Reason to Listen to Your Parents, Number One - The Squeegee

I've decided that perhaps in the interest of maintaining my own interest in this blog I will start a weekly column all about reasons that one should listen to his or her parents simply based on my own experiences. Obviously, this is going to be completely biased and opinionated and will mostly be stories about my shortcomings, but isn't that fun at least? As with most of the things I do on this blog this is completely off the cuff, it could simply be one story or maybe it will go on for weeks, I guess we'll have to see what happens. Alright, let’s give this a try.

Reason to Listen to Your Parents Number One comes to us from a far away land called Wyoming. I was about 5 years old and had asked my dad if I could tag along with him while he went and filled the truck up with gas. He said it was ok and we headed to the gas station. When we got there he told me to stay in the car while he filled up. For some reason or another I decided not to listen to him and hopped out of the truck to watch him wash the windshield.

Now, at this point my dad was still what I would call a “shaker” which means that he would shake the squeegee in order to get the washer fluid off of the hard plastic part rather than using a paper towel. Unfortunately for me, I got too close to his swing and took the full force of the hard plastic squeegee to the top of my head. Realizing what had happened, my dad rushed me inside the Super America bathroom and was able to stop the bleeding there, and on our way home we stopped at Dairy Queen for ice cream.

When we got home my dad told my mom what had happened and for a while she was pretty upset that he hadn’t taken me to get stitches. Being five years old I didn’t understand most of the conversation that followed, but here’s what I got and how I understood it then (in parentheses) and my interpretation now in italics.

Mom – You didn’t take him to the hospital?! (I don’t want to go to the hospital, I have ice cream!) Things were ok in the long run, I’ve always wondered if I have a huge scar.

Dad – No, they would have had to shave his head and clean it all out. (Ewwww, I don’t want a shaved head and what do you mean clean it all out…are they gonna take my brain out and clean it?!) As a five year I thought that’s what my dad meant…obviously all he meant was they would have to shave me head around the cut and then clean out the cut, but I didn’t understand it that way.

Mom – Well, I think you should have taken him to the hospital. (Meh…I’ve got ice cream) Yeah, I got ice cream…in the future my mom would avoid taking me to the hospital at all costs, but that’s for another post.

There was also some discussion about a really big needle which I didn't like the sound of.

There you have it; Reason to Listen to Your Parents Number One is this; because if you don’t you might get hit in the head with a gas station squeegee.