# 135 AN EVENTFUL DAY - Part III

A Stunning Discovery

And so I continue my story but first I must ask, “Do you have friends with a warped sense of humor like I have?” The kind that will send a Birthday or Christmas card knowing that when I get that letter from the post office I will run to the car and open it immediately. My car with the burgundy seat covers that can magically crochet dog hair into complex doilies and velcro-textured rugs that can attach themselves like glue to anything that falls on them. And so I rip open my exciting personal letter only to discover that besides a lovely card there are also no less than 160 cellophane or foil itsy-bitsy flowers, stars, angels, that promptly fall onto my lap or the floor of my car. With their sharp little edges they attach themselves to the whole of the car’s interior, and because they are so tiny they are next to impossible to clean up. I swear I am still pulling some of them out of the rug from two Birthday’s back.

It’s frustrating when that happens. But sitting out in front of the hospital with thoughts of whether or not I qualify for special medical care, I am thinking how much worse royal f---ing blue blood will be to clean up. But as I told you in my last post, despite my fears about the wound on my wrist I am close enough to the hospital that now I can be calmer and so much braver.

So carefully, carefully, so as not to flood my car with an ocean of blue blood, I pulled back the band-aid ever so slightly to have a better look. And that’s when I discovered a rather stunning thing. Something I might have noticed earlier if I hadn’t been in such a panic to get the wound taped up and the bleeding stopped. Somehow in the process of the manufacturing and wrapping of that band-aid it had come in contact with an ink spill. And that spill left a large dark blue stain on the padded side that extended right to the edge and leached to the other side in the same way that a swiftly flowing wound would do. It was not my royal blood or aortic blood or vital left-side-of-the-heart blood. On closer examination I now realized it was nothing more than a very large ink stain. And so, with that realization, came the conclusion that I might as well head home. Obviously this was not a wound that needed special attention.

Now that should be the end of this tale, but upon starting my car and preparing to leave the hospital, it begins to rain and snow at a goodly pace. I turn on my windshield wipers but they stay glued to the off position. I check and find them completely iced up. I dig away what ice I can with a rat-tail comb but the comb has too much flex and the ice is too hard. Then I locate a ballpoint pen that works fairly well but long before I’m done it snaps in half. I notice a man in a vehicle nearby that I’m thinking may help – maybe he has de-icer – a screwdriver – a bottle of alcohol (not to drink, to melt the ice) – maybe a better understanding than I of where the mechanism must be freed (cause I have no idea). Again I’m back to those panic-driven, fractured, rampant thoughts of desperation including Hub’s fanaticism about imposition versus independence. I begin to walk over to the vehicle nearby, but before I go more than five steps I retrace my own footprints back to my car. Nah, we won’t do that.

I continue to run the heater and windshield defrost full bore and continue to try to dig away more ice with the broken pen. In between these efforts, I try the wipers, but they still refuse to budge, even when I turn them on and lift and push them to help them break loose. The temperature is dropping and the downpour of snow and rain is increasing. The man, who maybe could have helped, has driven away.

I finally decide I am going home even if I have to drive with my head stuck out the side window. I will stop if I must and rub the windshield off with my sleeve if nothing else. I begin the drive and quell at how hazardous the stupidity of this is to not only myself, but others on the road as well. I can only make out dark outlines of roadside brush and buildings through the fog and ice and rain on the windshield. But eventually, having reached the outskirts of town, I am able to speed up and eventually the window clears somewhat even though it is still raining and snowing.

In this situation there is no safe balance. You know what I mean – the safe balance between those who hazard others by driving too slow, and those who hazard others by driving too fast. So I just eliminate those concerns from my mind and continue on as best I can.

I am so glad to get home and, although I didn’t expect it could happen, after this eventful day I now dread the dreaded trip to town even more than I did yesterday or the day before. Hub is sympathetic about my eventful day and proud of my independence. Daughter, on the other hand, ignores the sad details, and when my tale of woe is concluded simply remarks, with a hearty chuckle,

“Mom, it’s so good to hear that you finally had a reason for an outing!”