Tuesday, March 13, 2012

This is supposed to be funny --


I was lazily watering the flowers in the backyard just now while talking on the phone to a Relative about another Relative's upcoming surgery. There's lots of drama in families, mine included. I tend toward the contrary, so when someone is freaking out, I'm calm. I'm calm. While I was calmly talking to The Relative, bloodcurdling screams came spilling outdoors, emanating from Oliver who claimed to have been stabbed by a pencil by Henry. Henry followed closely behind yelling that it was an accident. I turned off the water and held the phone at my ear with my shoulder and bent down to look at the stabbing -- a tiny, bleeding pinprick in Oliver's finger. It was a lead pencil! he screamed, Is it going to poison me? Henry looked worried. I couldn't hear The Relative anymore over the phone so I excused myself and pulled Oliver inside to check out the wound in the bathroom. For the next five or so minutes, I tried to remove the tiniest of gray splinters from the tiniest of wounds to the tune of the loudest of screaming and carrying on about evil brothers and homework due and on and on. I remained calm. In my mind I looked like the above fantastically attired woman, a photo that I've been dying to use in a post so here it is.

23 comments:

  1. Tell Oliver that my mother got stuck with a pencil in her wrist when she was a child and you can still see the traces of the lead and so far, so good. She's about to be 85 and it hasn't killed her yet. I think he's safe.
    That picture is perfect for any occasion.

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  2. use that picture again - I love it

    tell him it's graphite - they don't use lead anymore

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  3. while your son's story is interesting and full of sick humor, I REALLY want to know the background on the photograph!!!!

    (Have you been told you have the patience of a saint? I think you do.)

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  4. I'm not sure if I'm laughing with you or laughing at you!
    I may need to borrow that photo sometime.

    Best,
    Bonnie

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  5. damn
    i think you have discovered my inner grief.

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  6. It is a GREAT picture. And what Kimmie said, though I have a feeling you knew that already but maybe didn't tell the boys because it's fun to mess with them a little.

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  7. heee heeeeee heeeeeeeeeeee.

    Unfortunately I have almost no inner calm. I look like that photo most of the time.
    xo

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  8. I love you.

    no middle ground on that.

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  9. That picture IS funny. Come on.

    And? I'm also calm. Eerily, creepily calm.

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  10. I tend to be calm in the midst of a crisis and then when everything dies down and is certain to be okay, I fall apart at the thought of what might have been.

    Boys.

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  11. ok....where did you find that picture of me?
    My daughter made me watch an episode of Nanny 911 last night, which made me want to cry and scream, then i watched Downtown Abbey....it all comes together here in a weird way.

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  12. That picture is hilarious. Hope your boy recovered from his lead poisoning.

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  13. For some reason this story reminds me of the time my brother was playing with us girls - some game or other involving building doll villages, or something - he was very young, maybe 6 or 7? And we were using toothpicks for things, and one of them stuck out of the carpet and my brother sort of crashed his head down onto it and when he came up again the toothpick was sticking out of his temple. And he read a lot, maybe he was older than I remember - 8? - so he'd probably read somewhere that a temple injury can be dangerous or maybe the idea of a toothpick sticking from your head just freaked him out so he got up and ran into the kitchen yelling,"Mom! Mom! I'm dead! They killed me!" or something like that. And then the toothpick fell out. (And being the evil older sisters we were, and not sweet and kind like Henry, I believe we were laughing hysterically over the whole thing...)

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  14. That's a fab picture. Like Ms Moon's mother, I got stabbed with a pencil in high school and I still have the mark on my wrist -- but I'm not dead yet! (Or even sick!)

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  15. LMBO!! Isn't it funny how we're so calm when everyone else is going nuts?!?! But then, for me at least, I start freaking out over stuff (a la pencil in the arm) when everyone is calm.

    Glad you found a way to use that photo of me. :)

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  16. Ya coulda pretended to perform psychic surgery on Oliver....

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  17. Wonderful picture, and it does look very much like you, I'm sure. I am always calm until there is a crisis, when I completely lose it. Jimmy, interestingly, is always a disaster until there is a crisis, when he is strangely calm. Hmmm.

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  18. Perception is everything....

    Hey, the captcha is back I see...

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  19. ah, this made me laugh. family life is just like this.

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  20. I sat on a pencil when I was about Oliver's age. I thought I was going to die for sure. Lead poisoning! I had a mark on my ass for years. I am not sure if it is still there because my ass is too big to turn around and look at. Anyway, you can tell him I am still very much alive.

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  21. I can't believe so many people here in the comments got stabbed by pencils! That is definitely the one potential injury in childhood that I never heard of!
    I'm can also display super calm and efficiency during family dramas - I love the photo :)

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