Playing Games

Scene: My living room. It is just before 8am. My 10 is trying to get the Wii remote to sync with the console. Cords, remotes, batteries and game cases are spread everywhere. Having no luck, 10 has asked me to assist. 

Me: Buddy, did you check the connection?

10: Yeah. I checked everything. I pushed the sync buttons a couple times.

Me: [fiddling with buttons and cords] Um... [pushing everything all at once] Hm. Nothing is happening.

10: Can we call Dad?

Me: NO. Ahem. No. I can do it.

10: [eyeing me] How long before we can call Dad?

Me: I CAN DO IT.

Cut to ten minutes later. Laptop is open to three different sites detailing "Ways to sync your Wii console to your remote."

Me: So you push this.... and hold this... [concentrating] and then.... nothing. 

10: [blinks]

Me: UGH. [walks over to Wii console] Why does everything have to be so diffic-- AAAAAAAAAGH!!

This is where I will leave out the horrifying screams, the swearing (because there was a LOT of it) and the hopping around on one foot while blood sprayed everywhere.

For I had punctured my little toe with a broken Pick-Up Stick.

Apparently, some little jerk-face had broken one in half and thrown it to the ground where it became embedded in the living room rug. Who knows how long the Stick had lain there, just waiting for a sock-covered foot to come along where it could strike at the last moment and plunge itself into the tiny spot between my little toe and the pad of my foot.

And stay there.

Peeps, I had to pull it out. Like, 1/4 of an inch of it was in my toe. Which doesn't seem like a lot, you know? But it is. Trust me.

I gushed blood all over the hardwoods while my 10 brought me tiny pieces of tissue. I tried not to snap at him because, after all it wasn't his fault. Or was it.

Me: Honey, do you think you could just grab the whole box? I can't really walk without getting blood on the rug and floors.

10: [watching the blood pool on the floor with a sick look on his face] Uhhh...

Me: DO NOT FAINT. I need more tissues.

Just then, my 5 pipes up from the edge of the room where apparently she'd been watching this entire fiasco unfold.

5: MEDIC! [starts laughing]

I use that word when the little kids get boo-boos. I've always meant it as a joke and it seemed to calm the kids down when Elle and I would act out a Civil War Scene by calling for more bandages, pain killers and a hack saw. Maybe not that last part, but you get it, right?

It's not as humorous in the heat of the moment as I'd imagined.

I cleaned up my wound, mopped up the blood and got myself a band-aid (which was pretty reassuring because I could have sworn that I would need surgery based on the pain scale alone)

Me: [dumping all remotes on couch] Call your dad.