TWO WORDS PARENTS HATE THE MOST

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As a parent there were two words I hated to hear from my kids, and as a boy I never said them. It wasn’t that I had not had the experience what these words signified; it was I knew what the response would be.

I will save you the trouble of trying to guess what they are by telling you they are, “I’m bored.”

I knew if I said them to my parents the response (if I got one) would be “Who cares.” Then I would be expected go find something to entertain myself with and at the same time told to “Stay out of trouble or else.”

For me boredom was born on the farm. There were no games except checkers. Our board was drawn on a piece of wood and soda pop caps were used as the men. One side used the caps right side up and the other upside down.

As it happened one day about mid-morning I got a bad case of boredom and since there was no TV, radio, computers or even a deck of cards, I went forth and sought out some kind of pleasure, anything to break my soul’s dearth of interest.

I found some relief by chopping on an old stump. My mind was inactive as I continued to chop, chop, and chop with a rhythm that almost mesmerized me.

At this time one of the local boys came up and tried to engage me in conversation, but I just ignored him.  He continued to try to get some attention which I refused to give him.

As I continued to chop he stuck his finger on the block and said; “HIT IT” - - as he quickly jerked it back.

I continued to chop but said; “Don’t do that or I will chop it off,” and continued to chop in rhythm.

This continued for awhile until the expected happened.  Then he let out a yell and said “Boy, look at what you have done, done!” and he took off running to my uncle’s house.

When I got to the house my uncle was trying to get the finger straighten out so he could wrap it up in place.

The axe I was using was very dull and a little piece of skin was uncut otherwise it would have been completely severed.

My uncle did some doctoring on animals and knew a little about first aid but had no bandages only a little disinfect. He milked several cows and sold the milk to a cheese factory. He had to strain the milk through milk pads which were made of cotton and gauze like material. So that served as a bandage for the finger and kept it in line (kinda) as it healed.

Since we lived several miles from town with no transportation except walking,  the boy was never treated by a doctor. This was complicated by the fact we had no money for a doctor.

As the days went by it looked his finger was going to rot off but in the end it healed up except it was a little crooked.

I got dressed down severely for my part in this deal, and in the light of what happened my defense of  “I told him not to do it,” seemed lame at the time.

For some reason it never bothered me as much as it did him.

This event broke up my boredom for this day but there was always going to be tomorrow to deal with.

This post has been shared at "Tell Me a True Story" at: http://letmetelluastory.blogspot.com/ 
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Also Linking with Jen at:  Soli Deo Gloria