bro-stoevsky replied to your post “tagged by @maddie-grove Name: wildcard! (my real name is v. uncommon –...”
how do u try to hide a broken arm
good question!
if you happen to be eight years old, and are a physically reckless but emotionally anxious child, and your parents are building a house at the top of a very steep but PAVED hill surrounded by woods, you might decide that your next visit to the house-in-progress is the perfect day to learn how to ride your bike downhill without using your brakes!
you are right. this is a great idea! what’s NOT a great idea is refusing to use your brakes on the subsequent (smaller) hills, because you fly around the next few curves, hit a rock going uphill at untold miles per hour, and pitch over the handlebars like boba fett being jettisoned into the sarlacc pit.
(this is also a reference you will get at age eight.)
ANYWAY, you know your arm’s broken because this has happened before. and also because your hand is dangling around on the end of your arm like a limp noodle. so now the situation is all about damage control. the bike is fine. the rest of you is fine. left arm took the brunt of the fall.
can you splint it yourself? no. you don’t wear a belt, and there aren’t any good sticks. also: it would attract attention.
after more crying, some determined breathing, and appropriate time for COMPOSURE, you walk the bike back up to the driveway of the still-in-progress house, where your parents have been showing the construction to some friends.
you spend the rest of the time at the house-in-progress/construction site pretending like all is well. everything is fine! we’re all fine here. your left arm works exactly the way it’s supposed to and it is definitely not throbbing in agony!
this lasts for maybe 2 hours after you break the bone, eventually your parents drive you home, and you have become Tired. very Tired and in need of the hospital, a cast, and some tylenol.
so, after your parents have settled in and are getting ready to do normal weekend things like “watch M*A*S*H reruns” and “cook dinner”, you think it over, and decide the best way to explain your situation.
you walk up to the chair where your dad is sitting, and raise both arms palms-inward, in a Wonder Woman-fending-off-bullets gesture, and say -- with all the grim Knowing of a child who has said this too many times -- “we have to go to the hospital.” your left hand flops sharply to one side.
your dad, unflappable as always: “Yeah, I’d say so.”
and that’s the story of how I broke my arm the second time!
(next week: the time I tried to get a sitting president to sign my cast)
