Broken Legs and Thumbtacks | Teen Ink

Broken Legs and Thumbtacks

January 20, 2011
By Adrian BRONZE, Evanston, Illinois
Adrian BRONZE, Evanston, Illinois
3 articles 0 photos 0 comments

A trip to Madrid may seem like a very exciting idea for people, but this trip would definitely not be a very appealing vacation. It all started out in the year of 2000, my first trip to Europe that I can remember. It left a bad impression of travelling on my two-year-old mind.

The plane landed. After eight hours of crying, three more awaited me after the flight. After all the crying and airport-in we finally arrived at our apartment. This is where the trip started going a little wrong. Our suitcase fell down the stairs. This could’ve been an omen or something, but my two year old mind had no clue what that meant… or how bread turned to toast, so basically I didn’t know much at all.

The first couple of days flew by and it was perfectly fine, nothing bad really happened, but on the third day was a tipping point, the trip started getting really bad.

At age two, I was a bad swimmer and I never put my head underwater because when I did the monsters came up and killed me. Also at age two I loved candy, so I decided my cousin’s rich creamy chocolate candy had to be mine, before we went to the pool. That was a big mistake, because my three-year-old cousin had his eyes on me. FOR REVENGE. So when we went out to the pool in the backyard, my cousin pushed me in as hard as he could, and I was such a good swimmer. I swam just as good as a rock.

When I was down at the bottom of the pool, I could feel the monsters ripping me apart. More specifically, I was running out of oxygen, but I had no clue what to do, so I just waited. Finally just as I thought the “monster” was taking his final lunge at me, I felt something pulling me up and away from the monster. When I reached the surface I gasped and panted and thought “WOAH.” Luckily for my cousin, I had forgotten why I was even fighting the monsters anyway, or else I would’ve gotten some revenge of my own, but my aunt did that for me and sent him to his room.
The next day was supposed to be a fun day. We were all going to a large shopping center and my parents promised me I was allowed to ride on the carousel! The only thing separating me from that carousel ride was: the shopping part. So my dad said, “Lets go buy my shirts first!!”
My mom got angry as usual and yelled “NO! We’re buying my dresses first. I don’t care what you think!”
“Let go buy candy!” I gurgled while drinking my milk.
“LET GO CAROUSEL RIDE!!!!” my brother enthusiastically exclaimed, to which I agreed, but of course my parents didn’t agree, so in the end we went to buy my moms’ dresses, on the fourth floor. Getting up there wasn’t an easy task though, because my brother and I were both in a large twin baby carriage, in a mall that had no elevators.
After finally pushing and pulling the carriage up the escalator using teamwork, we reached the fourth floor. I watched sleepily as my mom tried on what seemed to my two-year-old mind, like 800 dresses, more than I could count to by a lot! In the end, my mom only bought four dresses and hurried to pay, so we could also have a little bit of time for a snack. So we rushed towards the escalator, my mom hurried down and my dad slowly brought us on the first step. Just as the carriage started going down, my father tripped and the carriage I was in, was sent tumbling down the escalator.
This isn’t supposed to happen… I thought to myself, just as the carriage collided with my mom, knocking her down, sending her tumbling down with us. Luckily for my brother and I she had stopped our fall and we were fine, but my mom’s legs were trapped and the escalator kept going, pressing on my mom’s legs until finally someone hit the emergency stop button. Of course my mom was already severely hurt. No one could have thought that the trip would get any worse, but little did we know that there was still another bad event awaiting us.
When the ambulance came to take my mom and dad, my uncle took my brother and I back to the house. We were sound asleep. When I finally woke up, I was in my crib lying against a wall. As my eyes woke up and I looked at the wall, there were shiny things sticking out of it.
How interesting I thought to myself, sticking my fingers through the crib trying to grab one of these shiny things, when I finally pulled one out of the wall, I found out it was pointy too! I was really excited, so I decided to wake up my brother by punching him of course. He awoke crying, so I showed him the new item I had discovered. He was about to steal it from me, so I decided I needed to keep it. The first thing I thought was I need to eat it! So I stuck it in between my teeth and swallowed. I felt the sharp edges slightly tickling the sides of my throat as it went down, but it didn’t hurt at all.
When my dad came home, the first thing my brother said was
“ADRIAN ATE IT!!”
“What?” my dad answered confused after the trauma of his visit to the hospital.
“I eated the shiny!” I exclaimed.
“WHAT?” my dad asked still confused.
“I eated the shiny from the wall” I said.
“I show you?” I asked him, pointing from my mouth to the wall.
“Yes, please show me!” my dad yelled.
So, my brother and I wobbled over to the wall, and showed him the other “shiny’s,” when my dad finally understood what happened his face turned white and he grabbed me, and pulled me as fast as he could to the car
“Ugh, it’s the second time today!” he muttered.
When I finally got to the hospital, I was first priority once the doctors heard what had happened. The whole time I was really confused about why I was even in the hospital. But before I could think about it, the doctor put me under anesthetics. I quickly fell “asleep” and I couldn’t feel, hear, smell, or anything whatsoever for about an hour, while the doctor put a tube down my throat searching for the thumbtack. The anesthesia started wearing off, but once my parents told me that I had had a tube in me, I felt loopy again.
When the doctor came in to tell my mom about the operation, she yelled: “WHAT!? How is that possible!”
The doctor then mumbled something, but my two-year-old mind couldn’t process what he said, or why my mom was freaking out so much. Soon, I would find out that they hadn’t been able to find the thumbtack, and it was still in my stomach. When I learned this, my first reaction was to look down at my stomach and see if I could find it.
As people say, there’s always light in the end of the tunnel. After all of the bad events that happened during the trip, our return was booked in first class because of my moms injury.


The author's comments:
I was visiting my family in Spain for the first time, at age 2. This trip wasn't exactly perfect but it left some memories.

Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 2 comments.


Ms. J. said...
on Jan. 31 2011 at 12:54 pm

Great voice. Funny story!

7/8 period


on Jan. 28 2011 at 9:56 am
Chuckney BRONZE, London, Other
2 articles 3 photos 16 comments

Favorite Quote:
"You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with. " Wayne Dyer.

I really like this. The way you foreshadow and conceal information is really excellent, it makes this very engaging and your perspective as a child is great.