April Fool’s Day is no laughing matter. April 1st is seared into my memory as the Day of the Great Injury.
I was perhaps 7 or 8 years old. Spring had come early that year. April 1st was the very first day I could wear shorts outside and ride my bike. I had happily ridden that afternoon to my piano lesson. The warm breeze tickled my pale legs.
When the lesson was over I mounted my bike. I began to roll down the long, sloping driveway. I turned to wave goodbye to my piano teacher. I picked up speed as he disappeared back inside his house. Then I turned to look where I was going.
Too late. My bicycle slammed into the front of my piano teacher’s car parked at the end of his driveway. I distinctly remember that his car was a Dodge. I also remember thinking to myself, “too late”.
I catapulted over the handlebars, doing a somersault in the air. I then slid, butt-first, up the hood of the car. My momentum was abruptly stopped by my private bits as they encountered the base of the windshield wiper. There was a searing pain.
I lay on the hood of the car gasping for breath. I managed to pry myself off the windscreen and roll off the car. I lay in the grass clutching my unmentionables, fearing the accident might leave a deep scar to more than my psyche.
Adding to the humiliation, my best friend’s mother had witnessed the entire thing. She rushed out of her house across the street, picked me up, and drove me home. What’s more, she is an upstanding church lady of the highest order, so there was no discussion of The Injury. She asked instead about my piano lesson. I just whimpered.
Dad met us at the front door. He just stood there blinking. Unable or unwilling to describe what she had witnessed, my friend’s mother merely said: “Charlie has injured himself”.
She then felt the need to add, “In a foundational area”.
My dad blinked again, trying to process it all. Then he just said “Better come inside and put some ice on that”.
[If you know others who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]
Image Source: Reddit