Screwing up
by Doug Hawley
Inspired by the
inscrutable “F**cking Up” by Neil Young
My very first memory (possibly
implanted) is falling out of a boat which
contained my older sister and my parents. Someone
must have fished me out because I’m still
alive. Heads up sister made sure that the fishing
gear didn’t fall overboard.
Next up is being scared by
a toilet while in the first grade. While in grade
school, asphalt did a little dental work on me
asphalt and I sprained a thumb by hitting someone.
An altercation with a larger and older lad ended
up with my broken leg. While still incapacitated
by the aforementioned leg, I vomited in the
school cafeteria. Within the same time frame, I
had one of my falling on my head incidents. Same
sister decided we should be acrobats and
attempted to have me stand on her shoulders. Swan
dive headfirst ended up in hours of blurred
vision. One of the other memorable headfirst
dives was down a few stair steps onto a concrete
floor. Over all I’m fine, it hasn’t
mgsohs sdrts ophks at all.
I found out that the guy
that I fought with in a pool had not been
standing up when I first saw him. My bad estimate
of his size ended up in hearing loss in my left
ear.
Before marrying well, there
were a very few relationships all of which ended
badly. Two are immortalized in stories penned
under a pseudonym to protect the guilty – me.
When I was a bit older the
intake of questionable things ended up in a lot
of vomiting, staying awake for more than a day,
falling over tables and the like. Emptying into a
suitcase was the worst that I can remember. The
one that I can’t remember painted the
exterior of a car with what was formerly stomach
content, after a fight with a large fellow who
didn’t give me the dignity of acknowledging
that I was fighting with him. Or so I was told in
painful detail by a witness.
Of the many things that
went wrong while I was teaching I remember
passing wind and having a condom fall from my
billfold – not at the same time. I did have
the sense to become an actuary rather than
continue as a molder of minds.
My investment prowess got
us worthless penny stocks and an oil well that
wasn’t.
I have advanced degrees in
math, but can’t balance a checkbook. Once I
sent in my checking balance rather than a billed
amount, which caused many bounced checks and fees.
Mixing up state and federal tax returns led to
both massive under and over payments.
I’ve lost keys, a
shovel and a hat while working in our local park.
Finding the keys a week later after everything
had been replaced was bad enough, but I lost my
favorite hat while unsuccessfully looking for the
shovel.
Perhaps the most recent
major screw up was performing an exercise poorly
with too much weight. What the tearing sound that
I thought was my aorta ripping was more likely my
left shoulder being incapacitated and the
formation of a hernia. My knees had previously
been ruined by carrying twenty pounds more than
their capacity and my habit of jumping off things.
A recent exam found an old knee cap fracture that
was news to me.
It could be worse. I could
be robbing Kwick-E-Mart (Simpsons reference) to
feed a meth habit. When I’m asked if I’m
staying out of trouble, my go to now is “I’m
too old for trouble.”
Short
bio – this is from a mostly reliable
narrator.
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