Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Pain Bringer

Today I experienced that childhood feeling of accidently hurting someone while playing and feeling incredibly guilty. Except this time I'm 23 and the kid is 7.

We were playing kickball inside the gym and I was guarding 2nd. Someone kicked the ball, and the kid on first ran by me. I had the ball, went to tag him, slipped, and fell on him. *crack* I either popped his foot or broke it. I quickly got off him and he started laughing. But a second later, after he realized I had crushed his foot, he started bawling. Nothing like being the teacher supervising a bunch of 1st and 2nd graders in the gym, and you cause the pain.

He gets up crying and limps away. All the kids are saying "It's okay, don't worry". I figured I should let a teacher know first instead of taking advice from the kids. So I go to the teachers room to tell them what happened.

Teachers: "You fell on him?!"
Me: *shamefully* "yea..."
Teachers: "Is he crying?"
Me: "yea..."
Teachers: "Oh, he's fine. Don't worry"
Me: "I'm a 6'3" barbarian. I'm three times his height and weight, and you haven't even seen him yet."

They almost seemed to think it was funny. So I grab one of my Tootsie Rolls off of the break table (one of the gifts from America the teachers never ate) and run to the room where he was. All the kids are at their desks waiting for class to start, and Hurt-Kid has his head down STILL crying. So I give him the Tootsie Roll and leave.

Later in the day I saw him walking around, so I know he's fine. I figured all I did was twist his foot, but still. I was honestly more worried of him hating me and having a fear of foreigners for the rest of his life.

2 comments:

Tamago said...

That is very touching Cliff. Touching in the way that you would touch little kids, by crushing their feet with your entire body. Although I'm sure you must still feel horrible, the kid might still be okay right?
-Tyler

Cliff said...

Yea, kid is okay...physically. I don't know if I'm mentally scarred him of foreigners. We'll see next week.