Although I never play as Toad in Mario Kart 64, this strip is an excellent representation of my lack of success executing the shortcut jump at the start of Rainbow Road.

Simply put, I can’t do it.  Not “can’t do it” as in I can’t do it often, I mean that I can’t do it period.

In all the years I’ve played the game, not once have I been able to make the jump.

Shucks…

It’s that time again, CAMP STORY TIME!  This lovely bit comes from this past Wednesday, where I got to make a nighttime hospital run:

Evening activity was campfire, and just as we started walking back from the campfire site, a little girl screams; she stepped on a nail and it went through her shoe and into her foot.  We got the campers away from her and removed the nail, but she was freaking the heck out and exclaiming that her foot was wet with blood.

“No no no, sweetie,” we kept telling her, “that’s just water.”

Oh, the comforting lies we tell kids.

Alice (a counselor from her cabin) and I drove out to the hospital to get her looked at.  The doctor came in, and immediately we could tell by his demeanor that everything was (fortunately) going to be alright.  He briefly examined her foot, and then asked if we had the shoe she was wearing when she stepped on the nail; he wanted to see if any of the impacted area was missing rubber or fabric and, if it was, those materials might have been pushed into the wound.

I said the shoe was in the van and went to retrieve it.

Past 10pm at this hospital, you need to be let in by a staff member.  I pushed the buzzer and stood around waiting holding a little pink croc.  I heard some footsteps from behind and see a police officer and some other guy.  As a general pleasantry, I said “good evening,” but then noticed something: the “other guy” was in handcuffs.

He was also really pale… his eyes were kind of sunken in… and he was super groggy/slouchy.

This guy was beyond hopped up on something… and he was really close behind me.

I push the intercom button again, “ummm, can I be let in?” I said, unsuccessfully trying to hide the panic in my voice.

Tactful, I know.

We were let in, I returned to our little room, and the cop took the other guy into a room two curtains down.

The doctor checked out the shoe and determined that everything was alright; the girl would be fine and she could walk on the foot if she liked.  Sweet!  We waited about ten minutes for the exit paperwork, and then just as we’re helping the kid put her shoes on, the druggie in the section down the hall starts hawking and vomiting everywhere.  Making the issue significantly worse were all the machines he was hooked into frantically beeping and booping… The guy was like, dying twelve feet away from our ten year old camper.

Understandably, she was all freaked out, and in a lame attempt to put her mind on something else, I offered up, “Wow, your shoes are really colorful!  Are they your favorite?”

“Of course they’re my favorite!  That’s why I brought them to camp!” she responded, all smiles.

Shoes on and minds elsewhere, we bolted her out the door, the other guy still hawking up a storm as it closed behind us.

Just another day!