Oyster is right - things have been bad all around for the blogpocheh lately. Someone hand me my magic wand. Aaahh, crud...don't have one. Sorry, everybody. 8-(

I myself have had some interesting times with the beginnings of summer camp this year. An end o' the first week recap is on the way. 'Til then, I'm hoping the following story will cheer the injured, heal the sick in the head, and just generally put smiles on the faces of some who are in need. I was saving this one for another Father's Day/my dad's birthday, but now's as good a time as any to share.

Dad - 0. Chainsaw - 0.2.

That's the short version.

One day, my parents decided to tackle the sycamore tree in the backyard in order to have a bright, sunny yard and space for a sizeable rose garden. They rented a chainsaw for this purpose and went at the monster tree with the additional help of some climbing equipment and little else. They made good progress and took that sucker down - but not before my dad managed to slice his arm open with the chainsaw. Next thing I knew, my parents were running for the car with towels wrapped around Dad's bleeding arm. They went to two emergency rooms (the first one proved to be too slow on the uptake), got the bleeding stopped, the arm stitched up, and a cast on the whole shebang, as well as a powerful painkiller prescription, which they filled right away. That was Saturday.

Sunday was Mom tackling the rest of the tree on her own with Dad supervising as much as he could, considering his physical state. Later on, some friends came over to commiserate with Dad, and, being the good host that he is, he made some of his killer lime margaritas and partook of them with said friends. He had a good many that night. He should have known better. Really.

Monday morning came. Mom had to drive Dad in to work. The effects of the margaritas in concert with the painkillers made for quite a hallucinatory mix with Dad's body chemistry. Unfortunately, Dad had to meet with a number of medical students who had flunked the Pharmacology midterm he'd given and discuss their options with them. He sat in his office, with his bandaged arm propped up on the desk, met with the students one by one, and gave them advice that went along these lines:

YOU FAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIILLLLLLLEEEDDDD!

TOO BAAAAAAAADDDDD!!!!!!

THERE'S NO HOPE FOR YOOOOUUUU.....

Yeah, I think Dad put a whole lot of med students on a completely different career track that morning. He did his damage until nearly noon, when he called up Mom in a stuh-range voice and asked her to take him home. The effects were wearing off and wearing him down by then. One coulda stuck a fork in him at that point.

Let's all be careful out there. Don't get skewered, sliced, diced, too heavily sloshed, or seriously drugged. Summer's only just begun...