Return of Memoryfest - Day 9/31

[bironic]

9. Elementary School

I must have been about seven or eight years old. My sister and I were playing with my mother's friend's two kids in the front yard of their house. While we were out there, two cars got in an accident on the street. Only a fender-bender, but someone shrieked. My mother and her friend came running outside; they thought one of us had been hurt. The woman's daughter explained that we were fine and that I had just screamed. I said I hadn't, but the other kids insisted. I still don't remember doing it, only hearing it.

WTF

Comments

[mer-duff.livejournal.com]

A few years back, I was playing goal in a drop-in (field) hockey game - aka an excuse to spend four hours in the bar after exercising for 90 minutes - when one of the guys rocketed a shot directly off my helmet, hard enough to bend the metal facemask. I think the force of it actually knocked me to my knees - it certainly stunned me for a minute.

Not long afterwards, my friend K said that I shouldn't be allowed to play in the men's first division, because if I got hurt I'd make a scene. I objected and he reminded me that I'd shrieked like a girl when I'd been hit that time at drop-in. As I didn't remember making a sound at all, it became a matter of some debate as to whether I did indeed shriek like a girl, or simply made a reasonable exclamation of surprise.

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

Huh. I've been trying to post memories triggered by yours each day, but I can't think of anything that has anything to do with fender-benders, being told I did something that I can't remember, or screaming. That's right; (at the moment, at least,) I can't recall ever screaming involuntarily. Weird...

So, anyway, this one doesn't have to do with anything else mentioned so far:

Between the ages of four and fifteen, I went to Florida on vacation with my parents and various other family members seven times. Even if the other people going used a different mode of transportation (my aunt, her boyfriend and my cousins took the train once) my parents and I always drove and we always did it without stopping. As we entered each state, Daddy would make me look at a map and guess what time we would be through that state. After I guessed, he would make his estimate. When I was very little, I thought it was absolute magic that he always got it exactly right. To the minute. I was nine when I figured out he used highway signs to know about how far it was until the next state, could use math to figure out how long it would take to get there based on the speed limit and could adjust his speed slightly to force his estimate to be perfectly exact. Of course, I'm so crap at math that I still think it's kind of magic. :D

[crazypalefreak.livejournal.com]

When my parents and I were on a fly-drive tour of California, Nevada and Arizona, at one point we were in a random town (I think it had a Hersey's factory or museum or something) and as we got out of the car in a car park, on the street next to us there was an accident. I heard the screech of breaks and turned and I actually saw the car flip in the air. It's the only time I've ever seen anything like that in real life. The emergency services turned up about 2 minutes later, which was quite impressive.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

My memory for the day is here: Night show (http://elynittria.livejournal.com/19803.html#cutid1). I'm afraid it has nothing to do with shrieks or accidents, but at least it's a memory!

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

I've only really screamed a few times in my life and it has been in pain. The first time was when my knee first gave. I'm hypermobile and I've always known that, but before this happened, no-one ever told me that people like me easily dislocate stuff.
I stood in my room, looking through my wardrobe for an outfit to a concert I was playing later and sat down to get something at the bottom of it. Only, I didn't sit. Somewhere along the way there was a horrible, sickening crunch and my leg seemed to give under me. That was a dislocated knee-cap. I knew after that I'd screamed, but I wasn't aware of doing it. I was 16.

(The knee has done the same thing countless of times since, but it hasn't hurt as much - the tissue was already torn and thus couldn't tear again. Finally, three years ago, I had surgery on it, reconstructing that tissue. By then, the kneecap was sitting slightly off-centre and now it's back in place. Still hurts a bit to walk stairs, but it's much better.)

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

When I was in 10th grade, I Threw discus for track and feild. One afternoon, I was a little behind the line, but out of normal throwing range, when one of our better throwers misthrew sideways- right into my head. I got some ice on it, in the process getting into the boys locker room (that's where they kept the ice). I Sat out for the rest of the practice, and waited for my mother to come get me.

Instead my grandmother showed up in a brown sweater in her old cheap car. My mother had taken my little sister down to pittsburgh children's hospital for some tests on a previous head injury. The tests hailed one of the biggest turning poitns in my little sister's adolecnce- She had two large clots on her brain requireing surgery. THe metal plates resulting from the surgery disqualify her from her dream of military service.

Thankfully, the local hospital that missed it has been closed in exchange for a bigger hospital on the other side of town.

As for me, I visited my little sister after the surgery, and didn't tell any one I had been hit in the head until after we got Christy home.

~N~