Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

My life is screaming by! I feel like I'm in the driver's seat of a battered old freight train with no brakes, throttle stuck forward, coughing and spitting smoke and engine parts, traveling faster than its maximum speed down a steep straight mountain grade accelerating toward a mile deep canyon where the bridge is out. Maybe there could be some comfort in my surroundings but the scenery is bland and boring. I am locked in, sheer cliffs rising on both sides. There is no way out, no switch track to salvation. I am helpless to act, my head out the window, squinting against the force of the wind in my face, dreading what is just there, ahead of me. All I can do is watch as the cars on the train shake and rattle, pieces flying off everywhere, the possibility of the train jumping the tracks and smashing and twisting in a horrible wreck at any time while still always looming before me, the ultimate pain of the end as I crash headlong, out of control, into the valley of death.

I can't believe that it is July already! This year 182 days have passed so really tomorrow, July 2, at noon will be the actual half way mark. One good thing about the days passing fast right now is that summer is going by. You might remember I hate summer, so it's totally okay if the next 100 hot days go by fast, but then I want it to slow down again.

Our perception of time is pretty cool. There are times when time flies by and others when it drags. Sometimes we sleep so that our perception of time is kind of shut off. Like when we travel on a long airline flight. That's why I meditate during my long commutes to and from work. I think about things that are pleasant rather than stressing out over the long boring trip.

Every night after I get home I have only four hours for myself until I have to go to bed. Sometimes I get involved in writing or drawing or some other fun thing. It makes me mad when I look up at the clock feeling like only a short time has passed and instead, it is time for bed. So, I always try to look at the clock a lot because then it doesn't slip by. It makes me feel like I am maximizing every minute I have to myself.

Every weekend I go through the same routine. I get home Friday all happy that I have two days off from work. Saturday goes by so fast I can't believe it. I try to slow it down but the time goes by at light speed. Too soon it's time for bed. Then, as if the time didn't go by fast enough on Saturday, Sunday is faster. At bed time on Sunday I start thinking about calling in sick on Monday. But I know better, I just have to go to work and live through five slow days and four fast nights.

Years ago my daughter and I were grocery shopping at the store across the parking lot from our apartment house. She was just a little girl about two years old. We were having a great time. After all the groceries were packed, I put her in the kiddy seat in the shopping cart.

As I rolled the cart from the store, she smiled at me and said, "Go fast Daddy!" So I started to trot. After just a few steps I tripped and was falling down. I tightened my grip on the handle bar but my weight was too much. The front of the cart rose up higher and higher as the handle bar went lower and lower down to the asphalt. When it hit, my daughter's right thigh was compressed breaking her femur. As I righted the cart, my daughter was screaming in agony. I had heard a popping sound and when I looked at her leg, her foot was facing slightly backward. I knew it was bad. That's when the time got messed up. I felt like I was moving fast but everybody and everything around me was in slow motion.

I took her from the cart with my left arm holding her right leg against my body so it would move as little as possible. I put my right arm through the space between the handle bar and the basket and dragged the cart with me as I ran across the parking lot. It is amazing how your mind works during a time of crisis. The groceries meant nothing and yet I was going to bring them home anyway.

As I reached the back door I started calling out for the man who lived downstairs. He was a fireman and he always carried a radio. I burst through the back door, down the half flight of stairs, and along the short hall to his door. He opened it up just as I got there. "Call the paramedics!" I said loudly. "My daughters leg is broken!" He had already called.

I went into his kitchen and laid her on the kitchen table. She was still crying out loudly. I could only imagine the pain she was in. That's when I started thinking about how long it would be until she was given some sort of major pain relief. It couldn't happen fast enough. I pinned her leg to the table with my hands trying to keep it straight while keeping it from twisting or moving at all.

It felt like forever before the paramedics, a man and a woman, got there. They got an air splint on her leg and put her on a backboard. They had her in the ambulance in just a couple of minutes. The female medic stayed in the back with my daughter and the guy told me to get in the front passenger seat.

Then we just sat there. I said, "Let's go!" But we just sat there. I said loudly, "LET'S GO!" The medic at the wheel said, "She's trying to put an IV in." I shouted, "IT'S BEEN LIKE FIVE MINUTES. WE COULD BE AT THE HOSPITAL IN FIVE MINUTES, LET'S GO!" He called for her to stop trying and we finally left.

We got to the hospital fast. But then I couldn't believe how long it took for the doctor to stroll over. He was very casual. He said something like, "Who do we have here?" My daughter had been crying so long she had lost her voice and this guy's introducing himself. I just yelled, "MORPHINE!" He looked at me like I was crazy. But he got the point. Finally, she got her shot. I could see my baby go from ultimate pain to a state of euphoria in seconds. I went from panic alert mode to watch and wait mode. I calmed down. The clock started to run at normal speed again.

I was angry about how long it took. I wanted to complain about it so no one else would have to put up with this. Then I remembered that I had the food store receipt in my pocket. I looked at it and then I looked at my watch. It had been eighteen minutes. I couldn't imagine that it could be true. I would have bet it was an hour!

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