She never married, and one summer while visiting my brother suggested in a whisper that maybe she was a lesbian. My mother overheard and admonished him. That's how discipline ran in my family: no slaps upside the head, what we got was a disapproving look and sometimes a "hush up" or "mind your manners".
Anyway, the summer before I started the 2nd grade we were vacationing in Nova Scotia and made the yearly trip up to Glenda's (my mother's cousin). You'd think that with all those animals it'd be a riot, but the most we were ever able to do was hang in the barn, trying to catch kittens, because the year prior my eldest cousin had fallen off a horse and broken his femur. Way to ruin it for the rest of us, Calvin.
My cousin Jack, my brother and I were bored of sitting around listening to the grownups talk about whatever it was they talked about (what certain women wore at church on Sunday, and who liked to indulge in spirits a tad overzealously is what I remember), so we decided to play hide-and-go-seek outside. In the pantheon of games that kids play, hide-and-go ranks second only to tag. And tag with 3 people sucks. Unless it's sexual tag with a guy and two gals, I suppose.
I loved to play hide-and-go-seek, and excelled at it prodigiously. I was a pro, hiding myself in places no one would ever dream of looking. If HAGS were part of academia, I would have been offered a hide-and-go-seek scholarship to Yale; if it were an Olympic event, I would have represented my country in Barcelona. To this day I'll often find myself out someplace and suddenly remark to myself say, that would make a killer hiding place. You may step away from the game, but the game never steps away from you. Not entirely.
My cousin was picked to be it, and I and my brother scurried off to hide. I did my best to lose my bro; he knew what an expert hider I was, and every time we played would follow behind me and try to hide in the same place in which I hid, the biter.
After shaking him off my tail, I looked around frantically, because my cousin's count was winding down.
"Five, four..."
Where to hide? Providence, don't let me down!
"...three, two..."
C'mon, c'mon! Look harder, man. See.
"...one. Ready or not, here I come!"
I saw.
What I saw was a dilapidated dog house half-hidden by weeds and long grass. I ran up to it, checked to make sure no dog was inside, then crawled in.
Admittedly, it wasn't the best hiding spot I ever discovered, but it was impressive enough in a pinch. I knew my brother would be found long before I was discovered.
But then I heard this funny noise, like electric shears. Presently I felt a sharp pain in my leg. Then another, and yet another.
Wasps.
I ran out of that charnel dog house as fast as I could. By the time the swarming wasps had pushed the invading force (me) far enough away, I was stung eight times on my right leg, twice on my left, and once on my right middle finger.
I cried -- because of the stings, sure, but mostly I think because I had forfeited a game of hide-and-go-seek. I still haven't fully recovered from it.
Adding insult to injury was this: I was forced to recuperate inside, in the presence of my parents and relatives, listening to their inane chatter. And my wounds were annointed with margarine. I guess summoning a witch doctor to expel the mysterious venom coursing through my veins was too much of a hassle.
Fifteen minutes later, I started itching all over like I had the DTs. At first my parents (mostly my father) reprimanded me for doing so, but when I took off both socks and started scratching my feet furiously, as though they had been rubbed with poison ivy, my mother was hit with a realization that ended up saving my life.
"Dear," she said to my father, "what if he's allergic to bee stings?"
My dad, famously known in our family circle for his apathy, dismissed the idea. But when hives soon broke out all over my body, I was rushed into the back seat of our car (yes, that car: the 1984 Buick LeSabre, this anecdote being the culminating chapter of what I call The Buick LeSabre Trilogy) and we drove towards the nearest hospital, which was 30 minutes away, at least.
I don't remember much before my trachea finally swelled enough to cause me to pass out, and what I do recall nobody, my folks included, believes me about. But I don't have any reason to make this up: blood started to trickle from my ears, and when I looked at my hands, I could see blood coming out from under my fingernails.
When I regained consciousness, I was lying in a hospital bed, my mother and father standing next to me on my left, my uncle John on my right. I no longer remember what soothing words my folks had for me, but I do remember my uncle informing me that, on the latest WWF Superstars show, The Honky Tonk Man had smashed his guitar over some jobber's head while the referee wasn't looking. It's little things like that which make those ailing feel better. Good ole Honky Tonk, man.
Epilogue:
For the next 5 or 6 years, I would receive a shot of bee venom every week (2 shots per week, initially). My last visit to the allergy doctor revealed that I am desensitized to the stings of bees, wasps, hornets, yellow jackets and injured pride (seriously, I can dribble on myself while using a urinal and not miss a step).
You know the drill by now, I'm sure. Time for some disordered dispatches :
1) Ray Allen has officially assumed the mantle of "most fearsome shooter whose hands you absolutely don't want the ball to be in during the final seconds of a close game". The Sonics, up by 7 with under 2 minutes to go, turned the ball over and were choking worse than any team I've seen in a long while before Jesus stepped up, draining a three -- with Tim Duncan's arm looming over him, no less.
Clutch.
What an exciting finish, which is all the more reason to lament the fact that the Sonics won't be part of this year's post season. They're a fun team. Here's hoping they get it together and return next season (even though 'Shard won't be around, which also saddens me).
2) As good-ole Jack Burton once(always) said(says), "sonuvabitch must pay". Today I turned on the tube, to give the little angel her daily dose of Grover, Elmo, Ernie and the homosexual guy he lives with, only to discover that my cable company, ABN, realigned the channels and 86ed AFN from their lineup. It's not even available as a pay channel! That leaves me with a grand total of zero English-language channels. Sure, I could have CNBC and Arirang TV if I pay for them, but that's sort of like paying to have someone kick you in the balls. I'd take it if it were free (Betty Liu is sorta cute, and the Arirang shows are fun in a kitschy Full House/ "prodding a canker sore with your tongue" kind of way), but paying for it? Neeheeheeawwwthanks.
Raising my ire even further, ABN has apparently turned the broadcast volume down on all English-language programs, so if I switch from, say, a Korean movie on Ch. 38 to Beauty and the Geek on Ch. whateverthefuckchannelOnStyleisnow I have to turn the volume up about 75 notches in order to hear it, and have to turn it down again when I switch back.
Oh, and did I mention that one of ABN's lowlife workers stole my cell phone when they were in to install cable after we moved here last spring?
That company is the bane of my fucking existence.
3) It's the magic number, at least it used to be (though 32 is still the Magic number).
4) Is the new 3.
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