Make A Wisk

They had to saw off my kids leg because maybe she sucks at skiing, we didn’t find her for two days and I shouldn’t have bought that snow suit from Temu. 

“Hey sweetie, How you do’n?”

It’s normal to bring flowers to people with one legs in hospitals but I brought a souped up wheelchair, and exto-skeleton from Amazon (not Temu) and a peg leg that already had 100 yellow well-wisher notes attached. 

Sydney would not stir even when i said that when she was ready to unplug the IV bag we could go to Disney Land and get up to the front of the line. Sydney scowled, “They only take kids with autism to the front of the line now.” 

That’s right. I forgot. So I gave her my best impression of Elon Musk falling down the stairs mixed with Dennis Hoppers verserion from Rain Man and I couldn’t decide what part of the spectrum I stood on because diseases with a spectrum mean they aren’t understood. “Hey look, I’ll just twitch and freak out and say dirty things and bring a dog and then we can go to the front of the line.” 

Sydney was not impressed. We could actually bring her cousin , who had level 3 autism, but the kid doesn’t like to hang out much. He rather put on his head phones and play video games. So I had to keep my girl’s spirits bright and asked her what was the first thing she wanted to do with the extoskeleton?

The thing cost me my entire 401k savings and I was going to pay a methamphetamine amount of early withdrawal tax. “Come on, Sweetie. You want to see the Grand Coulee Damn? Maybe we could drive to Nebraska, you put on the extoskeleton and pick up the world’s largest body of yarn?” 

Sydney was at that age where young ladies like having two legs to wear nylons and tights and make boys think of Japanese supermodels. She reminded me she was 15 and didn’t want to drive to Nebraska to play with yard. She didn’t want to see if we could be the first people to jump the Grand Canyon with the rockets I put on her fancy wheel chair. I had to get my cousin to fabricate some wings and we were still swapping out helicopter drone bits with rocket stabelizers. The answer relies on how much winded is across the Grand Canyon to select the correct modifiers but since Sydney wouldn’t even sit in the chair and let us get a weight measurement with one missing leg it was all for nought. 

Her mother came in with boiling War Soup from the Woo Han Chinese Deli. This had always fixed our ailments before but we didn’t believe that it would quickly grow a new leg. That’s what she really wanted, new legs to look good in tights and go up the escalator knowing that a hundred eyes were advertinfg their gaze because we only shop with Christians. 

Unfortunately, we have never hear of spontaneous leg growth in all our scriptures about miracles and controversial stem cell research. We were at a loss if we could even cut off our own legs and give her a shot. I looked at Michelle because she was the shorter and Sydney would look funny if she had to wear one clog all her life. 

Michelle’s attitude was all wrong and she put the soup in the corner and promised Sydney that “Mommy and Daddy are getting back together” and that she could have her sister’s garage because we already took her stuff to the dump. The entire family was ready to help you in this new walk. 

Ouch. She shouldn’t have said “walk.” 

Sydney began to break down with all the hopes and fears of an Army Vet who wants to dance. I mean there are buckles made out of titanium now that look like long bows with feet. The TED talk shows how a person with a bow leg can even perform ball room dancing. Sure, they look silly in pantyhose but they can hop over ten feet high and slam a basket. I told our daughter that the entire family would give up their weekends if she wanted to join the WNBA. I mean we could probably keep that promise for a season or two… it’s only three months of heartache, right? 

My kid was growing cold as her face showed she really didn’t have anything groovy to live for anymore. That’s when I made an emergency phone call to the Make a Wisk foundation, which is the poor man’s version of the Make a Wish. They don’t exactly have celebrity endorsements or the budget to let little kids go out and shoot endangered animals. Make a Wisk is all about self reliance. They come in and throw away all the hospital food, they give the kids these bamboo like straws and a razor and then the kids have to learn to make a wisk or the egg wont’ fit down the cylinder of stove. 

Now some kids refuse to eat for three or five days and the Foundation has several professional level hecklers who eat great globs of souffle, and quiche, sometimes they may drink eggnog out of season and tell the kid how delicious it is to eat. Until the kid makes a wisk they get nothing. No thing. 

Michelle starting flapping her arms when the Make a Wisk crew came into the room and told all the parents and grandparents, the preacher, the cousins, their wives and their dogs to all get out. I tackled her right out to the lobby where she was still beating the back of my sweater adn saying “We should have never went up to the snow.” I cannot tell you how much guilt she had because the Temu snow pants didn’t insulate our kids leg from the whorefrost and the snow. I mean i might have felt more guilty if it was my credit card and I called Citibank every day to ask them for my kid’s leg back. Instead I spent her time in recovery making new inventions so she might leave the hospital better than before. 

“How do I invent Tina Turner legs? “ I was about to cry myself. In the 1980’s Tina Turner got Lloyd’s of London to insure her dancing legs for over a million dollars. I think they had to pay because gorgeous legs are hard to replace. Apparently, Sydney took after my side and had legs that did not look like hockey player calves. I never looked but am told the feet were cute and perfectly proportional to the length and girth ad that they actuall matched. “Huh.” 

Michelle got loose and came back to pounded her fist on my chest. I was grateful, just then, for not being a foot taller. “I’m just so maaaaad.” 

Yep. 

Don’t ever tell a crazy person to let it out because they will. Instead, the human punching bag should probably gently take their angry spouse to the nearest eye washing station and perform a make-shift wake up shower. People are less irrational when they drip solvents or liquids from the brow. Can’t say why. It might be a human desperation patter like how you can blow on the face of a kid who refuses to breath. 

Try it. Find a kid who can’t breath and blow on their face. Voila!

In this case, the chemical eye washing stations were properly marked so I had to grab a bottled water from a guy who was using one as a form of ice for his head injury. We were fighting in the Emergency Room because it had the only opened exit and this guy had slushy water. I threw this all over Michelle’s head, paying attention to get some drippage on her red eye brows, maybe her eyes would be less dry and stepped back a foot and waited. 

I kid you not, she shook her head and body just like a wet dog. Wow. The guy bitching about his half ice bottle didn’t even say anything when we saw that. We both looked at eachother like it was scientifically impossible and yet we saw it. I could tell by his eyes that he was going to make a comment about me marrying someone with dog DNA so I gave him back his water bottle. “YOu can figure out how to recycle that. Good luck fella.” 

I had to walk Michelle briskly out of the hospital, sit her down in the waiting generation 1 Prius which was all I could afford after buying the rocket propulsion system and developing the exoskeleton electronics. I tried to make the robot legs sexy but no one beleived it was sexy. 

“Waht are we going to do?” 

Michelle wanted to cry but the water dripping from her head gave her core temperature the wrong signals and she could not cry all proper. She just sort of dry teared. It was weird.

Resilience is how you respond to a traumatic event. For example the man who invented a parachute had to often fall but he kept trying… ok. Bad example. 

For example, my Aunt Shirley once lost her marbles and we told her that her marbles were in her back pocket so she could keep them warm. So long as Aunt Shirley wasn’t worried about us kids playing with her marbles all the house was calm and quiet. But if just one kid brought out some jax or said he had a new Masher, watch out. 

“I think we should go right up there and pretend that it never happened.” 

Michelle twitched her eye like ther was a bug inside. I leaned forward to look. There was no bug. “You can’t be serious.”

Sure. When reality fails go get a new reality. 

“I say we march right up there and tell those Make A Wisk bozos that they failed. We will tell the nurses, administrators and orderlies that we no longer need their service and take our little girl skirt shopping just as soon as possible. 

Michelle didn’t get it. 

“Sure. It will be hard on first and she can lean on your , on me, whoever she wants. You’re gonna have to walk her right into the clothes fitting lockers and pretend that she has two legs to step into that skirt. You’re gonna have to project to the universe the way you want things to be instead of just giving into this pitty and grief.” 

We didn’t really shake on it or kiss anymore so we just bumped fist and clapped our hands as a “break” which means go time. “One mississippi. Two mississippi… fake the landing…fake it till you make ; hut one , hut two.. Go Go Gooooo….” 

We spirnted up the staircase of the hospital which was much taller from the isnide than the outside. We past buy orderlies smoking their canibus and children playing with rubber balls. We laughed as we made it to the door with Michelele somehow a few paces before me. 

She tried to sprint to the end of the hallway and I found a gurney and pushed it so hard that the impact nearly had Michelle somersault onto the rolling bed. I passed her at the corner as she was struggling not to break the window and try sky diving. I saw a plump nurse leaving my daughter’s room with a tray full of pudding and beef wellington and I was all smiles as I popped open the door. 

I cokced my head in wonder as a gorgeous boy was teaching my kid how to make a wisk out of baby bamboo. 

Michelle slid into me just then so loud that I had to pretend that I wasn’t watching. The Make a Wisk foundation might be poor of pocket but it doesn’t scrimp on the heart.