Husband and I had an invitation to one of his stepson’s weddings in Indianapolis this past weekend and we were beyond excited to attend. In planning this trip, Husband kept in mind that flying makes me miserable and now I’ll be Whiny Spice and tell you what I hate, what I really, really hate: landing. So with a choice between booking seats on a midsize plane that would make a stop and a smaller plane that wouldn’t, Husband wisely chose the one that went nonstop. This is how we came to be on a Northwest Altoid Box to Indiana.
When the pilot made his first announcement, all I heard was “Rmmphj ba mubba flmppp arggmnl.” The second one was no better. When I asked Husband what the pilot was saying he said “Lnmfflfb.” The passenger behind us agreed. I found this hilarious. For all we knew, the pilot could have been telling us, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m experiencing uncontrollable flatulence up here. This cockpit smells like an elephant’s asshole and I just can’t stand it any longer. I’ve strapped on my parachute and in a moment I’ll be leaving this godforsaken stink pit. I hope you poor bastards enjoy your stay in our country’s heartland. BYE-E-E-E-E-E!!!”
As soon as we landed at the Indianapolis airport, I knew it wasn’t New York because a shift manager from one of the food concessions was sitting at a table right out in the open counting a stack of money. Someone called his name and he stood up and turned around WITH HIS BACK TO THE MONEY and carried on a conversation with the other employee. People walked by like it was just another day in Indiana. If this were JFK an invisible neon sign would have appeared over the table saying FREE MONEY HELP YOURSELF but it’s so remote a possibility as to be totally irrelevant.
We checked into our suite at the lovely inn the bride and groom had reserved for their out-of-town guests and then enjoyed a wonderful dinner with the bridal couple and their respective children. Back in our suite at bedtime, I went to lay out my clothes for the wedding the next day and slipped on the beautiful varnished foyer floor causing me to go down like a wingless bird in flannel pajamas. Husband called the front desk to get directions to the hospital as we watched my left wrist swell.
The triage team at Community North Hospital asked me to rate the pain I was feeling on a scale of one to ten with one being the mildest and ten the most severe. This was my first time in an emergency room as a patient and this questionnaire thing was new to me. Son was a very competitive athlete and I’d taken him on half a dozen sports-related emergency room trips over the years but the only questions he ever got asked were “Did you at any time lose consciousness?” and “Do you want a wheelchair or a stretcher?” Obviously, when someone’s knee is facing behind them no one’s asking how much the sonofabitch hurts.
I don’t like to be a complainer so I told the triage nurse, “On a scale of one to ten I guess it’s a five,” and I could see Husband standing behind her with one of his hands making a cutting motion under his chin in the universal sign for “What the fuck are you saying?!” and the other hand gesturing upwards like “We’ll be here ALL NIGHT for anything less than eight” so I said it was an eight.
They X-rayed my arm, put me in a kind of circular splint, covered it with ace bandages and then put the whole package into a sling. There are lots of hand bones and they couldn’t be certain one of them wasn’t broken so they treated it like it was. When I have the follow-up X-ray in a week it will be more apparent whether it was broken or not by the way it’s healing. Fortunately I’m coming up to a school break so I can take it easy for a week or two. I’ll tell you what isn’t easy, and that’s putting on pantyhose with one hand. I didn’t look in the mirror but I’m pretty sure it’s a sight not found in nature.
At the Indianapolis Airport on our way home, I was waiting for Husband to return from a newsstand and this farmer-looking guy in his thirties standing next to me said, “I’m so nervous. I’m going down to Raleigh and this is the first time I’ve ever flown. I don’t know what to expect. There’s probably nothing to worry about though, right?” It was so ironic him asking ME this, with my aversion to flying and my arm in a sling. I was standing there wondering if I could tread water in it but I didn’t tell him that.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos tell us Where and What
Waldorf Astoria: Autism Speaks Benefit
Union Square: Free Tibet Rally
ABC No Rio Arts Center: Twisted Sisters
The Universe: Greetings from God