When Mudman Screws Up An Already Screwed-up Day...

It's hard to write an amusing post about the significance of today.

But I'll try.

First, to clear the decks, here are the pertinent UNAMUSING details in point form:

1) Today is the 9th anniversary of the worst day of my life, when my then-five-year-old son fell out of one of our second storey windows.

2) My wife was on bedrest at the time, thirty-seven weeks pregnant with twins. (Interesting note - during the entire several hours of frantic activity and stress, she didn't even have a *twinge* -- adrenaline is an amazing thing)

3) My son must have been born under a lucky star. He never even lost consciousness, nor did he have any major injuries at the time (except for the fractured skull that we didn't find out about for a couple of weeks).

OK, here is the (sort of) funny part.

Now, bear in mind that we as parents had just been through a whirlwind of emotions, since one of our children had just been through a traumatic and potentially life-ending injury and came out the other side barely any worse for the wear.

We are back at home, and we snuggle him in our bed and let him watch a tv show. In fact, it was the animated Batman tv show, which he was quite fond of.

We watch the show, and it's a pretty typical Batman show. The bad guy was Clayface, who was a big mudheap shapeshifting kind of guy. In fact, in our house he was known as Mudman.



Yes, the episode was pretty typical, as I said... until the end.

Which is when Clayface PLUNGES OFF A CLIFF.

Let me describle the sound effects of that climactic scene:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!!!"

SPLAT.

And let me point out that while it didn't seem to faze my son at all, his mother and I were, I think it's safe to say, totally f***ed up. It was certainly an interesting end to an unusual day.

I also think it's fairly safe to say that this can be filed under the category of "worst possible combination of serious accident and post-accident television viewing".

So there you go. While it didn't seem funny at the time, we do have a kind of a morbid chuckle about it now.

Heh.

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Footnotes:
1) Clayface survived. (Duh, he was made of mud)
2) My wife delivered healthy twins three days later. It was quite a week.
3) We have had bars on all the second floor windows since then.
4) Fluid buildup from a fractured skull makes a kid's head feel like it has a big hairy water balloon on it. Touching it was a sensation unlike any other, which I've never forgotten.