I'll Be Dead in Two Weeks

When I was 5, Steve Austin was my hero.  I’m not talking about the wrestler.  I’m talking about The Bionic Man.  The Six Million Dollar Man.  The man who was rebuilt… better… stronger… faster.

If you’re not familiar with the Six Million Dollar Man, I’ll catch you up real quick:  it was a television show in the 1970s, starring Lee Majors.  Steve Austin (Lee Majors) was an astronaut who lost his legs, an arm, and an eye in a crash.  But because he was so awesome, the government decided to “rebuild” him in a surgery that cost six million dollars.  Steve was given new “bionic” limbs and a bionic eye.  He could run 60 mph on his new spiffy legs, and his arm was much stronger than a normal man’s.  His bionic eye was capable of a 20x zoom and even had infrared capabilities.

I wanted to be bionic so badly that I would pretend to be bionic in my everyday endeavors.  I sprung out of bed with my pretend bionic legs.  If I was brushing my teeth, I made the bionic sounds with every stroke of my bionic arm.  I pedaled my Big Wheel at astonishing speeds.  With my awesome eye, I zoomed in on the cockpits of airplanes flying high above.  All in my head.

Steve Austin's Squinty Eyebrow Look

I even practiced squinting my eyes while lifting one eyebrow…just like Steve.

He was so cool.  My brother, Greg, and I never missed an episode.

Until…

One day, we had an absolutely brilliant idea: we should reenact the crash scene that appeared at the beginning of each show. Greg is two years older than me, so at 7, he was much more analytical and positively full of wisdom.  He had all the logistics thoroughly planned out.  We would launch the “space capsule” (a laundry basket) down the runway (the stairs of our townhouse).  We needed a passenger-restraint system, so we found a thin, red cord-like belt (like the ones that serial killers use) from one of my mom’s old robes.  Safety first and all.

Guess who got to be the astronaut…

No need to worry.  I was in good hands because my brother thought of everything.  I climbed into the laundry basket at the top of the stairs.  My brother methodically wound the bathrobe belt around me and through the weavings of the laundry basket.  Before long, I was ready for launch.

Now, because the stairs of our townhouse were right inside the front door, they tended to “collect” things.  You know….mail….shoes…laundry that needed to go upstairs…that kind of thing.  So, after I was secure inside my spacecraft, Greg ran downstairs to “clear the runway.”  As he did so, he began the countdown:

“T-minus 10, 9, 8…”

I was literally shaking with excitement!  This would be the coolest stunt ever!  I would be legendary.  I imagined myself giving Phil Donahue an exclusive:  “Well, Phil, heh-heh…yes, it was remarkable…”  Then I shifted my weight in the laundry basket.

That’s the last thing I remember about the crash.  I do remember that, miraculously, the only injury I sustained was a dislocated nose, for which I had to wear a piece of tape across my face for what seemed like an eternity.

The rest of this story has been pieced together by eye-witness accounts:

Greg’s version:

“She’s breaking up…she’s breaking up…”

As my brother tells it, he went down the stairs to clear some things and start the countdown.  The next thing he knew, I started rolling and bouncing down the stairs, flying just past his head, and impacting face-first into a closet door in a spectacular explosion.  (Please excuse my lack of illustration skills.  You can click on the image to make it bigger.)

I imagine there were some pretty deafening crashing and banging sounds of my face destroying the closet.  When that all ended, and I lay in a crumpled heap on the floor looking like a chalk outline, my mom shouted from the living room at my older, wiser, boy-genius brother in a conversation that went pretty much like this:

Greg's Eyewitness Account - Exhibit A

Greg's Eyewitness Account - Exhibit B

Greg's Eyewitness Account - Exhibit C

Greg's Eyewitness Account - Exhibit D

Mom’s version:

When piecing together this posting, I recently asked my mom what happened after I flew into the closet.  Her reply?  “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you ‘don’t know?’  How could you not know?  Your youngest child lay dying in the closet.”  I was incredulous.

“Puh-leeze.  That wasn’t exactly a unique occurrence,” she said matter-of-factly.  “I may have taken you to the hospital.”

“You may have?”  How could my own mother not remember my near-death laundry basket experience?  Was it so insignificant that it didn’t even warrant a place amidst the myriad of her other memories?

“Or maybe we went to the doctor’s office the next day.  I don’t remember.  You might have been complaining that your face hurt.  Maybe you were black and blue, or your nose was crooked or something.  It doesn’t matter now.  You’re fine.”

“I cannot believe you don’t remember,” I said, idignantly.

“Uh…I do remember seeing a placard in the emergency room that listed the signs of child abuse.  But I might have seen that on one of the many other occasions you were there,” she said, pointedly.

Hmpf.

It appears that by the time I was 5 years old, my mother had already grown so weary of my stunts and shenanigans that my brush with bionic death was met with disdain and apathy.

Although, now that I think about it, that might have been about the same time I abandoned Steve for Isaac Washington—the bartender on the Love Boat.