RemembeRED: Crash

Write on Edge Prompt: Your word is below. Take the next ten minutes to write about the first single memory that word calls up. Focus on the emotions and the experience, spend ten minutes really exploring that memory. Then wrap it up, publish, and come back to link up. I had difficulty with this prompt, mostly because as soon as I read it I had to go to work, where I had exactly 7.3 seconds to myself between interruptions, phone calls, and conferences. I didn't even get to eat lunch, which I feel is a crime against humanity. Anyway, this is all that came to mind, which is weird.

Crash

My mom walked into the ER room where I sat in a drafty hospital gown, thankful that they let me keep my socks on. She looked exactly like she had been pulled out of bed and dressed in a hurry. My mother prided herself on dressing appropriately for any occasion.

"I got halfway here and couldn't remember if you really called or if I was just dreaming," she said after visually verifying that I was indeed still in one piece.

"How often do people call you in the middle of the night to ask for a ride home from the hospital, Mom?" I felt that a bit of sarcasm was justified under the circumstances, even if it did go right over my mom's head.

I was extremely tired, stiff, and in a bit of pain. Earlier in the evening the car I was riding in was hit, and I ended up not only getting my first involuntary ride in an ambulance, but having the bejeesus scared out of me by the ER doctor, who swore that he saw a fracture in some part of my vertebrae mysteriously named "C7" and put me through the torture of a CT-Scan for nothing. After that roller coaster ride, I just wanted to go home. I climbed off the bed, gathered up the discharge papers and handed them to my mother.

"Can you hand me my clothes?" I held out my hand. My mom turned picked up my jeans and my bodysuit and handed them to me.

"You didn't have any underwear?" She was confused.

"No Mom," I replied, pulling the bodysuit on. "I did not have any underwear." You can't wear underwear with a body suit; it looks like you have a diaper on. I pulled up my jeans and found my boots.

"Why weren't you wearing underwear?" My mom had not moved on. She was part of the generation raised on the idea that clean underwear must be worn in case one had to go to the hospital. I wanted to laugh, which was probably a bit of hysteria, but I knew that her feelings would be hurt.

"Let it go, Mom." I headed for the door. "Nobody ever said anything about not wearing underwear to the emergency room."