A few weeks ago I was reminded of something which I sincerely and vehemently believed for a long time: Which was that I was cursed with a terrible case of life-long bad luck (if you have ADHD then you know what I am talking about). In my imagination I figured I must have done something terribly wrong in a past life and; therefore, I was paying the price for it in this life. Well, I was later diagnosed with ADHD, just as awful, I thought at the time, but not as unmanageable as pure, cross-a-black-cat, break-a-mirror, step-on-a-crack, bad luck.
Let me tell you what happened, and feel free to let me know if something similar has happened to you. Nobody wants to be alone in their follies, right?
I was checking text messages on my iphone, while following after Joan into a local McDonald’s. She was gaining some distance ahead of me and went in before me. Without looking up I opened the door and the edge of it caught me just above my left eye and on the ridge of my nose! It hurt so bad that I saw black for a few moments. My hands shot up to cover the area (dropped my iphone!) and I started saying a few choice words, you know, to help dull the pain, and when I took my hands away they were covered in blood (good thing I dropped my iphone). To make matters worse, I noticed three little girls looking up at me pointing, two had their mouths open in shock and the third had her other hand over her mouth, clearly trying to stifle her giggles! Worse still, the employees just stared at me without asking if I was okay or needed, I don’t know, maybe a napkin, or an ambulance perhaps?
Finally, I realized this was more serious than a bump and dashed into the bathroom and spent about 45 minutes cleaning myself up and getting the blood to nearly stop, it was an insistent bleeder. Meanwhile, Joan was searching for me everywhere, freaking out, especially after finding my iphone (yeah, think about that a moment). She finally knocked on the bathroom door and looked in. When she saw me, she was horrified and wanted to take me to the hospital (I had to calm her down), but all I wanted was some coffee and a salad – oh, and an extra large band-aid would have helped.
When we made it to the counter the staff still did not offer me any condolence or assistance – it is a good thing it wasn’t as bad as it looked or worse. I know it was my fault, but Jeeze, maybe a couple band-aids could have been offered. I was too embarrassed to ask, and wouldn’t let Joan ask either. I used a couple napkins to cover my wounds (I was a spectacle), we ordered our food and ate – I mean, I have ADHD, so this wasn’t my first run-in (pun intended), I knew what to do and it wasn’t going to stop me from eating.
The whole incident left a mark, in more ways than one.
Before I was actually diagnosed with ADHD, I did this sort of thing all of the time. Diagnosis didn’t cure me of such mishaps, but they are less frequent now and they usually do not draw blood, well, not as much.
Darn, my bad luck! er… I mean, my ADD – Duh!
~Bryan
