Imaginary conversations

Sometimes I let my imagination run away with me. The other day we were walking along the bay and we saw a father with five boys playing in the water. We had four boys in our family and we found out a whole lot of ways to get into trouble. Five must be a real handful. I noticed that four could be running in four different directions. It was a good thing Dad was holding the baby in his arms while he tried to run after another little one. I keep thinking about what life must be like for their family. Here are some imaginary fragments of conversations that might have taken place on various trips to the emergency room.

These are all fictional situations. I don’t even know the father or the children we saw on the beach. Like I said, sometimes I let my imagination run away with me.

The admissions clerk said to me: “You don’t really need to sit down. All I need is a first name and date of birth. I already have your insurance information. We’ve got your whole family in our system.” It reminded me of so many other conversations I’d had with the admissions clerk at the Emergency Room.

. . . So I said to her, ‘I’d really like to have a little girl, and we have a 50/50 chance.” But here we are, number five and its a boy and she didn’t even wait to get to the hospital this time . . .

. . . I thought it was a good idea to have a speedometer for the bike. I never thought they’d try to see if they could get it to go 50 mph. I’d never take that corner at 50 mph in the car . . .

. . . I have no idea where the piece of stick came from. He said he put it in his nose, but he doesn’t know why . . .

. . . Once. ONCE. I only said to him “You have Dumbo ears,” one time. It was his big brother who started calling him Dumbo, but I didn’t think he believed that he could actually fly . . .

. . . It says right in the instructions for the tent that they are “patented safety poles.” I guess the patent didn’t consider what would happen when they are used as light sabres . . .

. . . He is really cute putting on his big brother’s shoes all the time. How could I have guessed he would try to walk with both feet in the same boot? . . .

. . . I really didn’t think they were listening when I said, “If we have a fire before we get a safety ladder, we can tie together sheets and lower ourselves out of the window.” . . .

. . . I thought a human pyramid of the males in our family would be fun. Six works, if the oldest three are on the bottom and the baby on the top. I never expected the two in the second layer to jump in the middle of my back at the same time . . .

. . . We used to have a beautiful solid glass storm door on the front door. I say used to because when he was chasing his brother and slammed that door right in his face, it shattered into a thousand pieces as he went through the door head first . . .

. . . I wonder how many trips to the emergency room begin with “I double dog dare you!” . . .

. . . No, I don’t know how much peanut butter they got into his ear. I just know that I didn’t get it all out . . .

. . . It was burned toast that set off the smoke alarm. I was trying to get that quiet and didn’t see him pull the pin on the fire extinguisher. I wiped it off of his face, but he keeps coughing . . .

. . . They are not supposed to get into my tool box, but frankly, I didn't think he was strong enough to lock a pair of channel lock pliers onto his brother’s toe. I suppose they’ll have to x-ray it . . .

. . . I don’t know which one of them came up with the idea of using the clothes chute as a shortcut from up to downstairs. I just know they shouldn’t have used the littlest one to test the theory . . .

. . . I know the package says, “For children age 8 and over.” But you try telling a five-year-old that he isn’t old enough to do what his brothers are doing . . .

. . . According to his brothers, this wasn’t the first time they put him in the middle of the trampoline and then the other four all jumped at once. They called the game “Send Brian into the stratosphere” . . .

. . . When you have five boys you buy a lot of food in large quantities. We do our weekly grocery shopping at Costco. They came up with the idea of having a hot dog eating contest with cold dogs fresh out of the refrigerator. It was a very large package . . .

. . . The gate at the top of the stairs was put there to prevent falls. In his case, it just gave him a higher starting point for the fall . . .

. . . They were watching weightlifting at the Olympics on the television. He took my 20# therapy weight, lifted it over his head, cheered and then threw it to the ground. Unfortunately his brother’s toe was right where it fell . . .

. . . I have a friend with two daughters. I suggested a trade, but he wouldn’t go for it . . .

. . . We have a garage full of bikes. It wasn’t a shortage of bikes that gave them the idea to try to go down that hill with all five on the same bike . . .

. . . We have no trees suitable for climbing at our house. Their grandparents only have one tree that you could climb. One is enough . . .

. . . A tennis ball on the stairway can be pretty entertaining. I didn’t even know they had found my old bowling ball in the back of my closet . . .

. . . Maybe you should start a frequent visitor program. We could fill up a punchcard with 12 visits in less than half a year and if you made a free visit for every 12 our insurance company would love you . . .

There are a thousand more possibilities. Fortunately for you, I’ve had enough for today.

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