Nosebleeds and the Soul-Crushing Shoes

As a kid there was a period when I would get nosebleeds about every other day. It was kind of cool in the sense that I got out of class all the time, but bad because I was, you know, bleeding. I might have spent more time in the nurse’s office than learning my ABC’s. Maybe that’s why I’m so bad at alphabetizing things…

But in my most outstanding nosebleed story, I do not do the bleeding.

The day was bad from the start. I was in kindergarten, sporting a recent bowl-ish haircut that made me look like a boy. My mom had also forced me into a pair of hideous brown loafers, which she insisted were “VERY stylish!” and told me “How GOOD you look today!” The haircut was bad, but since I couldn’t see my own face, I could deal. The shoes, though, killed me. Stiff, uncomfortable, big, and fugly, I went to school and refused to talk with anyone. I sat alone, wallowing in misery and scared that the other kids would poke fun. My only hope was recess: to run and climb on the huge wooden playground, and ride the tire swing until I puked! But before I had even begun to play, recess was ruined. I was running, only to find myself face-down in the pebbles on the ground. My shoes! Still on my feet, but shoelace-less! What? These things were like big, stupid boats on my feet, hindering any attempt I made to move. My spirit was crushed. I sat in the highest tower for the rest of recess.

At long last, it was time to go home. I was elated, PLUS my mom had come with my baby sister to walk me home! We were walking up a gravel path, when I said I would carry my sister for a while, just for fun. I seized her under her arms and lugged – but I hadn’t banked on her enormous amount of baby fat. Refusing to admit that she was too much for me to handle, I tottered a few steps, and then felt those dumb shoes trip over each other. I lost balance, and dropped my sister face down in the gravel with a plop. I wanted to snigger, “Gosh, you’re HUGE!” Then she picked up her face from the ground. It was contorted with pain and streaming with tears, with blood shooting spectacularly from her nose. She started to wail. My mom tried in vain to stem the flow with a pack of tissues, all the while yelling at me and thanking the crossing guard for offering more tissues. My little snigger evaporated in an instance.

Stupid shoes.

Airplanes: The Ever Joyous Experience.

Riding on an airplane usually allows the mind to picture a feeling of luxury, of class, or cruising in the sky, blending in with the downy fluffs of clouds. However, simply put, riding on an airplane tends to suck. Your flying experience all depends on one simple thing: the people you’re sitting by on the flight. Of course, if you’re one of those lucky people who managed to be part of a group that perfectly fills up one row of seats, then you’re whole flight may be pleasurable and complaint free. On the other hand, if you’re stuck next to an unfamiliar stranger for 13 hours, and that stranger just happens to have extremely bad body odor, well, I’d say you’re in for a preeetty bad flight. On my flight back from China this summer to the Chicago O‘hare airport, I had the joy of sitting in front of a man that seemed slightly airsick, and most likely had been traveling for a very long time and not washed. Everytime this man stood up, everyone within two seats of him was treated to the extremely odious whiff of his scent. Luckily, as he was sick, him standing up didn’t happen very often. Actually, I even distinctly remember a lady next to me actually telling him that he would “feel better” after getting some hamburgers into his system.

Another not so luxurious experience I have the pleasure of recalling took place on yet another international flight. My family was seated in the middle aisle on a Boeing 747, and my sister, being the always thoughtful soul that she was, decided that there was no WAY that she could act like an older sister and let me sit between her and my mom. Instead, she fell upon her usual torturous ways, and forced me not very gently into sitting on the edge of the seats taken by our family, next to a man who, without making much of an effort, took up his seat and half of my own. Throughout the whole flight, I struggled to keep myself in a tightly rolled ball as to avoid kicking or pushing him with my feet. It was hard. I finally fell asleep with my hands tightly clasped together around my knees, and was rudely awoken after only thirty minutes of peace and tranquility by none other than my sister, who then proceeded to reprimand me in loud and extremely irritating tones for taking up too much space on my chair and kicking the man next to me. As IF I had a choice.

Teeth: The Ruddy Things

Teeth are funny.

When I was little, two of my baby teeth were fused together as one. During teeth-losing time, this/these tooth/teeth was/were quite reluctant to leave my mouth, which resulted in my having a loose tooth/teeth for a couple months. This made eating really difficult, not to mention extremely annoying. One day, I finally got fed up with it and handed my Grandma a piece of floss, telling her to just get rid of it, please. She tied the floss securely as I braced myself for whatever pain was going to come. On three, my Grandma yanked upward with such force that she actually toppled over backwards with intermittent cries of, “Ay ya, ay ya!” No more tooth/teeth!

Tanya was blessed with a mouth full of horrible chompers. The orthodontist said that if she didn’t get braces, eventually her teeth would end up jutting out of her mouth and her lips wouldn’t be able to touch anymore. One day when I was throwing around a softball with her in our apartment parking lot, I was making fun of her for throwing like a girl and shying away from the ball every time it came at her. Then I guess I got a bit carried away, because the ball cracked her in the face and caused her mouth to bleed. Woops. That’ll knock some of your teeth back into place for you, though.

Another time, Tanya and I were shopping with my aunt. Encouraged to practice her people skills, Tanya was in charge of putting the things on the counter to be paid for. Tremulously, she did so. The cashier smiled warmly at this little girl, barely taller than the counter itself. Tanya, relieved that she had done well, beamed back. Then the cashier openly asked her when was she getting braces? My sister, looking a little hurt and rather indignant, shut her mouth and answered next year, when all my baby teeth are gone, all the while keeping her lips carefully over her teeth. With extreme difficulty, I waited until we walked out of the store before I exploded with laughter. It was even more hilarious the second time, when I loudly retold the story to my parents.

Teeth: A Painful Reminisce

I cringed, shrinking back in my seat from the glare of the bright, fluorescent light shining directly into my face. My orthodontist leaned over me, clutching in his clean, white gloved hands a small mirror and another lethal looking metal instrument. He poked around in my mouth for a while, made markings with a wax pencil, and measured different aspects of my teeth. After 5 minutes of what I considered to be a violation of every part of my teeth he could reach, he leaned back and said to my mom, “ Yup. I’d say she needs braces.”

That single statement set my imagination in overload for the coming weeks until my next appointment. Plagued with extremely crooked and overlapping teeth ever since my first baby tooth had fallen out, I now pictured myself with movie star perfect teeth, gleaming white, and perfectly straight. I would no longer have to worry about smiling in pictures, for fear of showing the world how ugly my teeth truly were. After that first appointment, I believed instead that I was on the way to showing the world what a radiant smile I really had. Those dreams, however, were shattered from the moment I sat down in the high backed blue chair on my return appointment to the orthodontist's office. I watched as the nurse brought out an assortment of parts that would create the braces to be put on my teeth: glue, metal wire, rubber bands, metal rings to go around my molars, tighteners for rubber bands, and various bits and pieces. At the same moment as the acidic taste of glue first touched my tongue, I realized simultaneously that braces really, and very truly were not, the glamorous thing that I had imagined before. Braces, in fact, soon became the bane of my existence. Not only did they hurt my tender teeth by stretching and tightening them continuously, the metal wire also sliced into the delicate flesh on each side of my mouth. Every time the pain became slightly bearable again, it would be time for another appointment at the orthodontist’s, where my braces would be almost violently tightened by the nurses.

This situation was further exacerbated by an agonizing incident that occurred during my 7th grade PE class. The sport focused upon on that day was t-ball, played with a plastic ball and a plastic bat (most likely thought of as a safer alternative to the metal bats of norm), but little did the teachers know just how much of a hazard that plastic bat could pose, especially if in the wrong hands. The class was split into two teams, and my team was up to bat first. We were all plastered against the wall of the gym furthest from the batter, in case a pitch went wrong and, heaven forbid, someone was struck by a plastic whiffle ball. A girl I didn’t know very well was up to bat, and she had struck out the first two pitches. On the third pitch, she swung ferociously at the ball, and there was a plastic zing as the bat made contact. Maybe it was in her excitement from hitting the ball, or maybe she simply did not understand an elementary rule of sports using bats (NEVER throw the bat), I’ll never know. But all I did know was that I watched in a sort of hazy dreamlike state as a massive blue blur spun at me, and then with a THWACK, hit me straight in the mouth. Next thing I knew, the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, and I was afraid touch anything with my tongue, in trepidation of finding broken teeth, mutilated flesh, or anything of that sort. I touched my lip gently with my finger, and was aware of a stinging pain running through my lower lip. I gingerly pulled my lower lip away from my teeth (as it seemed to be stuck), and felt it tear free from the metal hooks of my braces that had slammed into the flesh from the force of the bat.

Apprehensively, I touched my now free lip with my tongue, to find that the various lacerations I had sustained were in fact a perfect imprint of every metal hook and wire fastened to my teeth.