It was a muggy day in late summer when the sweet lilacs were long dried-up and school was fast-approaching. My dirty bare feet were planted on the hot concrete driveway and my arms were crossed. Every cell of my being steamed with indignity as I glared at my mother's back.
What could cause so much anger from this young girl in a faded Disney t-shirt and butterfly clips in her long hair? As in most cases in battles between parent and child, it all started with the word "No."
"Can I use that?" I had asked minutes ago, as I saw my mom heading toward the lilac bushes, armed with hedge-clippers.
"No, it's too dangerous," she had replied.
Suddenly, any other activity that I had planned for that summer afternoon was pointless. The only thing of importance in the whole, entire world was cutting those branches with that crisp swish and crunch of those giant scissors. And my mom didn't trust me to do it. So, I would pout, and she would know it. Unfortunately, she seemed too worried about cutting branches away from the driveway to notice my superior scowl.
But then, I was sent a miracle. From the house next door, I heard the rattle of the metal front door. My granny calls out to my mother from her front stoop. My mom began to walk toward her, setting down the object of my obsession, those beautiful hedge trimmers with the rubber handles, right there beneath the bushes.
My eyes dashed back and forth between the clippers and my mom, but she didn't seem to notice. She rounded the front of the bushes and disappeared. I stood frozen until I heard the clank of the door closing and then sweet, sweet silence.
I made my move. I ran forward, grabbing the hedge trimmers and started clipping. Swish-crunch. Swish-crunch. This was amazing. Why was I doing chores like cleaning Spaghettios out of the microwave when I could be doing tasks like this instead? It was so satisfying. I wasn't even paying attention to the branches I cut. If there was a branch, it could be cut. It quickly became mindless cutting of anything and everything.
Then, I messed up. Got too cocky perhaps. I went for a bigger branch. I squeezed hard. No satisfying crunch. The clippers lodged halfway in and stopped. I squeezed harder. Nothing. I began to tug back and forth and side to side. I could see the the green innards of this clearly fresh, not-ready-for-trimming branch. Crap. In a panic, I yank the clippers toward me in one strong pull.
Smack. The tip of the clippers hits me smack in the middle of the forehead. I am stunned for a moment. It takes me a minute to calculate what just happened. I look down and for a split second am delighted to see the stubborn branch on the ground. but then I notice the bright red blood covering the metal of the clippers.
You might think this point in the story would involve a lot of screaming, sobbing, or general mayhem. In most cases of bleeding children, that is logical outcome. That's not what happened in this story. I honestly remember absolutely no pain. Instead, my first thought was, "I'm not going down for this. I can fix it."
First, I wiped the blood from the hedge trimmers onto the grass. I carefully placed them back in the exact position I had memorized mom leaving them. Then came the hard part. What would I blame the wound on? I had to find something else sharp and dangerous in the area. Of course there was nothing. Curse my mother for child-proofing our house. Eventually, I settled on the drain spout. The edges were sharp enough to cut open my head, right?
If you were driving on the highway by our house on this given afternoon, you would have witnessed a very strange sight. There, in the front yard of my house, a wannabe-Carrie, with blood trailing down her entire face and dripping onto her shirt, began to catch the blood spurting from her forehead with her hand and dutifully wipe it onto the metal drain spout as if she was finger painting. I never claimed to be a normal child.
Eventually, my mother reappeared from next door and I turned on the theatrics. I sat awkwardly in the dirt to suggest a recent fall and built up from stammering to a loud wail. Although my mother looked extremely confused, I was not reprimanded that day for my act of disobedience...or any other day in fact. But every day when I look in the mirror, I see that tiny notch on my forehead...and remember that maybe I should sometimes take "no" for an answer.
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