OMG! Are you for real? – Part One

Today while putting the shopping in the boot of my car, I smashed my head into the lock mechanism. No visible cut, but extensive bruising. Then today, while cleaning my cupboard and moving my sewing machine, it fell onto my face and split my top lip. Normal daily occurrences for me. So while thinking back to some of my standout clumsiest moments in my life, I realised that Clumsy was not the right word. Actually, my sister put it perfectly when she described my most memorable moments as “OMG! Are you for real?”. To explain just why, and how I earned this wonderful description, I will share the top 10 most classic ‘Lilith” moments to date. Let us start at the earliest and move towards today.

1. Let it snow, let it snow, let it *Crash*

What is probably one of my earliest memories that are clear as the day it happened, was one of the first times I convinced my father that I should sled down the hill by myself. I mean, the street was at the end, and since the snow was super deep that year, no one was driving. Neighbours cars were parked on the roadside and the hill was miles away. Turns out, that once you pick up speed, the miles away, can turn into millimetres in seconds. And apparently, my father can’t run as fast as I can sled.  I know what you are thinking, I barrelled headfirst into a parked car. Well, you’re wrong. I did not. I was heading for the car but missed it purely on fate’s intervention. You see, we had an abnormally large amount of snow that year, and the hill which started at the edge of the forest and moved towards the houses was not always covered with enough snow to really to any proper sledding. So you can imagine just how excited all of the neighbourhood kids got this year when it suddenly was. I was about 4 and – ‘totally grown up thanks, Dad’. I didn’t need my dad to go with me. Although he insisted on following behind – just in case. As is so happened, it was probably better for him to stay down the bottom, and act as a catcher. You see, I was heading towards the neighbours parked car at a leisurely 60 kilometers per hour, and my Dad was screaming at me to turn the sled. But of course, I was distracted by ‘Al’ – the snowmen I as going to design next while he was teaching me how to steer, so I had no clue what I was supposed to do. Not to mention, that my sense of danger was rather limited. But, no, I did not hit the car, I managed to find a pocket in the snow, and proceeded to slip off the sled and slide under the car. Just hanging in an air pocket. Minding my own business. Again, distracted, I was lost in my own world, not realising the panic, as my father and half the neighbourhood was digging around the sled desperately looking for me.

 

2. This little piggy went to….MOTHERTRUCKER!!!

Fast forward 2 years, and watch a spritely 6-year-old me just swinging in the backyard. At first, all seems well, then we see what has evidently become a pattern, immerge. This is who I was destined to be. We had migrated to Australia just 6 months prior. We were at a friend’s house and after lunch, I was utilising the swing set leaving the adults to their boring conversations. About half an hour into the afternoon I realised that although I was putting off going to the bathroom because I didn’t want to lose my spot on the swing, it could end really embarrassingly if I didn’t make a move, like now. So I decided best to go now and give up my spot than suffer the embarrassment of not making it in time. The house itself, although low set, was raised slightly on a decent concrete foundation, with 3 small steps the width of the back door, leading up to the screen. Now, this screen door opened out not in. That itself wouldn’t have been so bad if the top step was smaller than the door. So I tried to shuffle back to leave room for the door, but since I waited for the last possible moment to relieve my bladder, I was moving at haste. This screen door was a death trap. It was clearly lying in wait for the optimal moment where it could cause grievous bodily harm to an unsuspecting victim. In this case a carefree 6-year-old. If the door would have opened inwards, nothing would have happened. My mother called it a design flaw – I called it a conspiracy. In my due haste to get inside, I roughly pulled the door without a thought.  So basically, while the door opened, it took my large toenail with it, ripping it clean off the toe itself. Mum said she learned that I can scream really loudly. Good to know if I’m ever in real trouble.

 

3. The wheels on the bike go round and round, the kid on the bike goes to the ground…

We’ve all had one of those accidents when first learning to ride a pushbike. You know, when you’re first learning to ride you’re really careful, then a few years in, and you become complacent. Well, I did, and I learned a lesson that fate was just itching to teach me. I was under the impression, that I was a mini Evil Knievel on a BMX when I was 8 years old. Turns out – I was not! You see, my ability to maneuver my bike down the dirt track near my house, and between the earthmoving equipment on the new estate was second to none. But we all know that if we get too cocky, fate gives us a little slap to remind us that we are in fact her bitches. My slap was more like an uppercut delivered by Mohammad Ali himself. “Float like a butterfly” I was, practically flying through the air at breakneck speed over to my apartment complex to get my swimming trunks on for a planned water fight with the neighbourhood kids. The “sting like a bee” part came next. And boy, did I feel it. I was turning the corner fast – too fast, to get into my driveway, and ended up inspecting the concrete driveway with my lips. Well, half of it. That other half was still attached to my face where it should have been. The bottom half was hanging on for dear life. Or bare attachment. When I got up, I realised that all the blood was because my lower half of my bottom lip was trying to kiss my own throat. Yeah, I split it in two, horizontally. Don’t ask me how my parents said I was special. I think, besides that fact that I was in incredible pain, I couldn’t get my face wet for several weeks. Great timing since it was a Brisbane summer of 37°C with a humidity of 72%. I couldn’t even eat ice-cream. On the bright side, my bike made it out without a scratch.

 

4. Welcome to Australia, where most of the wildlife will probably kill you!

I was 9 when I learned that despite being really pretty, the great barrier reef was also really deadly. We had gone on one of our first official vacations since migrating. We set forth for Mackay so that we could go on a day trip to the great barrier reef true tourist style. Snorkelling, glass bottom boat fish feeding etc. All brochure standard really. What the brochure didn’t show us was Stonefish, Potato Cod, sharp coral, and sharks. I should have realised this prior, I mean, we were in open water. But no, my little 9-year-old mind did not venture past those glossy pictures that were provided for pre-emptive excitement. So off we went, on a big boat out to an anchored pontoon where I was about to discover just how big the potato cod really was. I was sitting in the glass bottom part of the pontoon, seeing the fish being fed. And boy did they chomp and chew. Who new fish without teeth could dismember their food so viscously? I was horrified. That was about the time I made up my mind to get out of there and snorkel on the other side of the pontoon while the fish were being distracted. All was good for the first 20 minutes. The sun was shining, the water was still, rather warm really, and clear. I remember like it was yesterday just how clear it was. I could see the coral, many colours practically waving beneath me. And there were funny looking rocks too. That was until one of the rocks moved – fast. Welcome dear brain, to what you will now know as the stonefish. Very poisonous, shifty and innocuous looking. Couldn’t tell it apart from a real rock just by a glance. What I did know from the books I had read, was that this creature, although it looked docile, was in fact very, very poisonous. Good to know. Apparently, they tell you to ‘just don’t step on it’ as if it was that easy. So after about 20 mins of me snorkelling, my goggles began to fog up. I was thinking, yeah, that’s ok, easy fix. I’ll just stop, since I can stand on this shallow reef and un-fog them, then carry on. I was already entranced with the multitudes of colourful reef fish that were swimming under me. Seems that I chose the same spot that a stonefish did to park myself. I know what your thinking – oh god, she stepped on it and was rushed to a hospital in a life and death battle while the poison travelled through her vein. Nope.  You’d be wrong. I missed it by millimetres. I did get a real fright though as I realised just how close I came to meeting my demise. But what I did discover very quickly was, that although coral moved around in the current, it was not a soft grass like substance. Not at all. I was harsh, razor-like and tough as a rusty nail. Yeah, I sliced my feet on the coral in a spectacular way. But not one good cut. Oh no, that would never do. I managed to have a range of cuts from ‘papercut’ to ‘do-you-really-need-that toe’ type of cut. And they stung. But I think that even at 9 years old, I understood the basic concept of danger, and the amount of blood that I was distributing into the open water was enough for me to get back up on the pontoon. After all, if the vegetarian Potato Cod scared me, I was not Waiting to see my fear level while eyeballing a shark. So yeah, I couldn’t walk properly for the next week. The planned hike turned into more of a pained shuffle for me. Great holiday. Thanks, nature.

 

5. Hey sis, look what I can do…

At 10 years old I managed to seal my fate as the kid who regularly received a response of “are you kidding me”. My sister called this my most epic “OMG, are you for real” moment, and I have to agree. Not only was I unique in my approach, I broke all the rules in the process. And my poor sister was there to pick up the pieces – literally – and clean the blood. Let me explain. I once had a blood transfusion, after I lost way too much of my own precious red through a little hole in my artery. I made that hole. All by myself. Yup, little 10-year -old me was one minute playing a game with a group of other kids before I decided to redecorate my room and the hallway in a lovely shade of crimson. You see, like all kids, we played shops for a while, but got bored, and wanted to play something else. I thought I put the serving bell from our game of shops under the table I was using. I did not! The bell was no ordinary bell. Its handle was a letter opener shaped in the Big Ben clock tower from London. Rather pretty I thought. So I put this letter opener away but instead of putting it under the table as I intended, I ended up putting it beside the table. No more thoughts about it. In fact, I plum forgot about it. That was until I was running through my room 20 minutes later and thought it would be fun to launch myself off the table and jump behind it to hide. So I did. And I land straight on top of the letter opener/bell. Have you ever seen a ruptured artery? The blood pumps out super soaker style. I should know. That’s what I did. The letter opener went through the bottom of my right foot, between the bones and straight into the lateral tarsal artery. Yup. Nicked it open enough to cause a commotion. Fun times…Not. So when it happened, my Mum was in the kitchen cooking and I called from my room “Mum, I’ve hurt myself”. Which she responded with “well, come into the kitchen and show me”. She regretted that order almost immediately. I hopped down the hall on one leg, blood shooting up to 10 metres in all directions on my way to the kitchen. The sink was filled with my blood rather quickly as my mum sprang into action. As an ex-nurse, she knew what to do, and did so promptly. So while my Mum and Dad threw me in the car to try to get to the closest medical surgery, my poor sister was stuck cleaning what I’m sure looked like a scene from the Texas chainsaw massacre. In the car, my mum had me on her lap as she was holding a tourniquet type bandage while Dad drove the 20-minute drive (80klm speed zone) to town in about 6 minutes. I’d hate to have seen how many speeding violations he would have collected if there were cameras around. So While I was in the emergency room (this was not a hospital, that was another 45 minutes away), the doctor was prepping up to sew my foot back together when My sister called the surgery. This was before mobile phones. She had to look up the number and call hoping to get through. This is one of the many reasons that my sister is a warrior princess. At 15 years old, she stayed cool as a cucumber and calmly spoke to the nurses explaining all the important details that she could, while cleaning up what resembled a crime scene at home. She had noticed that a piece from the letter opener was missing. Yup, the tiny tip was not in the bloody mess on my carpet. That was when the doctor decided it was best to try and bandage my foot for overnight and try and restrict the blood flow, then get it x-rayed the next day. Of course, they found the metal tip lodged between the medial cuneiform and the navicular bones nudging my artery. You know, giving a great show really. So 45 minutes later I was in the children’s hospital waiting for surgery when I thought I should amp it up a notch. My mother was checking on me every few minutes when she stopped and looked at me funny. “Why are you scratching so much,” she asked? “Dunno” I casually responded. “just itchy”. An hour later we found out why. Cause I had just broken out in the measles.  Of course, that meant that I had to be last in the operating theatre as they were going to have to disinfect and super clean the whole area. We were in the emergency ward, so I had to wait about 16 hours. My mum was exhausted. She ended up having to leave me there as I was put in a sterile glass observation room. At about 2:30 am I was told I could go in next. At this point, the hospital was worried about metal poisoning to add to my dilemmas. After the surgery, I realised that I had no feeling in the right side of my foot. I didn’t want to cause any more problems, so I didn’t tell them. These days anything that touches the side of my foot feels like razor blades. Everything is super sharp. Anyway, I think during that whole episode the thing that bummed me out the most was that my class was going to Expo 88. I really wanted to go, but alas, all I got was a commemorative coin from the school and a tonne of stories about how ‘awesome’ it was from my friends.

 

These were the most noteworthy instances from my childhood. But by no means did they stop there. The rest of my top 1o will be in my next entry. The saga will continue. I’m sure many of you are already shaking your heads thinking “glad she’s not mine”.

 

Lilith xo