A True History of Violence

Work is a little slow this week.  What a shock.  It seems like everyone but me took this entire week off.  You would think I would take this opportunity to get caught up on stuff.  I haven't seen my desk in months.  But alas,  I feel like being a slacker, and so I will slack.  And thus, you that may dare read this, will get a thorough explanation of my idiocy.

My wife made a comment the other day about me being dropped on my head by my mom when I was little.  As is usually the case, this wisecrack was preceded by some bonehead action of mine involving trying to help her with house work by vacuuming.  I just figured since she was going to ask me to clean the bathroom after I vacuumed that I would get a head start by vacuuming up the loose hair around the toilet bowl.  I bet none of you knew a Dyson vacuum cleaner could empty the water out of a toilet bowl in less than 3 seconds.  Those things are amazing.  But, they don't handle water very well. 
Christmas day I tried to put a glass bowl of hot soup in the freezer to cool the soup down so I could eat it sooner.  For those of you that don't know, when glass is superheated by chicken noodle soup that would melt plastic and then is put in a near zero degree freezer the glass breaks, alot.  I spent the next hour cleaning chicken noodle soup out of the freezer.  My wife proceeded to ask me the question, "How many times have you been hit in the head?"

I'd never really thought long and hard about that question.  Occasionally something will happen that will trigger some memory of being knocked unconscious when I was younger.  But, I had never really sat down to count the times and how each occurred.   With this being a somewhat slow day, I decided now was the time to recount the trauma my noodle has undergone.  Each incident is rather amusing, so I decided to share these illustrious stories with those of you that dare read further.

The first incident I remember is from that American male youth tradition known as T-Ball.  I was 5 and playing on a team with some great future athletes.  Our left fielder had a cannon for an arm (he actually went on to play some minor league ball in the Devil Rays organization) and was a good friend of mine.  The incident in question happened quite quickly and I have no real memory of this.  This is all being relayed based on the observations of my parents.  A hard line drive was hit to left field.  I (playing third base) of course ran after.  For those of you unfamiliar with T-Ball, the true objective of the game, as far as a 5 year old is concerned, is to "GET THE BALL!!!".  As I got to within about 5 feet of the ball, my friend picked it up.  He then proceeded to throw the ball with all of his might directly at my face.  He later told his mother that he was trying to throw it home and that my face got in the way.  I spent the following 30 minutes on the ground unconscious.  I ended up with not just one, but two black eyes from this.  I have seen pictures.  I looked like a jacked up raccoon. 

I actually made it an entire 3 months without incident before the next (literally) bonecrushing event.  I went to a softball practice with my dad.  He works at a university and played on the faculty intramural team.  Being the great dad he was, he let me go out on the field with him and even let me bat once.  As the practice was drawing to a close, he was pitching some batting practice and was letting me hold the extra balls while standing behind him on the pitchers mound.  Once again, I do not remember this incident and am only able to recount the stories of witnesses.  I am told the story that follows was quite gruesome to behold.  My dad made a great batting practice pitch to the university's head basketball coach.  The coach, being the large man he was, made contact with the ball with a force somewhat akin to a semi hitting a deer while driving down the interstate.  I, being the curious youngster I was, had snuck off to the right of my dad to get a glimpse of this large man absolutely tattooing the ball.  Unfortunately for me, he hit a line drive toward short.  This line drive, also unfortunately for me, was right at eye level for me.  My dad says he actually heard my cheek bone crack.  He also said he almost had a heart attack as he watched me immediately take on rag doll form and drop to the ground.  I was unconscious for 6 hours and in the hospital for 5 days after this.  Having already had two black eyes from one incident, my body apparently decided to trump itself as my entire face turned black and blue from this incident.

I went three years without another case of head trauma after that last event.  Part of that was probably due to the fact that my mother made me wear a football helmet from the time I got out of bed until I took a bath at night.  Even after three years, she still made me wear a helmet when I rode my bike.  Because I was in love with that silly game of foosball, I chose to wear a football helmet as I rode my bike.  I was 8 and I was cool for wearing a football helmet all the time.  One thing I have yet to mention, that should be noted at this time, is my body's inability to handle practically any amount of sugar.  The stories from my days of asking the neighbors for sugar and then hiding in the bushes and shoving that sweet white granular substance down my gullet are for another blog.  I will simply state that sugar made me hyper.  Not just any kind of hyper, though.  The kind of PCP induced hyper that gave me the strength to throw my dad across our living room when I was 6.  With that being fully explained, I must publicly thank my mother for forcing me to wear a helmet.  On the day in question I had convinced a friend of mine, who absolutely knew better, to give me his 16 ounce Dr. Pepper.  The hysteria that ensued is once again not a part of my conscious memory.  Additionally, there are no witnesses to this event.  I came home soon after downing that sweet sweet nectar and my mother immediately knew I had gotten a hold of some sugar.  As was always the case, she sent me outside to ride my bike for at least half an hour.  This, obviously, was no punishment for me.  But, it was the only way for her to get me calm enough to control me.  I don't know if it was the combination of sugar and caffeine or what, but I was apparently excessively buck wild this day and was having some real trouble controlling myself.  My mother's account of this story is quite hilarious, given she is a hand talker and was of course being a mother as the event unfolded.  After about a half an hour she goes outside to check on me.  She calls me several times to no avail and walks down off the front porch into the front yard to have a better look up and down the road.  As she steps into the grass something in the yard to her left catches her eye.  That something turns out to be me, unconscious of course, lying in the grass, crumpled around my bike, directly in front of the chimney.  She states her initial reaction is one of disgust with me for getting a hold of that DP until she realizes that my football helmet is cracked right down the middle and there are pieces of the paint from the helmet enmeshed in the brick facade of our chimney.  Apparently I had decided to play a game of chicken with the chimney.  Chimneys are quite good at chicken.  4 hours unconscious, 24 hours in the hospital.

At this point I am sure you are getting the idea.  I have been bonked in the head a few too many times.  The remainder of the stories are generally more horrific than funny.  Simply as a matter of counting head trauma will I briefly mention the last few:
*13 years old, I didn't secure the weights on the barbell.  One side fell off and then, of course, the other side went flying.  The end result was me pushing up on one side then the other and then the barbell slipping out of my hands and clanging off my forehead.  roughly 10 minutes unconscious
*16 years old, This is probably the most terrifying incident.  I went up for a dunk in a high school basketball game.  As I threw it down and grabbed the rim, a player on the opposing team undercut me.  My hands slipped off the rim and I landed flat on my back on the gym floor.  I cracked my L3 vertebrae and was out for better than an hour.  I have arthritis in my lower back from that one and spent a week in the hospital.
*17 years old, Riding back from watching our girlfriends play in a volleyball match, a buddy of mine decided to see how many times he could roll his dad's Cougar.  No way to know how many times I banged my head that time.  Neither of us know how long we were buckled in upside down in that car before some good samaritan called an ambulance.
*20 years old, My last organized sports hurrah.  Playing basketball for the university I attended, I went up for another dunk (you would think I would know better at this point) and was once again undercut.  This time I landed head first on the floor.  8 hours unconscious and another 24 hours in the hospital.
*24 years old, Playing a pick up game of basketball with some friends.  I tend to take any and all competition seriously and was getting way too into this game.  I scored a basket and decided to put some pressure on the guy taking the ball out.  He tried to make a full court pass and I jumped up to try to block it.  It is fitting that he decided to throw the ball at a lower trajectory than I expected.  It bounced off my head knocking me out cold as I crumpled to the ground for the final time (so far).

That leaves me with a total of 8 times being fully and completely unconscious.  I can think of at least three more times I got hit in the head and remained conscious but was quite woozy.  No wonder I do so many stupid things.  That much head trauma would certainly lend itself to a significant loss of brain cells.  I guess that gives me an excuse for being stupid and forgetful.  I'll probably show this to my wife.  At least I'll have an excuse for forgetting to take out the trash.  Of course she will now have more ammo for her wise cracks.  I think that's a good trade off for me.  Maybe even worth all the headaches...