I frequently refer to myself as the Queen of the Worst-Case Scenario. This is thanks to my dad. My parents are both nurses, but my father specialized in Emergency medicine. Our house had lots of black, gallows humor. For much of my life I blithely told people that my father scraped people off of the street for a living, and only as I entered adulthood did I realize how disturbing this could be to hear. My wanna-be english major father, who got into nursing to support his family and found a vocation, would bring home these stories of epic stupidity. He would turn it into a game of "where did they make the wrong decision" and illlustrated very clearly how a seemingly harmless prank could (sometimes literally) blow up in your face. I probably missed out on some great mindless fun as a kid. But here are the two stories that stick out in my mind even now, brought to me by my father:
1: The kids in the midwest who found (or tipped over themselves?) a railroad taker with chlorine. They saw the cloud of chlorine gas and thought it would be a hoot to drive through this cloud. They thought ahead and rolled up all of their windows, and were going to drive through as fast as they could. Why did they all die?
2: One of my father's close friends was working as an ER doc the night of a horrific car accident in which the driver was essentially decapitated. He recognized a birthmark on the thigh, it was his youngest son. I used to drink with this guy. But he was cRaZy, and I was a little too sane. He was apparently drunk as f* that night and just drove off the road. His father was unable to work in the ER after that night and sort of became an empty husk for then next decade. I will never willingly put my dad in a position like that.
1 comment:
omg jen ...thats disturbing and funny?
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