Distractions Might Cause Accidents

W. C. Clinton

Autumn, 2018

Hello, Forrest, I know you don’t like me to call you on your work phone, but you left your cell phone in my car, and I wish you’d answer instead of letting it go to voicemail, I mean, sometimes it is an emergency. I guess the first thing I should tell you is that the kids are okay, just some minor bruising, that’s all, and Jeremy got a bloody nose, but other than that, they’re fine. The EMT’s and the doctors and the police and the firemen were all very nice to them.

I’m fine, too, I mean, I have a lot more bruises and maybe a concussion, but that’s because I was in the front seat and the kids were in the back, fighting as usual - thank goodness they kept their seatbelts buckled this time instead of seeing how many times they can make Mommy stop the car and make them buckle up again like they usually do. The Volvo took most of the impact, I guess, and the police say it’s probably totaled, and boy is my face red.

Oh, I bet that sounds like I mean I’m embarrassed, and of course, I am, you know, but it’s really red because the coffee was still pretty hot when the airbag deployed, but the doctor says that will fade over time, so it looks bad now, especially with the blistering, but it should be gone well before the black and blue around my eyes is. I look like a red panda, sort of, ha-ha.

I feel like I’m babbling, and I guess I am because I’m still a little disoriented waking up in the emergency room like that. I mean, one minute Jenny was saying, “Moooom, he’s looking at me!” and the next minute I’m staring at a white tile ceiling, surrounded by a white curtain, hearing people walking around and talking, but unable to make outwhat they’re saying. Then I see that I’m in a chrome-railed bed with wires on me. A woman in green scrubs pulls a curtain aside and says, “You’re awake! Do you know where you are?”

Of course I didn't know where I was, but it was pretty clear that it was a hospital. Then, as I became aware of the stiffness from the burns and bruises on my face, I askedabout the children.

She said they were fine and that they tried to call you, but you didn’t answer, so they called Mother and she was on her way. I’m sure I looked puzzled because she added, “Jeremy knows how to unlock your phone.” Of course he does. He managed to unlock the parental controls on our TV; the phone was probably just a warm-up for whatever he’s unlocking in the hospital now.

I can’t think of anyone I’d like to see less than Mom. I know she’ll swoop in with her “I told you so’s” scowling over her pink progressive trifocals as soon as she finds out we’re all relatively safe. It seems like everything I do comes with a warning from her – like when I broke my leg playing soccer, or didn’t get the part in the school musical, or made friends with Helen in 9^th grade, or dated a yuppie. While I was trying to think of just what I was going to say to her, the scrubby woman told me I was in the emergency room at St. Luke’s Hospital and asked if I remembered what happened.

“Not all of it,” I say. She asks me how much I do remember, and I tell her. I was driving the kids to school and had just told Jeremy to stop touching his sister and find something else to do when for the first time I noticed that the display on the car has a warning about distractions. Isn’t that funny? Reading the warning is a distraction, and that might be why I didn’t see what Jeremy was up to. The last thing I remembered was Jeremy saying, "I’m not looking at you, I’m looking at Mommy’s friend Helen on Daddy’s phone. She’s naked!’”