22
2010
A Day in the Life of Ampersand Minion – Moped Accidents and Hematomas
It was cold and windy, but it wasn’t night. It was ten in the morning, and I was horizontal upon asphalt. My moped lay next to me, dying sputters emitting from the engine as the rain pitter-pattered across its mirrors and my strewn glasses. And I couldn’t help thinking:
Again.
Really?
A collection of ellipses and question marks pooled in my re opened arm wounds. It was the second time this week—frikkin’ Florida rain, combined with a bad back tire (which cost one hundred and fifty seven dollars to replace. Oh yeah. Unpaid intern in the house).
An ambulance screeched its way over, a headache in and of itself. I hobbled over, an act that made Tiny Tim look healthy as Michael Phelps, and leaned against the red-and-white engine of health.
Stuffing Ampersand manuscripts back into my bag, I breathed a sight of relief when I found Garrett’s title page unmarred. Speaking of Garrett Socol, these ambulance guys looked like something out of one of his stories—Socol’s always writing about these glowing Adonises, and glow they did. I’d say my knees got weak, but they already were.
“Hey, ma’am. Are you okay?”
And thus went the parade of questions I was already so familiar with from Tuesday’s fall. This fall, granted, had been more major; it wasn’t so easy to hop back on my bike and ride off into the sunset. One, because sunset wasn’t for another nine hours at least, and two, because there was no way I was bending my knee. It looked like all of Matt Bell’s writing talent had amassed and buried itself under my skin (which, if you’ve read Matt Bell, you would know my knee was… massive. However, I’m not sure if his talent would manifest itself in that exact shade of purple-green-black).
“Where were you heading, ma’am?” The gorgeous, vaguely-young-George-Clooney resemblant fireman asked.
I gulp.
Oh God, he’s going to kill me.
“Um.” I tremble. “To go bring my boss coffee.” They chuckle like I’m joking. I’m more deadpan than Sixth Sense. Jason Cook does not do mornings without coffee. Meryll Streep found inspiration for Miranda in Devil Wears Prada from Cook on a morning with a broken coffee maker.
“I…” I tearfully break off. “I may be fired. Oh God. Oh, this is not good. Um. I need to call him.”
The fireman exchange glasses that clearly read: “This girl is nucking futs.”
His answering machine knows me once more. Right before the beep, Cook’s automated voice singles me out. “And minion, if it’s you, just take a deep breath, and remember you’re the editor, and they’re the writers. They can’t kill you, because they don’t know your home address.”
BEEP.
I hang up. Better to prolong doom than certify it. A sunset (that I never rode off into) later, I’m cleaned up and returned to my house. My moped sits in its oversized-for-something-with-only-two-wheels space with the help of an expensive tow, and my brain is happily in Hydrocodene Land. I’ve got an ankle splint for a sprain, and ice resting on a hemotoma—turns out the Matt Bell lump is actually a collection of blood that failed to settle correctly, and will now hang out for the next month or so, slowly becoming reabsorbed. I look like War and Peace took a dump on the lower half of my body, but my head feels something a little closer to Electric Kool Aid Acid Test.
Of course, it’s now that my phone rings. Caller ID is the best idea ever. Cook. Oh sweet baby Jesus, Mary, and the Camels.
“Hey, Minion. I didn’t see you today.”
“Yeah well…” The phone call ended with a prayer to Hydrocodene, thanking it for making negative dialogue sound like comfort.
Moral of the story: jump back on the dying moped, if just to give the editor his frikkin coffee. Ask the firemen to give you a ride if you need to.
Some pictures of the battle wounds, after a week or two (and yes, putting happy faces on them does help).
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- Ow
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- Ow
