The most horrific drive
April 23, 2008
As a parent, one of the worst phone calls you can receive is one telling you your child has a profusely bleeding head wound at school after a large rock fell on her and they’re calling the paramedics. While racing there, the next phone call is to inform you they’re transporting her to the pediatric ER at a hospital even further from her school. I burst into tears as I tried racing from the Rosslyn area to Fairfax Inova way over on the other side of 495 during rush hour. I debated jumping on 66 and risk getting pulled over, rationalizing that when your child is on the way to the hospital in an ambulance without you, it’s okay to break the HOV rules. Then I weighed how long it would take to explain to a cop against the time saved and decided against it, all the while wondering if she was scared? Was she okay? Did she have a concussion? It must be bad if they’re transporting her! Just freaking out! Why won’t people move out of my way? When will this light change? Why are people driving so slow? I’ll have to remember to be more patient with impatient drivers in case they’re in a situation like that!
So needless to say, I didn’t finish the project I’ve been working on regarding ballpark tours (hopefully soon!) or update about cash lots available for parking on game days now. I also missed most of John Lannan’s awesome shutout 7 innings which led to a shutout win over the Braves. No worries - she’s fine now. She was smiling and joking by the time I arrived. A word of advice, though - don’t watch when they clean the wound. Ugh - woozy! A little “magic glue” to hold her head together, and she’s good as gold now.
Mr. Chatter and I are trying out the Red Porch cushy seats with food service tonight. I can’t wait! I’m still shaking from last night’s experience. Hopefully it doesn’t take another catastrophe to coax a win out of them.
Posted in Personal, Washington Nationals
content rss
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Thank goodness your little one is okay. Isn’t that glue great! My little one split her eyebrown open doing just one more dance spin (after I warned not so close to the fireplace!) and fell onto the bricks. I sympathize with the HOV dilema, you’d like to think the cop would believe you and send you on your way but they have had to have heard that story many times before. Can’t wait to hear about the red porch seats. The last game I was at there was quite a scence at the red porch as some dad wanted to take his daughter down towards the field but the red porch usher wouldn’t let them down. The dad lost his mind yelling at the usher and some other dude who was saying the usher was just doing his job. For being and idiot in front of his daughter that Dad lost cool points in my book. Those RP ushers take their job seriously so you won’t be bothered by seat poachers for sure.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Good to know that she is okay. I think you were better off not risking HOV too, since they station cops on ramps — the time it would take to explain would probably nullify any savings.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Sorry to hear about the little one. The guy who managed the burger joint on the Boardwalk in O.City where I worked in college would jump at every little perturbation and murmur his firstborn would make. When his second child came along, she fell and whacked her head on the coffee table. He glanced over, determined that she wasn’t that hurt, and went on about his business. He explained that you just get used to a certain level of turmoil with kids and you learn to balance it out. I don’t know where this fits in with your experience, but it can possibly save you a few unnecessary gray hairs.
As to my remarks on the chat last night: I took a good friend to his first ever baseball game this past weekend–the Nats @ Marlins. Saturday. Now, even though he only knows what little I have taught him while watching games on TV, even he was appalled at the less-than-stellar play he saw from the Nats: Guzman thinking it was 2 outs, Kearns unable to track fly balls hit his way, RZ and FLop’s inability to hit w/RISP, etc.
So, gluttons for punishment that we are, we went back Sunday to be treated to more of the same, albeit with a glimmer of hope.
After all that, I felt bereft after setting my expectations so high and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna waste my time watching a team give away winnable baseball games. I can take losing by getting beat by a better effort on any given night, but strings of mental errors over and over are unacceptable on a professional Major League Baseball team. Period.
Take care.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:24 am
I once drove from Herndon to Georgetown in 15 minutes after getting a similar phone call (not recommended!). Glad to hear she’s fine. Dermabond is amazing stuff.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Glad to know she’s OK. Oh boy, something else to look forward to (as long as the final result is similar).