TBT #51: A concise history of everything bad that has ever happened to me

This past week, I learned that I am once again destined to spend a day on the operating table before the summer is out. This has, obviously, not made me very happy. I sometimes feel like I have spent more time on the operating room table than the guy from the Operation game with the red buzzer for a nose. But then I think that that’s ridiculous. Because it IS ridiculous. There is no way I am even close to equaling that guy for amount of time spent in surgery. You NEVER saw that guy out of bed. Probably because his internal anatomy was not very realistic. He was an experiment gone wrong, a twisted post-modern prometheus whose funny bone took up, like, his whole damn arm. His sad existence is paralleled only by other mainstays of children’s board games, like the father from Don’t Wake Daddy, whose only purpose in life was to wake up suddenly and beat the shit out of his kids, or Mr. Bucket who — when you really think about it — was not a very good bucket by any stretch of the imagination. There was a hole in him that not even Dear Liza could fill.

So me, I try to stay positive. It could be a lot worse. I could be in a board game. Or I could have a serious disease. When I think about things that way, my life has been pretty good. But, then, if I REALLY think about all the negative things that have effected me in my life, I start to think that maybe I am something of a tragic figure. More tragic than YOU are, anyway. I guess that’s sort of an assumption but I am pretty confident it is true. Unless, like, your parents are dead. Or you are living in poverty. Or you’re a scientologist. Or you’re that kid from The Never-Ending Story and your horse sank in that swamp and there was nothing you could do about it. Then, well, you win. But otherwise, I think I could make a pretty good case for me. And I will, right here!

In today’s special edition of The Best Things we look at the things that have gone wrong with Matt.

The following are presented in chronological order. I could try to rank these stories of woe but to do so would be a massively difficult task, and would require me to relive each and every event so much so that the whole process might itself become a story of woe and I’d have to somehow incorporate it into the list and before I knew what happened the universe would have collapsed in on itself or maybe I would just go unconscious like Lea Thompson did in Back to the Future when she encountered her future self and was like, “Oh god Caroline in the City is bland and unfunny!”

So yeah, chronological order. Not ranked.

Kindergarten

It is not entirely easy to remember my thought process as a 5-year-old boy but I think the event went something like this:

• I’m a big boy now!
• So I can use a urinal like the big kids!
• Okay, so I’ll just stand right here and so on and so forth…
• This is working okay!
• I’m a big boy now!
• Oh no don’t go that way!
• It’s out of control!
• Agh oh god
• …
• Uh oh
• Oh no. Oh no.
• …
• teacher

Grade 4

Hell Yeah, have you seen me? Have you seen me! I’ve got a Blue Jays jacket! That’s right, the Toronto Blue Jays! Back to Back World Champs! Yeah, yeah. My mom got it for me. Yeah, check the back. Check it. There you go. Yep! That’s the logo! I want to be just like Roberto Alomar! Yeah! You know he’s the best. You see the way he chews gum all the time? I’m going to chew gum all the time! What? No. No, I’m not right now. We’re not allowed to chew gum at school. Yeah. I don’t want to get in trouble.

Yeah, okay. I got to go! See you tomorrow! No, I’m walking home!

Wait, why are those older kids pointing at me? Why are they making motions like I’m a fat kid! Why are they yelling? What are they yelling? Are they CALLING me a fat kid? Because I’m not a fat kid! It’s the jacket! Jesus. It’s a big jacket! It’s warm! Did you see the logo? Toronto Blue Jays. Stop yelling that. Stop. Please. I’m not fat. Back to Back World Series Champions. Really. I’m not fat. It’s the jacket. It’s a big jacket.

Grade 6

My doctor looked at me in the chair in his office and remarked that I was slouching a lot. I thought that’s what kids his age did, my mom said. They slouch. He looked at me again and said that it was very pronounced. Does he only slouch to that one side, he asked. I don’t know, said mom. Maybe we should get X-Rays, it might be something, we’ll just check, he explained. What could it be, asked mom. I don’t know yet, he said. We’ll just check.

I didn’t say a thing.

Grade 7

So I used to hang around with this guy who was, in retrospect, a total asshole. I don’t even know how I ended up hanging around with him. It just sort of happened. And I just remember we were out at recess one day and he was like “Hey, let me jackknife powerbomb you!” And that was just a ridiculous request, because the jackknife powerbomb was a wrestling move that involved picking someone up over your head and dropping them on their head. So I said no. Because that’s what you do to something like that. He asked me why and I rightly told him that he couldn’t jackknife powerbomb me because it would really hurt.

“I could hurt you a lot more than that,” he said. And then he threw me against the wall. That, actually, didn’t really hurt very much, but the pain was more in the revelation that I was hanging around with a guy who was, very possibly, a sociopath and, more than that, now I’d have to go and find new friends.

I did, of course. But later I found out that that guy was on my spring short-season baseball team and I quit the team because of that — mom and dad were mad but I really persisted. Later I found out that the whole team had to forfeit the season because they were short a player. I still feel bad about that.

Grade 7 II

Apparently a paragraph is like a hamburger. They have an introductory sentence, a middle, and a conclusion. Just like, you see, a hamburger has a top bun, some meat, and a bottom bun. You see? What a great learning tool! There was something about toppings being there too to dress things up but I don’t really remember. What I DO remember was getting a C on the paragraph assignment because — and this still bothers me — my paragraphs didn’t have introductory and concluding sentences. Joke’s on that teacher, though, because I’m a god damned award-winning writer (Haha, sort of) and she’s, well, a teacher. And to this day I write a lot of paragraphs and eat a lot of hamburgers and the two are entirely mutually exclusive. A paragraph is NOT like a hamburger.

And Later

Scoliosis is a fairly common condition in today’s wussy youth who never had to fight a war. It’s when your spine is curved. It can be curved in any which way. Mine was an “S”. I like to think that there are a bunch of other people out there with different curves that look like letters and if we ever got together we’d spell out a word that could be the password to a cave of ancient treasures. But that always seemed unlikely.

That was what I had though. I saw a lot of pictures of my spine growing up. At first it was “We’re not too worried. We’ll watch it. And if it gets worse, we’ll discuss options then.” But as long as it stayed relatively static and didn’t cause me any pain, it was anything to worry about.

It did get worse, though.

Somewhere In There

* Chaos911 has joined the chat
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Hitman_Fan: Oh yeah, let’s go out baby.
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* Chaos911 has kicked Hitman_Fan
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Chaos911: k.

Grade 9

Look, okay, I’m not an athlete. And I’m OKAY with that. I have other talents! Maybe not writing paragraphs that are like hamburgers or whatever, but, still, people say I’m sort of funny. And I am sick of gym class. It’s not for me! I always avoided being dead last, but I was never near the front of the pack. And that was disappointing. There was nothing I could do about it, though. I wasn’t built level! I slant to one side like a lean-to.

So one day I’m running the track and I’m tired and I’m pissed off and I just think, hey, after this lap, I’m going to stop. I may have only done three leaps instead of four but, you know what, nobody is going to know. I’ll finally finish near the middle of the class instead of near the back and, best of all, I won’t have to RUN anymore.

But I’m standing around afterwards and I feel awful. I feel like a liar, like a cheat. And all I can think of is that this is WRONG. This is not something you’re supposed to do. And after class, the guilt still wouldn’t leave me. So I found myself standing outside the gym teacher’s office, ready to tell him. Ready to right that wrong. But I can’t make myself go in. So I stand there for a few minutes and then he comes out and I quickly turn down the hallway. He’s going out the door and I’m watching him get in his car. He’s driving off and, shit, I think, this is how criminals start.

Grade 10

I threw up when they told me about the surgery. Seriously, I vomited all over that damn office. I was 14-years-old and it was totally inexplicable. It wasn’t that I didn’t sort of expect them to say what they said, because I did. I knew it was a possibility. It wasn’t a feeling of panic and fear or anything. It was just… “Matt, how do you feel about this option?” and my response was BLEARGH. It just all came out. And some nurses came in and cleaned things up and checked me out and lay me down and, finally, a few hours later, they asked me again. “Matt, how do you feel about this option? This surgery?” and I just replied “Okay.” That was it. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

So we did. I did all the usual pre-surgery things. I didn’t really worry — that was mom and dad’s job. And I figured there wasn’t much risk to it, anyway. I mean, c’mon, the guys a surgeon. This is what he DOES. It’s not like I was getting the operation from a tax attorney. So I just went on. I spent an evening in a scary dark tube that took pictures of my insides. “Don’t move,” they kept saying. “I’m not,” I mumbled. “Don’t,” said the voice. “I’m not,” I insisted.

I wasn’t moving.

It still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I never really ask enough questions about these things, I suppose. The S-curve that was my spine had never resulted in any real pain, but it really worried the doctors. And, they said, it is only going to get worse. And cause pain. And maybe gross deformities. But, for me, what made it an easy decision was simply that it would mean I would not have to go to the fucking hospital every 4 months anymore. I could stop. THAT was it. That was why I consented to having my back cut open and a bunch of little metal dealies stuck inside. “Not only will it stop things from getting worse,” they said, “but it’ll even make it a little better!” So, yeah, I said, sign me up. Let’s do this.

Plus, it meant I’d have a good reason not to take anymore gym class.

And Later

I lived a morphine life at the Hospital for Sick Children. Seriously, I don’t know who invented the little morphine request button but he is deserving of kudos. If I wanted morphine, I just pressed this thing, and suddenly I was floating. Floating through the air. I don’t remember much about those few days. I remember my mom never left my room and I kept having dreams about mudslides that washed away nothing but my socks and some kid in a room down the hall watched The Lion King at a ridiculously loud volume and ever since then I haven’t liked the movie as much.

I missed school for eight weeks. I got As in all my classes. THAT was ridiculous. And there is steel in my spine. It sounds cooler than it actually is. It doesn’t set off metal detectors, I can’t feel it, and the surgeon wasn’t even nice enough to magnetize it for me. How great would that be? I would always have a spare fork.

Grade 12

So I go back to school and things are pretty good. Pretty great, even. The surgery was a total success and I don’t have to think about going back to that silly hospital in Toronto that was only good for its awesome cafeteria. I’ve got a good group of friends who stuck by me and wanted to hang out with me despite my penchant for being entirely anti-social for months on end. And then I get this Coop placement at a newspaper. And not a small newspaper. This was a pretty big newspaper for a circulation in the tens of thousands. And I’m thinking, cool — I’ll write paragraphs like hamburgers and everything will be great.

And it was. Because soon I wasn’t just working a Coop there. I had a job there. A job that paid pretty well. And soon I was the goddamned Sports Editor. I ran the sports department. Now, I hated sports because gym class made me a criminal and the Toronto Blue Jays made me fat, but I kind of liked this. I had to make up a lot of bullshit to make it look like I could write about, say, football, but I was a journalist. I interviewed people. My name was in the goddamn newspaper every week.

But then there’s an obese man behind me wanting his job back and I’m not letting him have it. I’m a seventeen year old kid who actually WALKS OFF A JOB in protest of a management decision. And then I got what I wanted. So I’m walking tall. This is what I was born to do, I think! I am a JOURNALIST!

But, hey, there’s only so many hockey dads and asshole players you can take before you start to wonder why you do this every week. And then the crushing realization that hardly anybody reads your stories. And then someone’s trying to short your pay — and maybe they were right, maybe you overbilled, but you honestly don’t care anymore. The life went out of you so quickly.

And I’m sitting in a lecture hall in my first year of a 4-year journalism degree and the professor — the fucking professor — is playing a CBC radio bit about hats. And he asks people what they thought. And I raise my hand and tell him I did not like that thing. I did not like that thing about hats. I thought it was cliched and kind of lame.

And then I realize once and for all that I am not a journalist.

Recently

So I wake up one morning in a lot of pain right there in my lower back and I think: shit. I always think shit when something involving my back starts to hurt because, well, I don’t know a lot about those metal things in there but if something were to get knocked loose or whatever I would probably be in a lot of trouble. So I worry.

But this doctor — a different doctor — tells me it’s nothing. Says there’s nothing to worry about. A little cyst growing right there near your spine. If you wait a few days, it’ll go away. Phew, I think. The metal thingies are okay!

But, he says, the thing will keep coming back. You’ll keep getting this pain. Unless, he said, you have surgery. It’s a small operation. You’ll fully recover in about 2 weeks. And you won’t have to worry about it anymore.

Fuck yes. I love hearing that! No more worrying! No more pain! Do what you got to do! Cut me up! Are you kidding? That’s great. Do it. I am so ready.

So we did, at the beginning of last summer. And it went well, apparently. Got rid of whatever was going to cause future reoccurences and I get to relax in bed with percocet for a couple of weeks. But two weeks pass, and then three, and this thing isn’t healing completely. So I go back and he says to give it more time. Okay, I think. More lying around watching DVDs all day. I can do that. So I do and it does get a little better but not completely.

I go back to work because I run out of DVDs to lie around watching all day and he tries various things, hoping that it will heal. It doesn’t. Eventually, towards the end of the summer, I say to hell with him, and just decide to forget about it for the last couple of weeks of summer and then go back to school. It still did not heal. I tried various things during the year but eventually just let it go because it only caused minor discomfort and I am a tough fucker regardless.

But now we’re back, as I’ve realized I can’t go through life with a little cut in my skin that bleeds every few days. And the doctor looks at it again and tells me the same thing doctors have been telling me my whole life: surgery. A little surgery. A little surgery will fix that right up.

Right, I’m thinking. Because that worked so well before. I have never in my life been so close to considering a lawsuit than I am against this surgeon, but then I think about how ridiculous it would be to sue someone over something that existed inches above my ass and only ever caused mild discomfort.

So I’ll do it. I’ll do the surgery one more time. He’s confident this will work and, for some reason, so am I. Maybe I have too much faith in people. Or Maybe I am just looking for more tragedy to add to this list! It is a very impressive list!

Surgery is scheduled for August 18. I’ll probably be out of commission for a week or so afterwards, and maybe right until I go back to school. (knowing my luck with this stuff, I’d bet on the latter) I know I had plans with a lot of people to do things during this time period, but it doesn’t seem like that will be happening. And nobody feels bad about that more than I do.

But it is all part of this tragic life! This tragic life that is mine! And people wonder why I am so emo. Between S-curves and paragraph hamburgers and Toronto Blue Jays jackets, it is any wonder why darkness is my only friend?

Today

Spent an hour writing a bunch of anecdotes of things I went through a kid that sucked at the time but, in retrospect, now seem pretty funny. God dammit.

I hate it when Mel Brooks is right about anything,
Matt