Reverse Mohawk II and the Blessed Can Opener!

(Continued) Running for my life, I was trapped like a rat that had been backed into one of the corners of our rattlesnake cages upstairs on the third floor - only this was in the kitchen and the snake was Ulrich. I had nowhere to go, Ulrich was wound tighter than a "rattler" ready to strike and I knew that I was a gonner.
To think that this was all about throw-up at church that left me nothing left in my stomach to defend myself with - no super powers.

That's when I saw it!

And that's when I remembered, and that is when I heard angels singing.

The "Blessed" can opener had been swung away from the wall and latched down into it's lock position.

I remembered how many times I had barely made it underneath that thing and almost had the skin on the top of my head scalped off by its sharp underbelly.

And... it was right there in the sudden flash that I was struck by divine Epiphany. Okay, maybe it wasn't so divine, but it was right at that moment that I REMEMBERED THAT ULRICH WAS ONE INCH TALLER THAN I WAS!

I screamed for help as I ran around mom who just stood in the middle of the room like a zombie and did nothing.  She had already changed enough diapers that if they were stacked on top of each other- it would rival Mount Everest. She had already sewn a million costumes for Halloween, she had attended too many parent conference meetings...she had already stopped ten thousand fist fights...she had already been to the police department to bail out my brothers a hundred and eighty-seven times;  she had already been to the zoo one too many times; locked in a car with a zillion-screaming-farting-fighting kids and traveled across country six times too many and she had been to Salton Sea way too many times.  She had already typed too many term papers for procrastinating teens; she had already saved me and my brothers from killing each other about a billion times... and had watched the Lennon Sisters on the Lawrence Welk show 8,000 times too many...and now her eyes were glassy as she stood three - having earned the privilege to check out.

I screamed, for help, but I knew I was on my own. The good news was, I was able to use her as a body shield as I ran around the outside of her AND DIRECTLY UNDER THE LATCHED-DOWN CAN OPENER!


The can opener caught my helmet and nearly threw me backwards, but luckily the Sugar-Water concoction I had plastered my hair with (my dad's invention for cheap hair gel - blog post 9/21/13) cracked and I...Yes I, little Markie D, RAN UNDERNEATH!

                          (Dad's sugar-hair-gel concoction seen to the right)

I heard the crack! And I heard the scream and I heard the thud and I saw the blood. Yep, I ran directly underneath that good 'O can opener - (my friend) - which had caught Ulrich straight across the cranium from forehead to calic like the bloody furrow of  a deep rut in a field plowed by a ruthless tractor.

Ulrich laid on ground with a bloody, reverse Mohawk. Mom didn't even see anything happen, she just stepped over his body and walked up stairs with her Carnation Instant Breakfast drink, asking the good Lord why the Dahlins couldn't be more like the Blasers or like perfect Lennons across the street (she still believed that they were the best Catholics in the entire universe (post 4/28/13).

I think she thought the news of my vomiting in Mass was going to reach the ears of the Pope at the Vatican and that we were going to be unpleasantly invited to join the Lutheran church...i.e.  "Excommunication."

With broom still clutched in his fist...Ulrich had come back into consciousness and had begun to slowly stagger to his feet. "UH OH!"

I said a quick "Mea Culpa" and some Pig Latin... "ownay Iay eednay otay etgay outay ofay erehay... Oray Iay AM DEAD!

I ran out the back door.. asked the Veloci-Rooster to protect me as I darted into the chicken coop...shut the door, clucked like hen and said another prayer- figuring that I deserved payback of Biblical proportions.  I knew this wasn't the end of it, especially since Ulrich would have to wear bandages on his head for the next two months at Saint Monica's High School and that I had ten-fold coming back unto me for the giving thusly unto Ulrich.

Amen!

The next story involves this boat (and as you can see in this picture it was old - 8 years ago), Chewbacca, a whale, a storm, Gherhing The Great and Sister Edith's prayer - AGAIN!

Altar Boys and 12-year-olds with Sharp Objects

Being a Dahlin meant being a Catholic, and being a Catholic meant being an Altar Boy.  In my case I don't know exactly why I was called up to the big leagues... my Latin sucked and I covered up my ignorance by speaking in Pig Latin (ichway Iay asway eryvay oodgay atay).

Besides electrifying a NUN (post 4/26/13), and the incidence where my older brothers broke into the vestibule and drank all the communion wine and knocked down the schoolyard fence on their escape (post), I just figured that I had about as much chance as qualifying in serving at Mass as a snowballs chance of survival  in H E double toothpicks .

But, they did and I don't know why!  So, I got the call!

It might have been because my mom was like the Vice-Pope and they figured that they would make her happy, because of her unhappiness over Vatican II (that is the Second Vatican Council - where they allowed English into the Mass and turned the altar around so the priest faced the congregation- eegads). Every time the priest said something and the people would respond in English she would stand up and shout out the correct answer loudly to cover over everyone else - In God's Language - Latin.   She told me that God and Jesus and the angels and everyone in heaven speak in Latin, so I had better learn it. I was wondering if I could fool God with some well placed pig-latin which I also figured was better than the catch phrase my big sister taught me "Sub ubi semper ubi" (loosely translated, "always wear underwear" kinda.

Anyway my Pig-Latin was good enough to fool the priest, so I got to put on the robes and tried to learn all the ups and downs and ins and out and ringing bells and pouring water and wine and carrying Crucifixes and trusted with open flames and holding blunt objects against the throats of other 7th graders.

Besides the fact that one of the kids in my class, Joseph, fell asleep during a very long funeral and fell over frontwards and his caught his hair on fire which caused Richard to drop the thurible (that's the container of burning incense), which hit the ground and scattered hot coals everywhere making the priest scream (because he thought his robes were about to catch fire), which scared one of pall-bearers who dropped the casket, which caused the dead body to slide out onto the floor on top of the burning incense, which caused the wife to faint and the Lutheran son-in-law to curse... something that has not happened in a Catholic Church since 1517.

Fire is one thing... but to put a blunt metal plate in the hands of 12-year-old boy (that he has to hold under the chin and can imperceptible push into throat of another 12-year-old) is perhaps too much temptation.  I have been on both ends of the paten (the paten is the brass communion plate- thingy) which had become the instrument of payback for any pranks at school during the past week.

Every time Richard Stiman came up for communion, when the Priest wasn't looking, I pressed that brass plate-thingy into his developing Adam's Apple for stealing the first girl I ever loved.

I pressed it into Ricky Arredondo's very pronounced Adam's Apple - hoping he would choke - because he had just turned 13 and already had a mustache (I didn't see any "Jealously Clause" in our Altar Boy training manual).

The only problem was - that when it was Ricky's turn to press the blunt brass thingy into my throat for revenge, he had no idea about my "superpowers." But when it was all said and done the entire church found out about it - as warm stinky "Fish-Stick' vomit sprayed all over Ricky...and unfortunately the Priest.

I thought they were going to have to have a Third Vatican Council in order to decide what to do with Markie D and to cancel putting dangerous things into the hands of  Altar Boys.

"Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa."    "Sub ubi semper ubi and Ustjay aitway untilay extnay imetay."


 

The Glass, The Leg, and The Whole Bloody Mess!

(continued from last blog) 
11:42 am
Unable to cope with Markie's D death, Ralph walked in concentric circles talking to himself.
 
Pinky was so big, the Wolf-Pack made fun of him saying things like, he couldn't see his feet and that they didn't know how he tied his shoes. That always brought a big laugh from the mean Viking tribe. "Water retention" and "big bones" was his favorite retort of denial.

Knowing it was hard for him to bend over, Joan snapped at Ralph, instead. Interrupting him in the middle of his Catholic "Mea culpas" she barked, "Ralph get over here. Now!"  Without even knowing what she did to Tom a couple minutes earlier, Ralph stood at attention like a mindless Zombie under her control. "Hold this together" she said, putting Markie's leg back together the best she could and made Ralph hold it in place with firm pressure.

Pinky took Kjersten and Annie and Tommy in the other room. He didn't think it was right for 9-year-olds to see a dead body: the glass, the leg, the blood was already too traumatic.

Joan picked up a fragment of the broken glass the size of a John F. Kennedy silver dollar and held it under Markie's nose. She waited a full 20 seconds (that seemed like a year) and became ecstatic when she saw  fog on the glass.  Barking out more orders like the ranking medic of a mash unit, Joan ordered Pinky to fire up the 57 Chevy as she carried the limp body trailed by Ralph (who was covered in blood), as he continued to obey his senior officer and held the dangling appendage together while mumbling Altar Boy Latin.  

Although there was condensation on the small fragment of glass, Joan knew that time was of the essence.
Pinky had wedged himself behind the steering wheel and had the motor running. Joan knew that letting Pinky drive was a mistake, but couldn't think of any other way to manage the situation. Laying Markie out on the back seat on a beach towel, she told Ralph to walk the younger kids home.

11:50 am
In the passenger side of the front seat, she leaned over the back and kept pressure on Markie's leg while trying to talk Pinky through driving a stick shift. One time she even shifted the car from second to third with the heal of her right foot, when Pinky's hand got caught between the steering wheel and his belly.

It was a sight to be sure. The way the car lurched and bucked and roared down Lincoln Boulevard towards Santa Monica, it looked like a drunken cowboy on a bunking bronco.

12:20 pm  Blood-drenched Ralph, delivered Annie to the front door of the Lennon Sister's house and it was as if sirens had gone off: Questions...Interrogations...but the only thing Ralph could do was mutter and stutter and look at the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in their front window and kept repeating the, "mea maxima Culpa" thing.

By the time Ralph dropped Tommy off at the Blaser house, rumors had begun to spread like a wildfire around Harding avenue that ranged anywhere from death to amputation.


The hippy Wolf-Pack knew they made the right choice in not going with Joan to the rescue.
"Oh my goodness, what a nuisance"
"How inconvenient... that little twerp!"
"Geez, we still have a lot of partying to do."
"Dude...that would have totally harshed my mellow." 

By the time the sixth needle went into Markie's arm, one of his eyes opened to half-mast and he asked the emergency room doctors, if this had anything to do with Flea-Bait's loogie.  Four of them looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders thinking the kid was reacting to the drugs.  Then more shots. A billion in the leg and lot of them deep. Many of the shots still hurt regardless of how much Novocaine they shot into him.

The second eye opened as Markie was trying to find out what all the fuss was about. He wasn't sewn up yet and inadvertently saw the bloody mess attached to his body that was once a leg. A nurse held his head down and he began asking questions as the guy with the broken arm next to him was released... and then the person with stitches in the forehead had come and gone...and the motorcycle guy with the puncture wound had come and also left repaired.  The stitch after stitch in the deep tissue and layers of muscle didn't hurt much, but this was before they got to the outside layers where the 42 shots of Novocaine had begun to wear off and each one of the 97 stitches on the outside of the leg really did hurt like heck. Markie was no stranger to pain and had been through bows and arrows with needles and the Hamper of Death and thrown over a cliff and didn't think that this pain was worth saying anything to the doctors - and suffered in silence.   

As far as Markie D could ever remember, he never saw anyone in his family cry. Mr. D had always said that "Swedes don't cry and pain will make you stronger."    

1:30 am  '0 dark thirty of the wee hours of the morning: "The Sewing party" was finally coming to an end.

 Even though his leg looked worst than Frankenstein's monster, they managed to put it all back together and save it.

Markie had never seen tears nor had he ever heard the "L" in his house. Oh, the "L" word is "love" in case you were wondering, but reckoned what Joan had done to rescue him, as love. That was all he was looking for as a human being. He wanted to know - he wanted to feel that someone cared.

He missed school for weeks and Joan had her sixth grade class write get well cards. He liked the cards and felt this was also another way of his mother showing she cared.

Two weeks later:   

















                                                       Thank you Tom Colajezzi.










Thank you Perry Halachis.













Thank you whoever you are.



Thank you Mom and Pinky!

And Ralph, stop mumbling - it's okay, I forgive you.

And Thank you Lord, I'm still alive...
                                                     
Oh, and thank you "Weltz" for letting mom "borrow" your car.  Sorry about all the blood in the back seat and your sore jaw.  No one knew Tom's last name before...but the black and blue welt on his jaw provided the perfect nickname. 

Good intentions are one thing but real love is often measured in sacrifice. I think that's all we really want. Isn't it?  To feel as though someone cares and to know that you are loved!  
                                                             
                                                                                           Markie D.

Next the Veloci-rooster and the "Chicken Lady"