A Sure Fire Cure

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11.August.04

My son hurt himself again. The last time he injured himself, his fingers had gone a round with a blender. Son 0, blender 1. Then he fell through the roof of a building that he and his father were supposed to be demolishing. He was lucky to have survived that fall and he required yet another trip to the doctor and some shots. This time it was something different. He was riding a borrowed bicycle and was jumping tree roots. He hit one head on, flipped over the bike and landed his entire body weight on the tip of one handle bar. Lucky for him that his entire body weight equals that of my right thigh, so there shouldn’t have been much damage. I didn’t know he’d had a little mishap at the time I saw him holding his side and walking very gingerly towards me as we were getting ready to leave the park.

Me:

Son:

Me:

Son:

Me:

Then I poked him in the side.

Son:

Me:

Son:

This was not the answer I was expecting. He’d stopped letting me in on his potty habits a long time ago. Since he has achieved the ripe old age of 13, it is not incumbent upon me to bathe him, only to remind him a couple of times a week that soap is our friend.

Son:

Me:

Well, sure. Of course I would. Who was I kidding? I’d warned my children long ago that if they didn’t want the world to know what they were up to, to stop being up to something. Or at least stop doing stupid things that required I write about their antics as a form of therapy. But do they listen? Noooooooo. That would be too easy.

Being female, I was unaware that peeing is different for men and women. Women don’t require any effort to let it go. Men, on the other hand, must concentrate and push. My son had injured himself in some manner that made him unable to do his business—and this was not good news. I’ve seen pipes when they back up and burst. It ain’t pretty.

My son was irritated that I kept pestering him about going to the bathroom.

Me:

Son:

Me:

Son:

Me:

I went on to explain the procedure for catheterization. He didn’t believe me. I didn’t blame him.

Son:

Me:

He set a new land speed record for getting to the bathroom. He didn’t come out until success was his.

I was thinking I should tell him that for every injury, catheterization is the only treatment to make sure he’s all right inside. I was hoping it might stop his antics for a day. Maybe two.

I was kidding myself. He got back from a beach trip to Westport with a friend last night. He’s cut up and bruised from being slammed by big waves onto the rocks on the shore. He’s also burned to a crisp. I told him I was taking him to the hospital to be catheterized, just in case he’d suffered some internal injuries. He hasn’t come out of the bathroom for four hours.

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comment on this column

ROFL! Your poor crazy son! I love reading your columns! Thank you! :)
Marian
Riverside, UT USA -

Ooo, Pamela, that's the sneakiest, most deviously wicked blackmail threat I'ce heard yet. I'm so proud of you!
Con
Edinburg, TX USA -

Well, Paula, you have now got the perfect way to keep them in line. Works even better than duct tape. Power to you sister!
Lisa Shirah-Hiers
Austin, TX USA -

A hearty on this week's column and a "sizzling" sound to go along with the mention of the word "catherization".
Zach Foote
Granite City, IL USA -

Your kids sure provide a lot of material for your columns. You'll have to thank them for all of us! :-)
Jeri Lynn
Shoreline, WA USA -

Scripts modified from Matt Wright's guestbook. His scripts can be found at Matt's Script Archive

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