The Danger of Dodgeball

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on June 10, 2011


Some people will do almost anything to get out of PE class, even for the last week of school.

Last Friday was the last day of school for students at Providence Christian Academy where I’ve been teaching math and science. Numerous end-of-year events were planned for our sixty or so students. It turned out to be a little more eventful than just the panned activities: the awards ceremony, followed the distribution of yearbooks, and the school picnic.


And then there was the call from the school nurse at Fauquier High School.


Oh, Lord. I’ve had one of those calls before. When the school nurse calls you, it is far more frightening than being called by the school principal. Give me the principal any day. You’d almost always rather hear that your child is acting up instead of throwing up, or even worse, that he or she has been involved in some accident.


Incidentally, I wish to say how sorry I am for all the families and friends who lost the young and precious lives in the tragic car accident in Bealeton. Please, in no way, is this column meant to try to compare my phone call with the awful news they received, nor with their grief and sorrow that will forever be theirs.


The last time I had a call from the school nurse, I missed it. I was in Reston and didn’t get to my cell phone that was uselessly vibrating on a ledge because I was wearing a dress without pockets. Fortunately, my husband was close to home that day, and he handled the call. It’s a good thing, too, because he handles blood better than I do.


That’s the time that my eldest son Sergio had been working in the shop class. Another student was trying to chop a block of unclamped wood, and the block of wood spun off the chop saw, sailed across the room, and skittered across the left lens of my son’s safety glasses, and then gashed him just under the eyebrow.


Immediately when that happened, several “cooler” students suddenly appreciated the value of safety glasses. Almost in unison, their safety goggles descended from their heads and onto their noses, like the covers closing on the cockpits of fighter planes.


Even I will admit that most safety goggles make you look about as appealing as a four-legged insect. These students began to see the wisdom of looking like insects with sight, compound, stereoscopic, or otherwise, rather than being dashing dudes with the eyesight of a mole.


By the end of that emergency room visit, he had needed five stitches to close up that gash. Head wounds bleed a lot. But you probably already knew that. When it comes to things medical, everyone has advice to give. It almost rivals unsolicited advice on parenting and potty training.


So, to speed the story along (only 350 words remain), Sergio got injured during PE class. Here’s a shocking revelation: no one in my family is athletic. We haven’t got a clue about the Redskins – are they some proper kind of potato? Just kidding. As an American, of course I know about our national pastime, right after watching reality TV and keeping up with Facebook: it’s baseball, right? Just kidding again. I know it’s football.


You may have thought my child was injured while exhibiting athletic prowess: dodging or lobbing a ball, but basically, Sergio tripped and fell backwards and sideways over an unattended dodgeball. Clutter can be dangerous.


The x-rays at Fauquier Hospital indicate that Sergio had a chip fracture in his femur. I’m not explaining that because you are probably a medical expert already. Just eat your redskins and email me with some advice on how to handle this.


He is home with crutches and a splint that is tightly wrapped in Ace bandages from thigh to toe until we can visit the orthopedist on Monday. In some ways, this is an ideal excuse from PE for him. Sergio has never cared for PE class – no offense, in case the instructor is reading this and considering awarding an A to a student who only brought home his uniform twice this semester for washing. My son claims his uniform didn’t need to be washed because, despite the best efforts of the instructor, he never really broke a sweat. Please. I guess if you don’t break a sweat, you might as well break a bone.


I got him home from the emergency room, with my greatest immediate worry being: What if he needs to visit the restroom while wearing this cast? When will his father be home?


The Friday evening commute back to Fauquier County is notorious, but my husband came home soon enough. Being the practical gadget lover that he is, he had already purchased a raised toilet seat, so the user can be seated almost as high as the sink. What a relief! And I really didn’t mean for that to be a pun.


My thanks to Sue Brittle, the school nurse at Fauquier High School for attending so well to my son.

Close Encounters of the Bad Kind

Do you ever run into someone who wrecks your day? I’ve had a few such encounters while living in Warrenton. I often write about how much I love living in Warrenton and how beautiful Fauquier County is, and how wonderful the people here are. Not only does that keep me in your good graces, considering that I am still a relative newcomer here after five years, but I also get paid an extra nickel.

A couple of summers ago, I was shopping at Safeway with my two youngest children, aged six and three then. I had gotten one of those highly coveted kiddie carts that has the bright red and yellow fire truck appended to the front so that two loosely belted kids can ride ahead of your cart as if they were heralding a regal procession. Never mind that this cab throws the entire vehicle off kilter, and leaves you to negotiate the aisles with the cart fishtailing wildly. You spend as much time hoisting the cart off its rear wheels, and pivoting as you do pushing the cart. So what? The kids absolutely love this experience. The kiddie cart increases your shopping time and fatigue, but what is parenting if it is overflowing with time and energy? My kids have outgrown the kiddie cart (especially the teens!), but I prefer it to letting them use those “Little Shopper” carts. You know the miniaturized shopping carts that can be vehicles of destruction when wielded by the youngest of our citizens, with the “Shopper in Training” flags? They are usually driven recklessly, with kids careening through the aisles, narrowly missing the ankles of other shoppers and the piles of sparkling cider in GLASS containers. Maybe the flags should say “Chopper in Training.”

So I will take the fire truck in which my children are relatively confined over the mini shopper almost any day. My kids can barely squeeze into the cab part nowadays, but since I haven’t seen a weight capacity rating on the thing, I still let them squish into it. It’s nice because I can hand down a snack while we shop, and they can steer as wildly as they like with their pseudo-steering wheels without endangering others. The downside is that they can spot “sales” from their vantage point and are often certain that we absolutely need to replenish our stock of gummy somethings.

As we traveled up and down (and side to side) in the aisles, whenever I saw something we needed, I let the kids alternate in hopping out of the cab to pick it out for me. Hence, they were not buckled up down there. At one point, my son, in his excitement to pick out an item for me, caught his foot while stepping out of the cab, and fell headfirst onto the hard floor. It was one of those awful thuds that promises to produce a goose-egg on the child’s head that is almost as big as your guilty feeling. It was the sort of thud in which the child does not immediately emit sound. He or she is gasping for air to fuel the cry, and the delay before the cry is proportional to the intensity of the scream, and presumably, the intensity of the pain. It was a full two seconds before he let out his fire alarm.

As I swooped my flailing and shrieking child off the ground, a fellow shopper surveyed the scene and loudly told me, “Well, that’s what they make belts for.” I was so flustered, I couldn’t think what to say to her. The Safeway employees were very gracious and brought ice in paper towels for my son. I felt horrible for my son and was annoyed with myself and most especially with the callous shopper.

I wanted to say, “Wow? Why did no one tell me that Mother Teresa was reincarnated and roaming around Warrenton?” but I am not a quick thinker. What, if anything, would you have said to this woman?