Humorous in Fear

"hide the bump/bruise"

The following is the funniest story I know or ever heard and it is as real as the one you just read.

My Mom usually took my brother with her because he was just terrible. It was almost impossible for me to baby-sit him like I did my sisters, without chaos showing its ugly face. This day she decided that he was to be punished and the punishment was that he would not be allowed to go with her to grandma's house. He was grandma’s favorite and her home his favorite place.

Those days, everyone was into skating, and so was he. Our floors had no rugs because Mom preferred ceramic tiles in the entire house. Of course, they were expensive and we were not allowed to skate in the house. Before she left, we were warned about it and we were not allowed to go outside until she got back.Did you guess, yet? Yep! As soon as she left, my brother put on his skates and began to do what he was told not to do. I chased him a couple times and tried taking the skates away but he was hitting me and kicking me with the skates; so, I just warned him that Mom would find out about this.

There was a skating show that played every week and we were all very much in tune with it; including my Mom. It was called "Roller Derby" or "Roller Action" The skaters used to beat each other to gain points. Well, my brother thought he was the one called, Richard Brown. He was the best of them all and my brother’s favorite.He continued to skate very fast inside the house while broadcasting his own moves.

He was really enjoying it until he ran his head into the corner of a cement wall. We all ran to assist him; not because we cared so much but because our beating would be determined depending on how much damage he had done to himself. This was definitely grounds for a beating. We were all warned. When one messed up, we were all in danger.

When I looked at him and saw the big bump on his forehead, my knees got weak and I almost fainted. My sisters and I began crying. Then I calm down and decided it was time to fix the problem before Mom got home.
I got some ice while my sisters got him comfortable on the couch in the living room. I pressed down on the bruise with the ice and every minute, I would ask them if they thought the bump was going down.

One said yes but the youngest would stare at it and say, "I think it is getting bigger." I would yell at her to shut up and move away. That was not what I needed to hear. In fact, I saw it getting smaller. It wasn't, but I saw what I needed to see at the time. After about ten minutes of ice treatment, I had to face that it was not working at all. It was getting worse.

I was worried and had trouble thinking straight but I remembered something. I had another idea so excited, I yelled to my sisters, "I remember daddy used butter on someone’s bruises and it helped. Get me the butter, this is the answer, I know this will work!" I put some butter on the purple bump on his forehead and waited for the miracle to happen. What? Nothing happened! "It worked for daddy, so, what am I doing wrong?"

I uttered a horrible scream out of frustration. I was lost. Man, I had so many things running through my mind. I was bound to find the solution. Then, I remembered again. "OK, I know what is missing" I cried. I asked my sisters to bring me a tablespoon. I began massaging the bruise with the spoon using the butter as ointment. Pressing down as hard as I could, I was trying to force the bump back into his forehead.

My poor brother was such a good patient. He was crying a lot but he was letting me do everything that came to mind. As I pressed down, he yelled, "Ouch, ouch, that hurts." After another five minutes, I stared at the bruise and I hated that bump. It was making my life a living hell. I stared at his forehead and if looks could kill, I would have melted at least half of my brother’s brain cells.

Suddenly, I realized that nothing was making it better, so I held the spoon real hard and began banging on the bruise with the spoon trying to beat that stupid, trouble making, purple looking, swelling by the minute, frustrating and annoying bump back inside his skull. Instead, all I accomplished was to make the bruise worse, give my brother a bigger headache and cause him to cry even more.

Frustration and fear had taken over but I had to try one more thing. My brother had a pretty big afro Afro. His hair was long just not long enough to cover the bruise on his forehead. I decided to give him a new look. I pulled his hair forward combing and stretching his hair as far forward as possible. By the time my mother got home the piece of hair on top the area close to the bruise was so stretched; it looked as though it had been chemically relaxed. He definitely had a new hairstyle.

These types of situations were always the case for us, my siblings and I, that is. Therefore, when things are at their worst, we still find a way to turn it into humor. We just find ourselves laughing and making fun of whatever it is before us.

People sometimes look at us like we are crazy because it isn't always the appropriate thing or time to be laughing but it is how we best cope with things. Sometimes we look at each other and laugh because we know that any minute, one of us will soon come up with something silly to do or say and everything will be all right. We gain control over it with laughter, just like in the old days.