(click the pic to make it big)
Bizarro is brought to you today by A Leisurely Drive.
Hey, I went to a holiday party last night and they had a very fun live band. But it turned out that was not the most exciting part of the evening.
Nor was the most exciting part when we left the place at midnight, hailed a cab out front of our friends' building, and my formerly lovely wife, Ashley, stuck her head into the passenger-side door window and said to the driver, "Will you take us to Brooklyn?"
The most exciting part was when the cabbie suddenly stepped on the gas (fear of Brooklyn? involuntary leg spasm?), throwing my formerly lovely wife to the street, conking her head on the pavement and knocking her unconscious.
Not being a trained crime fighter, instead of drawing my gun and shooting at the cab or simply getting the car's number, I fell to my knees and began shouting to her, asking if she was okay. She was not okay, as her bloodied and sleeping face quickly told me.
I called 911, they came quickly, tossed us into an ambulance and brought us to an emergency room at the other end of the bumpiest street in the tri-state area. With what it costs to ride in an ambulance, you'd assume that included some sort of suspension system, but you'd be wrong.
Upon entering the ER, the first thing I learned was that all of the employees are superstitious. They forced me to put my camera phone away, presumably fearing I would steal their souls. I told them I had all I could handle with my own soul and had no interest in theirs, but that reassurance seemed to fall on deaf ears.
Now in the trauma room, at first there was a lot of clothes-cutting, shouting of inane questions to get a brief test of Ashley's I.Q. –– What's your name? What day is this? Do you realize we're ruining your fancy party clothes by cutting them off because it is so much more dramatic than removing them the normal way? –– and bandying-about of medical terms like "stat", "cc", "saline," and, "Sir, put that camera away, we're not going to ask again!"
One interesting thing I found out was that you don't really have to leave the trauma room if you don't want to. I learned this after they asked me several times, rather sternly, to step outside and I simply said, "no." Instead of calling security or producing a taser, they just sort of looked disappointed and went on about their business. In their defense, however, they were being forced to ask me and this caused them fear; "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to wait outside," they said over and over. "No," I blandly stated each time and this seemed to allay their fears for a few more minutes. I was, after all, standing calmly off to the side, not scrubbing up and offering to help.
After seven hours of poking, prodding, testing, and mostly waiting on gunshot and knifing victims to be treated, they gave her a couple of stitches in her eyebrow where previously there were none and sent us home, warning her to keep her head away from speeding taxis and the pavement until it healed.
They further admonished her not to get the wound wet for 24 hours, which is a real drag because she has quite a lot of dried blood in her hair. I'm sure it will be uncomfortable for her to sleep with dried blood in her hair and I'm not downplaying that at all, but what about me? I have to sleep with a woman with a face like Rocky Balboa and dried blood in her hair. That's not something I thought I'd ever say.
CHNW is a real trooper and was happy to allow me to publish these pics of her and make a humorous post out of this otherwise unfun event.
I would like to offer two bits of advice to you, dear reader:
1. If you are in NYC, do not ask a cab driver if he will take you somewhere. Get in the cab, close the door, and tell him where he is taking you. By law, they have to do it, but if your destination is not as profitable as they'd like, they will often get away before you can get in.
2. Avoid the holidays. You're safer at home where nothing moves quickly enough to knock you down.
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