I loved Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and have been enjoying chatting about it with our #BloggessBook club on twitter. It was hilarious when @speechtechie and I realized we had both been ejected out of moving vehicles during our childhoods. The stories are funny now, or at least we thought so. I promised @atklingensmith that I would write a blog post about my experience so here we go…
It was a beautiful sunny day and I was feeling grand. I had a brand new aqua Cabbage Patch jogging suit on and I had enjoyed a Happy Meal for lunch. I hadn’t gone to school that day because I had been at a dental appointment (which was why I had eaten McDonald’s…this was a treat I mostly only had if I had a medical appointment.) I rode along with my parents and my younger brother Wilton (known then only as Macho because he was HUGE) in the truck as I clutched my awesome book bag (a brown corduroy briefcase type thing I borrowed from my mom because I thought it made me look older.) I remember sitting against the door looking out the window at the trees.
Next thing I knew I was looking up at the sky, unable to catch my breath. When I finally could take a breath I realized my mouth was full of mud (first thought – MY CLEAN TEETH!) and when I glanced around I saw I was lying in a mud puddle in the ditch. (SECOND THOUGHT – OH NOES MY JOGGING SUIT!!!) My dad checked if I could wiggle my toes and move my fingers (he used to be an orderly) and when he saw I could he lifted me up and carried me to the truck, where my mom held me on her lap for the final kilometer to our house. They put me on their bed and left me to rest. My brother was horrified, he stayed with me the whole time and told me, “please don’t be dead or crippled.” I sent him to make me a snack and get me a drink because I ain’t no fool.
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My mom said it was so sudden, one second I was talking and the next I was gone. They heard a hard sickening THUMP (I had flown out clutching my beloved borrowed briefcase and had whacked it against the side of the truck) and thought that it was my head hitting the truck. My dad jumped out of the truck and it went into the opposite ditch. Oddly (as if flying out of a truck wasn’t odd enough) I was still holding the briefcase. My dad looked at the area later and said it looked like I hit the treeline (broken branches) and bounced into the ditch.
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My dad was furious with himself and the truck and welded the door shut. Later he realized that was also unsafe so he sold the truck because he still couldn’t stand to look at it.
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I’m pretty sure I’m fine and had no lasting effects but quite honestly, my childhood was full of crazy, horrifyingly awesome things. It’s a miracle I escaped unscathed but I wouldn’t change anything. It formed my twisted crazy eccentric personality. Then again, I would change one little thing…I think my mom threw my Cabbage Patch jogging suit and the briefcase away because I never saw them again. Uncool. They were both super sweet and awesome.
Ndnspeechmom 