The Sticky Egg happily takes topic requests. Today we answer the following email from J. in Boston: “Tell the hostage story!”
It is a defining moment in Sticky Egg history.
It’s the reason I will always wear bangs.
It’s probably why I always cry if hit on the head.
And it explains why the “Harry Potter” saga speaks to me on a very personal level.
I was in the third grade, the youngest child, scorned by my siblings. On that particular Sunday, my sister — three years older and the coolest person I knew — offered to play with me.
This was a BIG DEAL.
She found a length of rope in the small building behind our house and suggested, “Let’s play hostage!” She then hog tied me, wrists to ankles.
(You’re probably wondering why I went along with this. She was playing with me. This was a BIG DEAL.)
After she secured the rope, and I was awkwardly squatting, she told me to try to walk. On the count of three, she pulled her end, and I fell forward, flat on my face.
That might not have been such a BIG DEAL…except I had been sitting on a cement sidewalk, and my forehead hit the edge. Hard.
I rolled over onto the grass and started to cry, my nose already swelling. My sister stood over me, blocking the sun.
“Get up, you big baby” she said. The truce had ended.
As I quickly sat up, a curtain of bright, red blood cascaded — seemingly in slow motion — across the yard. I went silent, then began to scream.
The rest is a blur of my brothers and my mother and the rush to the hospital. I do remember Dr. Stone, my pediatrician, had a pillow mark on his face, like he had been woken up from a nap. He was especially grouchy in the ER, even for him.
In the end, I had to have 12 stitches in my forehead and was monitored for a possible skull fracture. (I didn’t have one.)
But I was left with a slightly crooked scar on my forehead…
And a special power — even today — over She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named.
