Stabbed at School

“William just called to say he got six stitches in his abdomen today at school,” said my husband, having searched me out in the Cyber Café of the cruise ship.
I was attempting to download my first video blog in international waters via satellite. Cool stuff. But apparently not as interesting as my son’s life back home.
Naturally, we were a gazillion miles away in the middle of the Pacific Ocean having a romantic holiday at sea when the crisis hit.
How long will it take them to get a helicopter out here, I thought.
“What happened? Did some kid stab him?” I asked. Not that I’m hyper-paranoid or anything.
It turns out that a hostile door with a broken handle and a bad attitude jumped out and bit him in the abs, “right where I’m getting a six pack” according to our son.
There are rules about running down school hallways and past doors with resentments at being over fifty years old and subject to the whims of tax-payers who hate to vote in favor of bond elections. Who could blame a door with that kind of baggage?
My dad, the retired gynecologist who happens to have innumerable surgeries in his experience, and my mom who is much more stable and practical than me, took him to the doctor in our absence. This is probably a good thing.
The last time one of our kids had to be taken to the emergency room, I made a scene. Okay, I’m sorry, but those doctors in the emergency room did not carry that kid around in their wombs for nine months. That’s all I have to say on the subject.
That night, after the decision was made that we could forego the helicopter, I dreamed that my son showed me the wound and, even though there was no sign of redness around it and no fever to indicate infection, I still had a terrible foreboding that all was not right.
The wound looked like a pirate had stabbed him.
Not that I’ve ever seen a pirate stab wound, you understand. Somehow moms just know these things. Especially when sleeping in a bed that is rocking to the gentle rhythm of the Pacific Ocean a gazillion miles away from her stabbed son.
When he showed me the wound upon our return, it wasn’t anything at all like my dream.
“Mom, you could see the fat hanging out where the gash was,” he told me. He assured me that it didn’t hurt a bit and he didn’t shed one tear. Apparently there are not that many nerve endings in your belly.
Which made me think of liposuction for myself.
Unfortunately, the guilty door with a penchant for stabbing people until their fat falls out is already repaired, so I’m out of luck.
Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives and writes with a Texas twang. Comments are invited at http:/checklistcharlie.blogspot.com or cathykrafve@gmail.com.