Life Lessons the Hard Way

 There is a running gag in the show Arrested Development (isn't the whole show a running gag?) where George Sr. uses an employee named J. Walter Weatherman to teach his kids life lessons in pretty outrageous ways. J. Walter only has one hand, and the gag usually involves some kind of severe damage to J. Walter's "hand". The lesson concludes with J. Walter telling them "And that's why you always..."

While I do not have a J. Walter to teach my kids severe life lessons - I do have a gruesome story I tell my kids every time I see them doing any dangerous activity. It works like a charm and scares my kids very effectively.

As a young child, I had a favorite activity for when I was bored in the house. I loved to slide down the stairs on my bottom like it was a sledding hill. We had a longer staircase, and I could get going down the stairs very fast. Some days, when I was extremely bored, I would slide down the stairs over and over and over and over again. It was thrilling but never felt dangerous.

One fall evening, my mom was getting some things ready for the next day and I was capital-B BORED! I started doing my stair sledding. Up the stairs I would walk and then down I would slide. 

Earlier in the week, my mom had been cleaning up some of the outdoor plants. At the bottom of the stairs was a cardboard box filled with empty terra cotta planters waiting to be put away until next Spring. As I would sled down the stairs, I would take a sharp, little dip to the left to avoid the box of planters in my landing.

Then, perhaps because I was really bored, I got the idea to be a little more dangerous and go down the stairs backwards. I trekked up to the top of the stairs and sat down with my back facing down the stairs. I gave myself a little push and there I was sliding down 1 step, 2 steps, 3 steps until...it was probably around step 4 or 5 that I lost control in a way I never had before. Instead of sliding down the stairs I was just falling down them head first and at a sideways slant. 

I started screaming, AHHHHH, and then my mom probably screamed. It all took a second before I went head first into the box of terra cotta planters. They broke, and I was crying. My mom came over and hugged me tight while also probably scolding me for being so reckless. 

What we didn't realize until a minute or so later was the terra cotta planters had broken and cut my head. The cut would not stop bleeding so my mom took me to the ER. At the ER, we were told the cut was so deep I would have to get stitches in my head! As my Grandpa told me - "You cracked your head open like an egg." It felt very traumatic. And not just because of the sewing up my head part but because they had to shave a bald spot into my head. Can you imagine? I was newly into my school life and now I was sporting a bald spot. Plus the stitches hurt. 

It was a long ordeal at the ER. While I did get a new Pound Puppy from the hospital gift shop and I did not have to go to school the next day, the bald spot was noticeable for a good month. That bald spot is a big AND THAT'S WHY WE DON'T SLIDE DOWN THE STAIRS ON OUR ASSES life lesson that I use on my kids at least once a year. 

If you have a stair slider of your own at home, feel free to steal this story and use it to freak them out about why we don't slide down the stairs on our bottoms.