Mom always said we’d never know when a bus might hit us and paramedics would have to check out our underwear.
She neglected to mention that most medical emergencies don’t need paramedics, much less require them to examine your underwear. It’s your outerwear getting scrutinized during all those crises unattended by fire trucks.
Take the time I was folding laundry and heard a shriek from the kitchen. Not your ordinary kind of shriek, mind you. More of a “We’re About to Use Up the Deductible” kind of shriek, generated by my 7-year-old landing chin first on the kitchen floor.
Tilting his head back to check for loose teeth, I found myself looking at two mouths. One was where a mouth should be. The other was directly below it, where a chin should be.
As I gazed at this physical anomaly, drops of blood welled up in the corners of the new mouth.
Whoa, baby, I thought, and went into ER mode. I grabbed a dishtowel for his chin and put both boys into the car. I dialed the pediatrician and shouted that I was coming in, STAT, with a kid with two mouths.
I threw on some shoes, jumped into the car and drove as safely as one can at light speed.
The medical center parking lot was packed. I found a “compact only” space wedged between two Suburbans and shoehorned our Caravan into it. I barely managed to squeeze out my door.
When I extracted the boys I discovered they were both barefoot. The youngest was wearing plaid shorts and an inside-out striped shirt. My oldest sported a T-shirt sampled with splotches of breakfast and blood.
The patched overalls I’d put on that morning to pull weeds had big mud stains at the knees. I had sun hat hair, my shoes didn’t match, and as I hoisted my handbag to my shoulder I noticed a big squiggle of grease on my sleeve from the car door.
All we needed to complete this picture was a hand-lettered, cardboard sign reading, “Will work for Happy Meals.”
But this was no time to be worried about appearances. I picked up both boys and staggered through the parking lot. By the time we reached the receptionist I was sweaty and gasping for breath.
“Hi,” I panted, “my son split his chin open and normally we don’t look like this.”
After an exam in which my boy screamed like a banshee when anyone touched him, the doctor diagnosed one split chin, one minor jaw fracture, and one perforated ear canal. They stitched him up and whisked us off to some specialists.
No time to go home and change.
Three doctors’ offices later, the last specialist was giving me instructions.
“Put these drops into his ear when you change the packing,” he intoned. “Keep it moist.”
I vowed I would.
“No swimming,” he added. “The drier his ear stays, the better.”
Now I may not be the sharpest knife in the flatware set, but I sensed a contradiction here.
“Dry?” I asked, uncertainly. “But the drops–”
“–are to keep it moist. It must stay moist.”
“But you said to keep it dry.”
“Yes. The drier, the better.”
“Forgive me,” I said meekly, “but…”
“Is there a problem?” He focused on me for the first time since we crashed into his office. Frowning, he took in my muddy overalls, the barefoot boys, our mismatched clothing.
Exhausted, I just stood there, blinking at him.
“Perhaps the nurse will explain it better,” he said, exiting.
“Hey!” I called out. “We’re all wearing clean underwear!”