Friday, February 4, 2011

Red Dress Club Prompt - Somebody Tells a Joke; Somebody Cries

Every summer the Little League teams in the Chicago suburbs were invited to Comiskey Park for “Little League Night” (at least, that’s what I’m calling it now). We got to wear our baseball uniforms, eat hotdogs, watch the Sox play, and the highlight was being able to walk around the baseball diamond while the crowd cheered and the organ played, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (or maybe it was “Pump Up the Jam”).


The night I went I had previously spent several hours at the dentist’s office getting a root canal. I needed a root canal because I’d gotten half my front tooth knocked out during one of my baseball games.

I love the reactions I get when people find out my tooth was knocked out during a baseball game. They look at me like I might be an athlete, and if I knew enough about baseball, I’d make the next part up and create a character who won the game while sacrificing her front tooth.

What happened was this: I was sitting on the bench in the dugout, trying to draw a butterfly in the dirt with my shoe. I heard cheers and screams, and looked up to see my teammate running the bases. She got to home plate before the other team could get the ball, resulting in a homerun. We jumped and “hoorayed” as she ran into the dugout slapping her “five” and hitting her helmet.

Now that I think about it, I don’t know how her helmet came into contact with my tooth. I was one of the last people to congratulate her, so maybe she wasn’t paying attention. Or, more likely, I lost interest in congratulating her and turned my attention to my butterfly dirt sketch.

What I do remember was the crack I heard when her head hit my tooth. And then the sand-papery feel of what was left of my tooth. Suddenly that warm summer breeze was frigid when I breathed in, and I put my hand over my mouth quickly to protect it while tears streamed down my cheeks.

So after the root canal, I’m walking around the baseball diamond at Comiskey, and all I can think about is the root my dentist showed me when he took it out of my mouth.

“Do you want to keep it?” he asked my mom.

“NO!” With that one word my mom was able to express disgust as well as her suspicion that the dentist might be nuts.

 As we drove home on the Eisenhower, we were behind a school bus filled with adults, that to my 4th grade mind, were not following the rules of good riding-the-school-bus-behavior. You NEVER stick your head out of the window, or stand up while the bus is moving. And you certainly don’t pull your pants down and press your butt up against the back window so the family in the brown caravan with the 9 and 11 year old kids can see it.

“What is he doing?” my brother said, a mixture of awe and fear in his voice.

My mom, never to miss an educational moment, said,

“Kids? That’s what you call a pressed ham.”

11 comments:

mE aNd mY tℎrIfTy IdEas said...

LOL...I am loving your blog. Keeping me very entertained. New follower from MBC

Tina L. Hook said...

Ouch! That sounds painful.

Rachel said...

HAHAHAHA!!! Love it.
And love the White Sox!!

Tracie Nall said...

hahaha that was great.

My tooth is hurting just a bit in empathy though. Ouch!

Jennifer said...

So many hilarious things, I love that the tooth got knocked out maybe because of boredom. I loved the dirty butterfly and the smartness of Mom to handle that answer in what I imagined to be an absolutely factual tone.

Jessica Anne said...

Funny! I love the butterfly too. And the tooth just hurt to read about.

Elizabeth Flora Ross said...

Ha! I could see my Mom trying to pull that one off, too. In fact, I can remember times very much like this where she had to. Very enjoyable story!

Anonymous said...

Loved it! I had to laugh at the dirt butterfly.

(Visiting from TRDC.)

Yuliya said...

Wait I must know more, so they do a root canal and then what? Do you get a fake tooth put in? Can you still eat hot dogs?

Ugh I hate going to the dentist, why did you have to take me there?

Jill said...

Ha Ha! I think that bus was my group on the way to a Buffett concert in Chicago. =)AND my son just lost 1/2 his tooth last month. Great job.

Ali said...

Callie! hysterical! i'm following you right back, girl!