Eleventy-One Things About Me, #12

12. I broke my finger as a preschooler.

Actually, I didn't break my finger. My sister did. We had hiked up into the mountains and my dad was fishing in a small river while my mom and sister and I waited near the car. Sis and I were having fun throwing rocks in the river. We weren't very old, probably between 2 and 4, but we were old enough to know that the bigger the rock, the bigger the splash. Sis picked up a gigantic rock with both hands and I saw some kind of bug or something underneath it and reached for it. But the rock was really too big for Sis to lift, so she dropped it--right on my hand.

Since Dad had gone miles upriver and we had no way to contact him, Mom had me hold my hand in the water to keep it cold. By the time Dad got back (after dark, of course) one of the middle fingers on my right hand was swollen to three times its normal size.

When we finally made it to the emergency room, it must have been after midnight. An x-ray determined that I had a fractured finger, and then the questions started. Apparently the emergency room personnel couldn't believe that a child as tiny as my sister (who was very small for her age, with limbs like toothpicks) could pick up a rock big enough to break someone's finger. Of course, the fact that my parents didn't take me in until many hours after the incident probably didn't look good either--plus we were all filthy after a day in the woods.

They kept asking my parents over and over what really happened, and then took me into another room to question me by myself. Since all our stories matched and were the same every time, they finally let us go home.

I remember it hurting, but mostly I remember being so proud of my broken finger. I was really disappointed they couldn't put a cast on it.