We were in Mendoza for the past couple of days. We had a good time—more on that later. As we waited for the elevator one night, I hugged Feng.
“I’m happy,” I said.
The problem is, every time I dare to be happy and relax, something happens.
Case in point.
Earlier in the evening, clouds came in from the Andes, and it was stormy in the mountains. I knew it was going to rain. I just didn’t know how or when. The weather was still nice and hot when we came back from our walk along San Martín, so we stopped by the supermarket, took pictures of the many souvenir stores, and dropped off yogurts and bananas at the hotel.
It was only 7:30 p.m., a bit early to eat dinner in Argentina, but we were hungry and tired. We found a restaurant, ordered, and relaxed—or tried to. Mark was tired too, and the more tired he is, the more he moves. Go figure.
The food was good, and it still wasn’t raining. We walked back to the hotel. Feng called his parents on Skype while I helped Mark in the shower. Then I decided to call my parents as well.
I clicked on the phone number, adjusted the volume, and got ready.
Behind me, Mark was jumping on the bed while Feng tried to get him to put his T-shirt on. I hate it when Mark turns every simple task into a complicated one. It should be easy: put the T-shirt on, watch TV, relax. But with Mark, it turns into a ten-minute struggle—put the T-shirt on, jump around, run away, cry, watch TV, cry some more.
My mom answered the phone. I said “hi,” and suddenly I heard a big bang.
I didn’t turn around right away. Feng and Mark are always banging into things. Two guys.
A split second later, Feng shouted, “There is blood everywhere!”
That time, I turned around.
Mark was on the bed, and there was a lot of blood on the white sheets.
“Oh fuck!” I screamed. “Call you back!” I told my mom.
At first, I couldn’t see where Mark was hurt. Head, yes. But where? Feng had wrapped it in the white towel we had just used after his shower to stop the bleeding, and it was already turning crimson. Where was the cut? How big? How deep?
It was hard to see through the blood and the hair.
I asked one of the hotel employees for ice and a doctor.
Mark was fully conscious, crying and talking, so I wasn’t too worried about head trauma. Stitches might have been needed, though. I couldn’t tell how deep the cut was. Mostly, I was mad at both Feng and Mark, who wrestle all the time. Mark thinks he is the “dragon warrior.” Yeah. Great. See where that gets us?
“I told you to stop playing games with him!” I shouted. “You two always get hurt. I’m sick of it!”
We eventually calmed down and waited for the doctors. At one point, we went downstairs. The doctors arrived—one older guy with a cane, House M.D.-style, and one younger one, ER-style. They were friendly and gentle. They checked for signs of head trauma and declared the injury superficial. No stitches needed.
Great.
We went back to the room, cleaned the bed and the blood, with Mark half asleep, sitting on a chair and muttering “blood…” We eventually went to sleep.
There was a thunderstorm outside. More loud bangs. Not a quiet night.
We were lucky this happened in a clean, modern hotel room. It would have been a very different story if he had hit his head on metal—or if cockroaches had been hanging around.
Cost of the medical services? Only 150 pesos, about US$15.
No more jumping on beds.
Seriously, guys.
OMG !! that was so scary! ! happy the injury was not severe.
No more dragons jumping on the bed !!
Yeah ! Warrior’s wounds !
By the way, since you are near the Andes :
Check episode 1, Llama drama, at the bottom and episode 2, Gran dillama, in the middle. Episode 3 is planned to be ready wednesday.
Argh, can’t with my spotty connexion 🙁
Ah, yeah. The first one is here :
and it is 34 Mo.
The second one is here :
and it is 120 Mo.
You can download it and watch it later, but even 34 Mo can take a lot of time and sometimes hotels don’t like this kind of traffic (Note that these downloads are perfectly legal). Moreover, they are just 5 minutes videos, so, it won’t distract Mark for a long time.
I’ll try when I get a better connection!
Juliette, here in Argentina we have an alternative to stitches….home-made, informal, you name it….it’s called “La gotita” and you can find it in any hardware store for about AR $ 20.-
La gotita (“the little drop”) is normally used for glueing things…like plates, souvenirs, etc….when there is a not-that-deep-cut, some doctors here use La gotita instead of stitches.
I know it sounds weird but it actually works and lots of doctors use it. Ask anybody in Argentina and you’ll see…for what I see in the last picture, La gotita would have worked on Mark’s head.
BTW, Feng is such an asshole….he’s a grown up, can’t act like a 5-yeard old….
Last year, I open my lower lips, and the doctor at the ER just put some glue over the hole because it was too small to put stitches.
So, it exists in Canada too.
Ouch. What happened? It bleeds quite a bit there too I think.
I hit my lip with the handle of a chain binder under the load I was tying down. Not too much blood, but the funny thing was that there was a plain hole, water was exiting this way when I closed my mouth and try to blow.
Eeek. Did you at least turn it into a piercing? People pay money for that.
I think there is something similar in France… or is it in Canada? Can’t remember but the “glue” rings a bell. Mark looks okay though, I think it will heal on its own.
It’s not really Feng’s fault, I mean, he didn’t do anything. We each have our way to deal with Mark. I am always afraid to get hurt because he can kick hard and frankly, I don’t have the energy to wrestle with him to get him to do something. Feng is better at playing the game this way but yeah, one of them often gets hurt… most of the time, it’s actually Feng!
Hope everyone is healing well and that at least one of you has had a glass of malbec for me 😉
I’ll have the wine and encourage Mark to heal 😉 (he’s fine, but now he has a cold!)