense to me, and none at all to my mother. On another note, I'm glad you didn't try to fly instead, because that could have resulted in you jumping off the roof, and coming from someone who did that as a child with a plastic bag, believe me...not a good idea. Strangely I've never broken a bone though.
Funny to look at your older posts while waiting on call. I remember this incident. I never knew your reason why. I always thought it was a misjudgement of how hard you would hit the bean bag from the trampoline jump. I always had the fear of superheros with a recurring nightmare of the incredible hulk coming to get me.
Post a Comment