This is a two minute post from my friend Marla (who helps me with this blog.) It is a true story about growing up in the 70’s. Here we go…
My husband and I were telling funny childhood stories, mostly about injuries and crazy people in our families, and crazy people we’ve dated. Don’t get all bent out of shape – I’m not talking about people who are mentally ill. I’m talking about crazy people, like first dates gone wrong, stuff like that. Then we talked about some of the dangerous things we did as kids like wild bicycle rides, jumping off of high places, and taunting our much larger than us bullies and calling them out.
I then mentioned that our daughter never stepped on a nail. When I was a child I never told my parents anything about what I did, either alone or with my friends.
When I was about 7 I stepped on a nail in my back yard. It was attached to a 2/4 near our fire pit. Everyone had a fire pit in their back yard where we’d burn garbage. By the age of 5 we all knew how to start fires. Anyway, I was outside barefoot and stepped on a rusty nail. I didn’t tell my mom.
A few days later in her lovely Southern accent she asked, “Maaaala, did you step on a nail?”
I said, “No.”
She then told me that she knew it was a nail hole in my foot and I needed to get a tetanus shot because otherwise I might die.
A few years later when I was in Jr. High (now called Middle School), I was running around with a bunch of girls at my best friend’s house. We ran over a bunch of lumber and I stepped on a nail. Everyone knew because I had a board attached to the bottom of my foot. Of course we all started to laugh, and I had to tell my mom because my friend’s mom knew about it.
I was the kind of kid who never said much of anything to anyone. I was full of secrets.
Once I fell about 12 feet out of a tree, onto the driveway. I lay there, unable to move, for at least an hour. I was about 8 or 9. I didn’t tell my mom until I was in my 50’s.
If I’d cut off my hand I would have wrapped up my stump, hid my hand in the back of my closet, then put my stump in my pocket. A few days later my parents would have asked me what happened to my hand. Then they would have told me that I wasn’t in trouble and we needed to get to the hospital to take care of it. This was before hands were being sewn back on.
Upon finding the hand in the back of the closet one of my siblings would have started to howl, then become a medical expert, then called all of their friends. The other sibling would have immediately told stories of a haunted hand that would crawl out of the closet at night to strangle people.
I no longer think like I did when I was a little kid. None of us do. But back then we didn’t have the experience or knowledge to always make the wisest decisions. Remember that when you’re around your kids or grandkids. They just don’t always know what to do. We can guide them, then talk with them, and then we can all laugh about it later.
That’s all.
~ M
Vampire Maman 