[Random pics of Mr. Chong's slums - This is Red. He always smiles when he sees me.]

Why is it whenever I do have a accident it’s in the most absurd way possible? It’s never some exciting, blood-pumping, adrenalin-filled tale of daring adventure.

Nope.

It’s things like “the dog hit me“. Remember that lovely chestnut?

Well, this time around I have no one to blame but myself…ok, me and the car.

[But he's never too sure about Maggie]

It was early Sunday afternoon & I was a woman on a mission. I had a list; a list of things like – take out the trash, go to the commissary, check the mail room, hit the PX.

Since I only have the car on the weekends it means I have to pile everything I need to do up & knock it out all in one big run. And it usually takes up a good half the day – a quarter of my weekend!

So as you can imagine, I tend to move a little fast hoping to beat my record time for most amount of chores done on any given Saturday, in this case Sunday.

[This is Momma-Dog. She couldn't care one way or the other.]

I snatched up the purse, grabbed the keys & made a bee-line for the car. Since I was also throwing away a few cardboard boxes, I went to open the trunk first.

This is where I get to say that we own a PT Cruiser. A lovely little car that navigates the Korean roads just fine & let me tell you, it’s amazing how much crap I can cram in that thing. Especially when we were moving from Virginia to Oklahoma. I can pack that sucker tight!

When the car was new & you wanted to lift the tail gate, all you had to do was open the latch. The hydraulics would automatically push the tail gate up to it’s full & upright position, so you didn’t have to give it a second thought.

[The chicken coop kittens think if they stand perfectly still I won't see them.]

But over the years it doesn’t really push itself up all the way anymore. Sometimes it will go three-quarters of the way, sometimes only half.

And this past Sunday it only went up half.

The problem with this is that while it was coming up halfway, I was coming down full-throttle.

*** Bang! ***

Massive smack to the head…right on the top of my head.

I didn’t knock me out. I didn’t swagger or stumble over my feet.

[Mercucio never pays attention - he's always stalking chickens. Why Mercucio?...no reason. Just a nod to Shakespeare.]

I think something along the lines of “FUDGE IT!” came out of my mouth. But other than the immediate throbbing that seemed to pass fairly quickly, I assumed I was just fine. An idiot, yes – but just fine.

I raced onto post, started off at the PX & roughly 30 minutes later at the commissary I noticed something was wrong.

It felt like I was falling forward on legs that seemed to either be drunk or moving through mud – maybe both. I dismissed it at first until the sensation just kept going.

[And then there's Kitler - surveying his domain while plotting government take-overs]

So I used what idiot brain-cell-skills I had left to finish the shopping & head home…walking in the door to tell Eric,

“Ok, this is where I need to tell you I’ve hit my head really hard.”

[blink...vacant stare...blink]

(Ok, well that didn’t work.)

Maybe it’s because I’m not the stereotypical hysterical woman. Maybe it’s because from all outward appearances I seemed perfectly fine. Maybe it’s because I seem to have an unusally high tolerance for pain.

No clue.

At this point there’s been no let up in the symptoms that first appeared in the commissary & I’m beginning to really worry. I sat down on the couch & weighed my options:

1. Take my happy butt to the TMC (troop medical center) which can really only handle bandaids or stitches, prescribing air & IV fluids instead of meds. Or…

2. Get Eric to drive me to the local Korean hospital (Good Morning Hospital – yeah, no joke on that one) & roll the dice that they would actually understand what I was saying.

The drawback to option 2 is that Koreans tend to have a habit of running every test, every diagnostic under the sun so that they can bill the good ol’ US of A for every penny. And if they did a brain scan….guess what they’d find?

[And last but not least, the heart-breaker Gorgeous Pup. Pup's actually on the far, far side of the slums although you can't tell because my camera's got rockin' zoom skills. So he can never really tell I'm talking to him. I so want to steal this dog.]

Yeah. That would only have them running more tests.

So it became apparent that my only legitimate option was to hop the bus to Yongsan, up to the 121 hospital where they already have all those lovely black & white images on file.

At this point it’s almost 3pm & it’s raining gang-busters. Driving to Seoul on the weekend is crazy enough, but add in rain?…ppfffhhhttt. Forget it. The bus would get me there quicker with less stress anyway.

So I had Eric take me to the on post bus station, dropped down my 6200 won for the 2 hour trip up there & then hopped a taxi over to the ER.

************

Since this story’s getting a little longer than I anticipated, I’m gonna stop here. Nobody likes to read that much at one time anyway. So I’ll pick-up again tomorrow.

Happy Friday!