Monday, February 23, 2009

His psyche is still slightly bruised

Actual Photo of the Skatepark




When my son was 6, he was into skateboarding--much like he is now. He was pretty good, too; he's always been athletically inclined. He could even go to the local skate park at that age and hold his own quite well.

However, my ex-husband and his (extremely pathetic, stupid) girlfriend at the time decided to take him out of town to a mall one weekend where there was a Vans skate park. Have you ever seen a Vans skate park? We're talking HUGE, empty swimming pools, concrete everywhere, and lots of teenagers doing crazy ass stunts and maneuvers. A place where broken bones, knocked out teeth, and traumatic brain injuries could happen quite easily at any given moment.

Not only did they take my first grader to skate there, but they LEFT HIM ALONE WHILE THEY SHOPPED IN THE MALL. For, like, 2 hours. Yes, you read that correctly.


So, the next time I heard they were going there again, I did what any neurotic and over-protective mother would do: I took a Sharpie to my son's bare chest, and wrote these words on it:


IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, PLEASE CALL


SUSAN AT XXX-XXX-XXXX




Oh, yes, I did. I'm not even kidding.


I figured, that way, when he got hurt -- and his father and his stupid girlfriend were nowhere in sight -- the paramedics could rip off his shirt to administer some kind of CPR or put him on life support, and they would see the writing on his chest and be able to call me immediately.


What??? I hate it when you look at me that way. Stop it.






7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would have TOTALLY done the SAME thing!!!!! Poor kid...

Unknown said...

I think you are BRILLIANT! So did he like going to the Vans skate park? I was hypervenilating and I don't even know anything about skating. You had me at EMPTY SWIMMING POOLS...creepy!

Unknown said...

Came over to see if there were any new skating park stories today : ).

Suz Broughton said...

Did I bring this awful memory back with my Van's Skatepark post? Sorry.
I can't BELIEVE they did that--at 6! Arrrr!
I wasn't looking at you any way. I promise!

Jason, as himself said...

I'd say that was a pretty darn good idea. Except, maybe you should have tattoed it on. Maybe we should all have our kids tatooed with our contact information.

I think you're on to something...

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

I would totally do that! Whenever we went anywhere as a family I had emergency info tucked into everyone's pockets.

Live.Love.Eat said...

That's just something I can't understand. No, not you writing the number on his chest, but them leaving him alone for 2 hours. YOU totally did the right thing.

we have a Vans Skate Park here in Orlando. I am not rushing my son into being interested in that :)