Is There a Doctor in the House?

We were probably the last family in the industrialized world to finally buy a microwave.  I remember that Christmas fondly.  You see, up until then we had still been heating our food like the cavemen did, in the oven!  I think that's why I started to like cold fried chicken.  Who has the patience to wait that long for leftovers to heat up?

I remember one time when Mom had reheated something for me in the oven.  I don't recall now what it was but I'm sure it was good.  I was anxious to dig in and she knew it, so she warned me that the plate was still very hot and not to touch it.  As if I hadn't just seen her removing the plate from the red hot oven.  So I gave her some kind of indignant response like "duh, of course I won't touch it."  However, for some mysterious reason, even as the words were leaving my lips, I reached out and grabbed the plate to slide it towards me and freakish pain instantly shot through my fingers.

I replayed the event in my mind trying to determine exactly what had gone wrong.  Why had I grabbed the plate even when I knew very well that it was roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun?  Mom's reaction was a mixture of concern, anger and amusement.  Of course my sister was rolling on the floor.  I have to admit that I laughed a little bit too, between each shot of searing pain.  That might have been the moment that my parents finally decided it was time to get the microwave.  My ineptitude had convinced them that they needed to take action, and soon.

Unfortunately, grabbing hot plates wasn't my only flaw.  We lived quite far away from the city.  In fact we lived a great distance from pretty much everything.  There were people who lived in more secluded areas than we did, but they only left they're homes during certain phases of the moon.  Anyway, it was in a time and place that we didn't worry about locking our doors.  So when the door lock broke we didn't really hurry to fix it.  That is until it was discovered that I had a sleep walking problem.

When I would sleep walk, it wasn't like you see in cartoons with my eyes closed and my hands held out in front of me, wandering aimlessly.  No, I would carry out complex and often bizarre tasks.  On one such occasion I got out of bed and carried my shoes out into the living room, where my parents were still awake.  I carefully placed the shoes in the middle of the room and, having completed my work, returned to bed.  Of course I don't remember doing any of this.  It was all related to me the next morning.

So, with the door unlocked, there was a fear that I would get up in the middle of the night and wander out of the house and possibly out onto the road.  I can't imagine why I would have needed to put my shoes on the road but obviously somewhere in my subconscious was a flare for the eccentric.  The solution was to insert a butter knife into a crack in the door frame with the knife handle barring the door from opening, like an old fashioned door latch.  Apparently it worked, I never wandered out of the house in my sleep.  Although, it did pose a problem on several mornings when I was running out the door to catch the school bus.  I suppose that's why they used a butter knife instead of a steak knife.

I seemed to have a knack for finding danger in the safest of situations.  My first broken bone, for example, happened during band class.  Not marching band, just band.  I was approximately 4 feet, 7 inches tall in the 7th grade, so naturally I played the trombone.  That didn't have anything to do with my injury though.  There is an unwritten, universal rule that says there should not be bleacher risers in a band room when there is a substitute teacher.  Needless to say, I broke my foot.  Well, three toes to be more precise.

I can't really explain why, but it seemed like a terrific idea to run full speed and jump off the risers into the wall directly behind them.  After the first attempt, my foot started to hurt a little bit.  So of course I did it again.  I'm not exactly sure at what point my toes were actually broken.  It might have been upon impacting the wall, or when I landed with my foot wedged between the wall and the floor.  Or it might have been when my concerned friends ripped my unlaced shoes from my feet and began delightedly wiggling my toes asking, "is this one broken?", as I screamed in agony.  It was probably their heroics that saved me from a whole summer of moving sprinkler pipe.

It's strange to think back on all these things.  At the time I never would have considered myself an accident prone person.  Apparently I didn't know myself as well as I thought I did. 

Although it didn't solve everything, at least once we got the microwave I didn't have to worry as much about hot plates.  However, I seem to have passed my dangerous eccentricity to my son who recently kindled a fire in our microwave with some macaroni noodles because he neglected to add water.  For his safety we'll definitely have to discourage him from band and persuade him to take up something safer, like rugby.