49. Sometimes, my entire life seems like a series of cleverly-concealed mistakes.

Sometimes, my entire life seems like a series of cleverly-concealed mistakes. My mother would agree, since for the most part, the task of concealment has fallen to her. I supply the mistakes; and indeed, she is very clever. Some have told me that I am lucky, and of course I am. But there have been moments when she just goes way too fucking far and scars me for life.

*

The first time I tried riding a bike, I made a mistake. I can never remember whether it was because of a dearth in coordination or diligence, but I ended up crashing glamorously into the neighbours’ driveway and cutting open my right hand. The minor injury made a show of bleeding profusely for ten minutes. It subsequently took great pleasure in turning my mother’s face the same shade of crimson. In fact, my eight-year-old self, recently the new owner of a 72-pack of Crayolas, identified it rapidly as something between Razzle Dazzle Rose and Brick Red, which allowed me to fluently understand that this situation would not turn out well for me (anything beyond Salmon was a death sentence).

My mother pursed her lips tightly as she watched my father apply a Band-Aid to the site. She waited for his paranoid exclamation of “what?”; did that thing that wives do where they telepathically tell their men what they want done; acted disappointed when he seemed oblivious; and finally insisted that he “add another one”, and another one, and still another one, until he gave up and muttered something about having to go work on things of great scientific, social, and political significance: in other words, something that didn’t involve satisfying women. At this point, the mound of bandages was thicker than my palm and I was getting uneasy.

My mother pursed her lips again. The next thing I knew, I was being told that due to a change of plans (namely, my stupidity) I would be getting my Christmas present early. She told me to hold out my hands, forcibly stuffed them into a pair of bright red Montreal Canadiens mittens that were at least three sizes too big, and sat me back on the bike. I was to wear the mittens every time I went outside from that point onwards. And practice my ass off so that stupid shit like gravity would stop happening to me.

“Now, you can never be hurt,” she approved and nodded thrice for emphasis.

My father, by that time nose-deep in abstracts, evinced his opinion by giving the thumbs-up above his laptop screen.

This was April.

By August, my hands had nearly sweated off and I sported injuries from head to toe anyway, having been singled out by every aspiring bully in the neighborhood for the double crime of unconventional fashion and truly unfortunate taste in hockey teams. Needless to say, I learned to bike very, very quickly, if only because I needed to run far, far away from my tormentors.

To this day, my mother maintains that those mittens saved me from a summer of pain, her credo being: “Your childhood is only as good as your insulation.”

I not only beg to differ, but would like to point out that she could have at least warned her daughter, a socially-anxious child obviously out of her depth, that we were living in a town that was decidedly pro-Leafs.

*

a/n: I apologize if it seems that my writings no longer touch on important/significant issues. It seems that everything just revolves around my ever-perilous propensity towards Absurdism (i.e., my complete inability to reconcile my childhood with real life, which causes the words to turn into mere caricature).

soundtrack: The General Specific by Band of Horses