Between the ages of two and four I was bitten by a field mouse, a dog and perhaps most unusual of all, a crow. The neighborhood children named the crow, Jay and each morning he would fly from house to house to be fed. One morning I stepped outside the kitchen door to feed Jay a Frito. As I was feeding him, he nipped my finger. It wasn't painful, but it was noteworthy. I told my mother who was quite alarmed called my pediatrician. According to her, the following conversation transpired:
Mother: "Dr. Rambar, Hugh has been bitten by a crow.
Doctor: very long pause.
Mother: Doctor?
Doctor: Judy, I don't even know what to say to you. I'm going to have to look this one up.
The doctor hung up and called back a few minutes later instructing my mother to put some Bactine on it and then a Band Aid.
From childhood through adulthood, my grandfather regularly began our conversations with "Have you been bitten by anything lately?"
6 comments:
Wonderful collage and a lovely childhood story. Where would we be without bandaids?
Great collage, it fits your story perfectly.
Love the story and the collage.
Was your mom an over-protective type? I'm thinking my mom would not have called a doctor unless one of us had been mauled by the chupacabra.
Given the number of times I visited the emergency room during my infancy: eating poison mushrooms, eating a book of matches, numerous stitches, it's fair to say she wasn't too overprotective. She is a well-known academic in early childhood development and it is all the more amusing to me that I was always somewhere out of view doing things that were always putting me in peril.
Lovely story and collage is great!
Most excellent story & illustration! Maybe your antics were fodder for your mother's case studies? "In spite of superior parenting, 'H' was a mischevious scalawag who even managed to get bitten by a crow".
Post a Comment