It wasn’t until I noticed my daughter using a rag to clean up the carrot juice that I realized just how quickly my rage could be subdued by merely one selfless gesture. I knew that I’d forcefully thrown the bag of large carrots, but had no idea that I’d pulverized them. In retrospect, had I not thrown them in my boiling rage, then I suppose it would have been just another day.
We have a refrigerator at my house that wasn’t behaving properly. It’d been leaking water beneath the fruit and vegetable crisper drawers. The water eventually pooled to such a level that it ran outside the fridge and puddled onto the kitchen floor. A full inspection of the fridge was required, so I transferred all of the contents to a second fridge that we keep in the garage. Eight trips, back and forth through the laundry room, is what it took. Eight trips barefoot. The last trip, I had only one item…the bag of carrots.
I was one step away from the door to the garage when, little did I know, I was also one second away from spontaneous combustion. A scorpion nailed me in the bottom of my foot.
It was a sharp piercing needle of fire—quick and full of malicious intent. Of course, the scorpion was only trying to preserve its life as 190 pounds descended upon it. But a scorpion is always on alert, and was not going to let a size 13 do anything without first putting up a fight. The moment my foot came within an inch of it, was the moment it sent its stinger into my skin, and, I’m sure, hoping the venomous toxins would travel as far into my nervous system as possible.
I recognized the heat of the sting immediately. I’d been stung before by scorpions, but never in an area this sensitive. Anger unleashed itself as I violently threw the bag of carrots onto the adjacent kitchen tile floor, and shouted a few hundred expletives. Understandably, I startled my daughter, Brookney.
“What the!?….Dad??”
I’m not even sure I heard her. I was too preoccupied with cussing like a sailor and trying to slaughter a predatory arthropod, whose existence I wanted to end.
I scanned the floor of the laundry room, knowing that if the scorpion made it beneath the washer or dryer, then there’d be a good chance it’d be hard to find. However, scorpions have one deficit that was in my favor: they’re relatively slow creatures. They don’t run, they scurry. As if lugging that big, venom-filled tail of theirs is such a burdensome chore that it inhibits any possibility of real running.
But the scorpion didn’t even choose to scurry. Rather, it opted to be motionless in the middle of the floor, as if it knew the nearest place to hide was too far away. Any attempt to move would put it at high-risk of being noticed, so it contracted its legs and pincers in an effort to conceal itself. I can only presume that its decision to stay still must have been influenced by the vibrations of my maddening oscillations.
Within seconds I located it, then grabbed a nearby shoe. I raised it high above my head, fully knowing there was no stopping me. The piercing needle of fire in the bottom of my swelling foot was clearly telling me, “DO NOT LET THIS CREATURE ESCAPE!!” Given the opportunity, it would strike over and over again. To capture it, and then set it free somewhere far away outside, was not an option, nor even a thought. I was locked in a primal and territorial state of mind, with only one objective: termination.
I did my best to hammer the shoe through the concrete foundation. One hit sealed the deal.
All that anger—all that pent up fury—how quickly it had arrived, and how quickly it had departed.
My foot was still screaming as the swelling increased. I hobbled across the kitchen floor and took out a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and set them on the floor. Standing, I gently lowered my foot onto the soft, icy bag and let its cold therapy begin. I expected shock, but discovered an immediate sensation of comfort. And there, in a transition between my rage and relief, something unusual caught my attention: my daughter was on her hands and knees, cleaning up pulverized carrot debris and juice. What had once been a bag of large, healthy carrots, was now a catastrophe of hemorrhaged orange guts.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Uh…well, Dad…you made a mess.”
I say “unusual” because Brookney is not exactly the type of person to voluntarily clean up a mess. Particularly if it belongs to someone else. Of course, if you were to poll all the households in the country, I suppose the findings would indicate that’s expected behavior. “Nice job, Dad,” she’d say, “Mop’s in the garage.”
But there she was, working that elbow grease into the rag, because she knew it was the right thing to do. She knew that a little bit of relief can go a long way. And if you’re lucky enough to recognize such an act, you might find yourself in an entirely better state of mind than the one you were in moments before. The frozen peas gave me physical relief. But Brookney’s unsolicited offer to clean the floor gave me an unexpected comfort—soulful in a way—and widened the gap beyond my fit of anger. It was a Cinderella story of sorts, as she labored on all fours with her hair dangling like a drapery of tangled vines. Of all people…my daughter? My mess? The difference though was there were no oppressive step-sisters ordering her to do so. Attacking this domestic chore was strictly under her own volition. “Dad,” she said, “I got this one.”
And if that’s not enough to comfort you—to help take the sting out of your foot—to remind you that some of the simplest moments in life are, in fact, some of the most touching, then you might want to have the blur in your vision checked out before you go completely blind.
Copyright Ros Hill 2017
roshillwrites 