The Tonsillectomy That Brought Me Joy

According to several of my students, in order to persuade a doctor to finally schedule your tonsillectomy these days, you have to be deathly ill with tonsillitis, somethin like 19 times in one year. How stupid is that? I once had a lovely, earnest student who nearly became mad with anxiety because all her bouts of illness caused her to fail her school year, and her dumb doctor STILL wouldn't agree to the surgery.

Heck, when I was a kid, if you coughed once, they yanked the suckers out. I realize that's not ideal, but isn't there some kind of happy medium here, folks?

Although I turned four when in the hospital for my tonsillectomy, I still have vivid memories of the event. I remember bein lured into the elevator to go for surgery, by an intern with a sucker. Believe me, I NEVER took candy offered by a stranger again. I remember fighting for my life when what felt like a hot, smothering cone was slapped over my face on the operating table; and I remember briefly gasping for fresh air when I had temporarily extricated myself from this attack. (Apparently, I kicked the anesthetist solidly in the groin but was swiftly thereafter wrestled under control by the OR nurses.) I remember wakin up to a miserably sore throat and lots of soothing Jello and ice cream. I remember squabbling with a spoiled urchin in the playroom, who would NEVER let anyone else ride the gorgeous rocking horse, and then wouldn't shut up when Roy Rogers and Dale Evans came on the television. (I SO wanted to ride to the strains of "Happy Trails", but never got the chance before I was shepherded back to my room when our one hour of play time had expired.) I remember bein scolded by a nasty nurse for wetting the bed in my sleep.

But most of all, I remember my daddy bringin me an Eatons Regal Doll for my birthday. She had curly golden hair, deep dimples, and a pretty blue dress with matching shoes. She squeaked when you squeezed her tummy. Her name was Joy. She became my all-time favourite doll. Over the years, each of my dolls had his or her distinct voice and personality, but Joy was always well-behaved, sweet, and kind to others. I guess Joy was my projection of the ideal child I wished I could be, but was too flawed to ever be. My mom knitted clothing for my dollies, right down to their underwear, and Joy was always the most carefully and adorably attired.

The doll was more expensive than my parents could really afford at the time, but I guess my dad felt so helpless, havin to leave his baby girl in that starched white bed every evening, that he was moved to buy me something extravagant. With that one purchase, he turned a frightening experience into a warm memory.

Joy is with me, still. She sits atop the bookshelf in my computer room, smiling down on me as I type this. And every time I look at her, I feel like Daddy's little girl all over again.

How I Earned My Black and Blue Belt

During my senior year in high school, someone enamoured with the idea of peer tutoring decided to organize evening classes, taught by talented students, to the inept majority - of which I was a charter member. There was a vast array of courses, both artistic and athletic, all of which served to make me even more acutely aware of how, um, shall we say, limited was my own repertoire of skills. During a moment of what must have been utter delusion, if not brain death, I irrationally signed up for judo. Judo. I couldn't kick my way out of a wet paper bag, and could hardly chop a carrot with a vegetable knife without wounding myself. Whatever had possessed me?

The class was taught by Glen Nakauchi, a scholarly Japanese boy who'd been a classmate of mine since grade 4, when we and a few select others were placed in an accelerated program created for those of us deemed to have high IQ's (don't ask...). I remember him best as the kid who enabled my group to win a challenge set by our teacher, to accurately determine the length of a rope without using any actual measuring devices. We just lay Glen on the floor and used him; he was exactly three feet tall at the time.

Anyway, Glen, unbeknownst to the rest of us, quietly trained for years in the art of Judo, probably because he got tired of bein tossed around like a Nerf football by bullies. On the way home from school one day, I saw him fling a tormentor twice his body weight effortlessly through the air onto the boulevard. That boy left him alone from then on. So Glen was my instructor, and he was a capable and patient one -incredibly patient, given my total inability to perform even the easiest Judo manoeuvre. He didn't even laugh at me. Not even once.

I was in relatively good shape back then, and handled the warm-up exercises competently. Sit-ups were my specialty, so things started off promisingly enough that first session. But then we had to learn how take a fall properly. Now, you'd think with all the practice I'd had, this would be a piece of cake, but nooooo. No matter how hard I tried to land my forearm loudly but painlessly on the mat, I ended up practically fracturing my elbow every time. After one evening, both of my elbows were technicolour, and I was humiliated. I was pretty good at grabbin my opponent and flingin him or her over my hip, but I tended to take it personally when I was the flingee. The next week I signed up for calligraphy. I stunk at that, too, but at least I didn't sustain any bruises.

In my middle age, I have managed to master one of the martial arts: I can harpoon a spring roll with a chopstick and lob it into my mouth without it landing in a pool of plum sauce in my lap. Ahhhhh grasshopper...the pupil surpasses the teacher...