How Dave Matt Lauer'd it

People who know me (even a little bit) know that I'm generally unpleasant to be around in the morning. Almost unreasonably so.

I just have my morning routine and I don't like to get thrown off. So when Dave calls me in the morning, the first thing I think is, "Don't you KNOW better?"

This morning was no different.

As I was just beginning to straighten my hair around 7:45, the phone rang. Caller ID showed that it was Dave.

"Hello?" I said, already a little exasperated.

I heard him talking to someone else instead of responding to me. Cranky and annoyed, I tried again.

"WHAT? What do you want?"

"Hey," he said, sounding shaky. "I just got into a bike accident..."

Fuck. Now I feel terrified and guilty.

Apparently, Dave was riding into school down the Lakeshore trail at the same time some dumb whore woman was walking her dog without a leash. The dog darted in front of Dave and he crashed into it at 20 miles an hour, flipping over his handle bars and smashing into the concrete ground.

Both he and the dog were pretty effed.

After our phone call, Suz -- my total HERO -- immediately jumped in her car to go pick Dave up and bring him home.

When I saw him, I cringed. The left side of his forehead had big red scrapes, his right hand was completely torn up, his left ankle was cut, and his left shoulder was more scratched and damaged than anything.

At this point, I should let you know that I am NOT good with sights like that...

Once we were inside the apartment, Dave announced that the wounds needed to be cleaned. I had already made two ice packs, gotten out towels, poured him some water (because bike accidents make you thirsty?) and thrown his pillow onto the couch. What I had not done was prepare myself to clean any wounds.

Since I started to get a little faint looking at his hand, Dave had to clean that himself. It was sick. I recovered a bit and worked up the nerve to clean some other wounds, apply Neosporin and add band-aids. The only thing I couldn't fix was his shoulder.

Because Dave was in so much pain, we decided to go to the hospital. I packed magazines, iPods and water into my purse because everyone knows hospital visits take millions of hours out of your life.

Not Northwestern, though!

We got there at 10:30am and were out of there shortly after 12:30pm -- incredible.

The resident's official diagnosis was that "this is gonna hurt like ASS for a bit," but the x-rays didn't show any fracture, so Dave just got a sling to wear and we were sent home.

Phew.


So now he's focusing on loading up on Tylenol and icing his shoulder while I'm focusing on getting him to settle the fuck down. The boy has already left the apartment for his evening French class, sling and all! And I'm pretty sure he's planning on going into work tomorrow.

Ah, well. All that matters is that he's okay. Thank god for his helmet, thank god for efficient doctors and thank god for SUZ!