TALL Tales from West Texas

OR

Rural Emergency 911

One hot morning while camping at Lake McKenzie, I decided to walk the kids up to the playground area. So we headed up the dusty dirt road in search of swings and merry-go-rounds. It didn't take long for the kids to start whining and complaining about how far it was. John decided that we should definitely take a shortcut down one of the ATV trails, but I didn't want to start down a trail and have it wind off in the wrong direction so I said "No." we would stay on the road, it was only a little further. John said "Well, I'm taking the shortcut." and off he went. I thought 'Whatever. He'll be sorry when we get there and he's still trying to figure out which hill he's supposed to go over.' But as we topped the long steep incline there he was, sitting on a picnic table saying "What took you guys so long."

(Internal eye roll and Doh!)

The playground turned out to be two swings, a rusty merry-go-round and a plastic slide with a hole in the top that looked like a booby-trap. I kept yelling, "Ya'll don't go too far! You're gonna get stickers!" to which Ace would reply "Stickers! I WANT STICKERS! I WANT STICKERS!" Which begs the question, 'How did I raise kids that don't know what it's like to never have your shoes off outside for fear of goatheads?' So the minutes wore on in the hot sun until finally my plan of catching a ride back to camp with Charlie as he came back from town, turned into trekking down the shortcut and letting the kids pick up a few rock treasures on the way. We got to the edge of the playground when John started complaining of something really sharp in his shoe, but after investigating twice, couldn't find what it was. Turns out he stepped on a mesquite bush thorn that went all the way through his hiking shoe. When neither of us could get it out with our fingers, I had to put the bottom of the shoe up to my mouth and bite down on the thorn in order to pull it out. We regathered ourselves and headed down the trail. At the bottom of the first hill it opened up to a big riding area with hills and trails and the kids went in search for rocks to bring home. After another ten minutes in the sweltering heat I said "Times up!" and we found the trail that would take us out to the main road. Up the trail we went, around a corner and on the way down, when Peach lost her footing and fell hands first into a cactus.

I scooped her back up onto her feet to find that her left hand was covered in small thorns with four or five large thorns mixed in. Every time I touched her I came away with a few thorns in my own hands. I pulled out the large ones and when I did, her hand spurted blood that drizzled down her arm. She was wailing like a siren as I tried to calm her down and I soon realized we would have to get back to camp and find my tweezers to pull out the hundreds of tiny stickers. I told her we'd have to keep walking and I turned to find Melee' behind us watching and bawling and behind him, Ace was looking up at Melee' and crying. I was already chanting the mantra "It's okay, it's gonna be okay, it's alright, it's not that bad....." I said "Okay everybody, take a deep breath, we've got to get back to camp." We walked down the path, I was trying to hold her hand but we could only hook pinkies while she held the other hand in the air and the blood flowed down and dripped off her elbow. Melee' was making hitching sob sounds while cursing all cactus on the face of the earth, and Ace just trailed behind crying quietly. I asked John if he would go back to the cactus and see if he could find her two special rocks. The rest of us plodded along and I rallied the troops by singing a rousing course of

'F is for friends who do stuff together, U is for you and me, TRY IT, N is for anywhere and anytime at all! Down here in the deep blue sea!"

We had gotten 15 yards farther down the road, when all of a sudden, John comes shrieking around the corner towards us in absolute abject terror. He was screaming and running faster than I knew he could run. I thought 'OH MY GOD, HE'S BEEN BITTEN BY A SNAKE!' No. Not exactly. He was, however, being chased by what was evidently a killer hornet, which chased him mercilessly causing him to fall down tearing a hole in his jeans, his knee and the palm of his hand. Now it's as if we're in a Friday the Thirteenth sequel and I'm leading all the unlucky souls on a death march to what will no doubt be our ultimate fate when we get back to camp. Of course Charlie pulls up in the truck right as we get to the camp turn in, and finds us dusty, sweaty, bloody and crying. It took the two of us working two pairs of tweezers at least 15 minutes to pull all the needles out of her hands and arms, after which she said she needed to lay down because her stomach hurt. After a short nap we were checking her hand when Charlie found that the knuckle on her fourth finger did not seem to be there anymore which caused us to drive into Silverton to find an Urgent Care center. At the end of the day she had four ex-rays that showed she probably hyper-extended her fingers and had a small sprain but all was well and the Dr. sent us off with instructions on icing her hand and a warning about the rattlesnakes which are having a banner year.

And I never slept for the rest of the trip and we all lived happily ever after.