Carnage on Carnival Hill

Last Updated on Monday, 25 January 2010 09:58 Written by Scott Wegna Monday, 25 January 2010 09:58

And it seems like such a nice place in this Olde Tyme photo . . .

Last Friday I was feeling pretty good about myself. I’d just finished the first page of Robo 4.3 in which a certain somebody makes his triumphant return. This somebody was the darling of last year’s FCBD scene, and seems to be loved by all. Except the guy who has to draw him, page after page, after page. So don’t say I’ve never done anything for you guys.

Finishing a page before the Widget gets out of school is like hitting that endorphin rush that runners get around mile seven. It means that after I pick the Widget up at school, and after Dorinda comes home, and after we do the dishes, and after we cook and eat dinner, and after we put the Widget to bed, I don’t have to go back to work at 9 o’clock at night unless I bloody well want to. So there.

What it also means is that I have my afternoon free for Daddy-Widget activities. In this instance, we took the the old sled up to Carnival Hill to take advantage of the snow that got dumped on us earlier in the week. Sleigh riding for a parent is really meant to be a spectator sport. Sure you take one or two rides down the hill, but lacking all that Christmas Story snow gear that kids are forced to wear you quickly end up wet and freezing. So more or less you derive your pleasure from watching your offspring flirt with death while you stand a 1/2 mile away at the top of the hill concocting plausible explanations for why your kid is dead that both your wife and the police will find acceptable.

Funny thing about standing atop a giant hill in winter. It’s fucking cold! I had my giant parka on, hood up, Dr. Who scarf wrapped snuggly over my face, and my old ski gloves on. But I was still pretty cold after an hour or so of being buffeted by the wind. The Widget, being smarter than me, decided that one trip to the top of Carnival Hill was more than enough had been playing on the lower slopes most of this time, thus denying me my parental rights to at least one ride on her purple plastic toboggan. But eventually I coaxed her into climbing to the summit and letting me have a go.

In retrospect, I should have met her halfway.

Long story short; I pulled a total Clark Griswold.

Like many early test pilots I could have sworn that I smelled coffee brewing as my fragile ship was buffeted and rent asunder as I approached the Sound Barrier. Too late did I realize the danger, and when I jammed my boots into the snow to slow myself down I was rewarded by a blinding spray of ice and hard-pack.

That was when I went airborne. Blind as a newborn kitten I let slip my earthly bonds and soared into the firmament.

I feel like I should take a moment here to clarify what went on next. To say I hit a bump and got some air doesn’t really explain the physics. Imagine if you will that you are in a shopping mall or convention center and you are standing at the top of a long escalator. Twenty-five feet below you is the bottom of the escalator.

If you were to ride a go-cart moving at a brisk walking pace off the top of the escalator you would experience a brief moment of flight before the angle of your descent merged gently with the angle of the escalator. (We’ll ignore for the moment how brutal the toothy edge of the average escalator stair can be.)

Now take that same go-cart, but this time lets launch it with the sort of hydraulic catapult used on aircraft carries to huck F-15′s off the flight deck. That’s about how fast I was going. The result being that I shot out too far horizontally from the “escalator” thus assuring that I missed the gentle downward slope of the moving staircase and smacked into the ground floor, some twenty-five feet away, at close to a right angle. Luckily my kidneys were there to take the impact for me or I don’t know how bad it might have hurt.

As all the air rushed painfully from my lungs I went airborne again. Not because of any more bumps in the terrain, but simply because physics tells us that if you throw a bag of meat at the ground hard enough it will bounce.

I came down on my neck this time, rolled ass over tits once or twice, and then my face dug into the crusty hard packed snow and thankfully acted like a boat anchor and brought my horrible little journey to an end. Unfortunately not fast enough to avoid having my spine bend in the shape of the letter “C” -the wrong fucking way. I didn’t know I was flexible enough to actually kick myself in the back of the head with my heavy Timberland work boots. But apparently I am.

Ladies; restrain yourselves.

This all happened in seconds, of course. All I knew was that I put my feet out to slow down, I was blinded . . .ow fuck! . . .airborne again . . .wait I can see? sky ground, sky ground, Oh damn my glasses! Those cost six hundred bu -oof! *pop!* <<Shriek!!>>

And so on.

It first dawned on me that I was lucky to be alive when the Widget slid to a stop next to me. She was holding my glasses. And my cell phone. And my car keys. All caked in thick wet snow. The smile vanished from her face and she said, “Daddy, you’re bleeding all over your face.” I did cut the hell out of my nose, cheek, and forehead, but the Dr. Who scarf saved me from requiring reconstructive surgery. It’s a bit of a shredded mess. But all the water from the snow and tears, mixed with the small amount of blood, made it look like my life force was gushing from my facial pores.

I thought the best thing to do would be to get up and assure her that no, I was in fact just fine. Ego bruised, but otherwise unharmed.

And that was when I realized that i couldn’t get up.

Aw crap.

There was a few seconds of teeth gnashing, spitting and frothing at the mouth as I flopped like a fish trying to stand up, almost lost control of my bowels, and experienced the sort of wild panic that one might associate with being buried alive.

But eventually I staggered to the car and called my wife. Doctors were contacted. When they asked if I’d lost control of my bowels or bladder it wasn’t really a lie when I said “no”. Almost doesn’t count. And really, when there was no blood in my stool or urine the next day? What’s the big deal, right? Any tingling I may or may not have felt in my lower limbs lasted no more than five minutes, so we don’t need to mention that, right?

Writing this a few days later I’m still in a ridiculous amount of pain -but its all just pulled muscles luckily. Oh, and a severely bruised tail bone. So I’m not allowed to sit down any more than I absolutely have to.

Luckily my drafting table is very high and I’m able to stand while I type this.

The lesson that I’ve learned in all of this is that I should really fuck off more during the day so that I never finish pages before the Widget gets out of school, that way I won’t have time for doing silly-ass shit like this anymore.

RANDOM SPLENDOR