June 28, 2009
The Worst
For a short time, in my sophomore year, I had to send home a crate of my records, which contained some original pressings of almost all the Rolling Stones records in addition to some other insane rarities my father certainly shouldn’t have given me and which I did not cherish as I should have, not entirely understanding the worth of what I had been given. A theme that would continue throughout my life, I might add. The box made it home alive, and I gave careful instructions that it was to be put somewhere safe.
Many months later, I was listening to someone talk about how warped records can get and in a flash it came to me, strikingly all at once. The box of records was in the garage, and it was melting. I was sure of it. The time now is about three a.m. so I give my sister a call, no response. In the morning she calls back and says she’ll look for the records if she gets a chance. I handle this with my usual poise and begin to raise my voice, berating and angry. She hangs up, and does not respond again. All through classes that day, my body is attuned to ever slight variance in degree. My eye is on the thermometer, noting it’s steady climb I send frantic text messages which go unanswered. I step outside, the campus seems a mirage of heat, my feet feel as if I am dragging them through the inner Sahara, raising my gaze to the sun above I feel sweat drip from my face, and I am disgusted.
I call again and again, nothing. My blood is boiling, I lock myself in my room and think about what I’ve done. I call my other sisters, one by one, and then my mother, in a panic. Not sure what to reveal, I am cagey about my requests, as I don’t want to get in trouble for ruining expensive records. My mother finally tells me the truth.
One of the worst things that never happened to me. Because, you see, my sister decided this would be a good lesson in not-yelling at her to get my way. My mother revealed gleefully that the records were safe in her closet, and didn’t seem to understand when I collapsed on the other end.
What’s the worst thing that has never happened to you?
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hopefully it’s going to be that the 32k bill I got from the first surgeon who worked on my hand will prove to be something under the responsibility of my insurance company, and their neglect, rather than the result of severe incompetence or criminal intent on the part of the surgeon.
it’s hard to explain in more detail, and would wear me out if I did.
of course, this will need to be resolved by the insurance company before it becomes the worst thing that never happened to me, but the three days over the weekend when it looked the worst were, to put it mildly, paralyzing.
You can still pull a trigger with that stump, right?
it’s never too late for a prosthetic shiv.
Now that might be stylish.
We’d been told by the first surgeon that my normal life was over. The cancer was serious and that it would require radical surgery, including the majority of my lymph nodes on the left side of my body. He described weeks in the hospital, months at home, pressure bandages to prevent something akin to elephantiasis of my left leg and arm, and “desk work” for the remainder of my life. I was angry and scared.
Later, at home, I cried big, gulping tears. Ricky just held me. It was surreal.
A better surgeon with a second opinion changed the world.
Danny, that is just the best worst thing that never happened.
Oh Jesus Danny–Hallelujah. I’m not–well, you know, “religious”–but I sure know how to be thankful, and I’m so happy to have you and Rick in this world. Your story takes me back to my own bout with cancer. I saved my own life a few times and Cindy saved me a few times too during the whole ordeal (I’m serious), and this saving occured most often when generally well-meaning medical people were, in effect, already on the golf course before the job was done. To this day I have a kind of love/hate relation with doctors: I’m still here because of what they knew how to fix, but they will kill you and run for cover if you don’t watch them close.
Lucy’s reference to trigger-pulling reminds me of the handful of times a loaded pistol has been drawn on me. The best thing that never happened is that the trigger was not pulled.
Take heart, Deron. A few years back my darling Mr. Red bit my right index finger clean off at the second joint, but I can still use it to pull the trigger of my Ruger .45 Long Colt easily.
Dang, Kathy–you’d think a girl packing a .45 long Colt would know to curl her fingers back from the palm hoding the sugar cube! (Just kidding; I’ve been nipped too. It appears, though, that Mr. Red was thinking carrot.)
Y’all are breaking my heart. And I’m not kidding.
It was an apple, but yeah, you’d think I would know better. Mr. Red was thinking, “apple. MINE! NOW!!!
Bad boy.
It makes for a good story though. Whenever people ask what happened to my finger I tell them barn cats ate it because I’m 99.9% sure Mr. Red spit it out.
Kathy, I see a movie in my head.
You know how cats run all fast and low when they get hold of something they don’t want us to snatch from them?
Yeah. Uh-huh. Right.