When I was about 12 a neighbor kid pushed me off my bike. The back fender laid the top of my ankle wide open. I hobbled home with the help of my little sister (for some reason refusing a ride from one of the neighbors who passed by and saw me bleeding and hobbling) and went in the house. Mom and Dad were on the back deck off the kitchen. From the kitchen I said, “Mom?!”
“Don’t interrupt.”
”MOM!!”
I interrupted forcefully. That got their attention! And I got stiches. I remember counting the holes in the drop ceiling tile in the doctor’s office.
I have never understood how my Mom couldn’t read the tone in my voice. She did it again several years later, when I was 17. My Mom and I were downstairs talking and my sister came in the front door. She said, “Mom?” and the tone in her voice had me up on my feet and running even though I couldn’t see her. Mom just said “I’m down stairs,” and didn’t move. She heard my sister, but the tone just didn’t register. My sister got to the top of the stairs where I met her. She’d been bitten by a water moccasin down by the creek.
I was late for work and my boss wouldn’t believe me when I told him why. I made him call my Mom.
See, our problem was we were Outside Doing Things. We should have been Playing Video Games Inside Where It Was Safe. But video games hadn’t been invented yet.