I kept feeling like I was a bad person for my behavior recently. On Labor Day, I was playing some back yard football with my girlfriend’s family. The game had ended and we were throwing some long passes randomly around the yard. Dad catches a long throw by his son, Michael and is going to return the throw. Dad winds up and throws a beautiful spiral, one that lofts at a 45 degree angle and has great hang time. Unfortunately, the ball sails too far to the left, causing Michael to race underneath it from the far end of the yard.
Michael’s momentum kept building and building. The sound of his long strides hitting the hard soil could be heard all the way across the yard. It looked like the making of an all-star catch…until. Until the driveway hindered the catch. It is a gravel driveway that is mounded on the sides, with a slight grade into the yard. Suddenly, it sounded like a speeding car on a gravel road breaking for a deer. Michael catches his toe on the side of the driveway and gravity did the rest. He spiraled onto the gravel and looked like the ball he was trying to catch.
I could not help myself! The speeds, the dust, the flailing body, were all playing in slow motion in my mind, and I could not stop the internal welling of laughter. The dust finally settled, and Michael was on his side, back to the crowd, just lying lifeless. I know he was hurt, and I knew that was rough fall, but I still could not stop my laughter.
Maybe it is the fact that I have seen more stupid people on the Internet post their “Look at me, I am an idiot” videos. Videos where someone always gets hurt because of sheer stupidity. One video I recently viewed showed two guys on a roof. One guys jumps off the roof and onto a table, with the other guy in a pile driver wresting position. That outcome is predicable without watching the video. Broken neck, and broken back. I figure I have watched legs, arms, wrists, jaws, and egos get hurt so many times, I don’t know how to react when I actually see a live person get hurt. I was acting just as stupid as the guy, who films his buddy getting hit by a car, but would rather keep the camera rolling for after-math footage, than put my finger in his torn artery and stop the bleeding.
When he finally did get up, Michael mentioned the only thing he could hear was me, laughing uncontrollably. The gravel had taken off large chunks of skin from his hands and wrist, with smaller scrapes all the way down to his shins. But I could not see the pain he was in, or the amount of flesh that was removed. That little piece of tape of him taking a header into a pile of loose gravel kept playing over and over, and I kept laughing harder and harder.
The family was trying to clean out the dirt that was in the wounds, and a little peroxide was enough for Michael to simply say, “I feel a little light headed.” And just as the last letter left his mouth, his head slumped, knees buckled, and everyone raced to grab him and slowly lower him to the floor. He passed out! “Can this day get any better?” I said to myself. Suddenly, the laughter started again, and I was hoping since he was passed out, he could not hear me. It looked like he could see me, because as Michael was headed to the floor, his eyes were wide open. I was certain he could actually see me laughing at him.
My mind wrestled with the idea that I was a terrible person for behaving like that, but I found myself laughing to sleep because of it. Thank you Michael! My insomnia is gone.
