So we're at Proper Pub last night, honoring Captain Jack upon his retirement after 15 years as Padres Director of Military Marketing. He had bought me a beer, which I was sipping at a table as he was making a typically funny and awesome farewell speech. As I join in on the applause, I notice that my right hook is really turned inwards and the metal plate that serves as a wrist, connecting my hook to my arm, looks loose. Maybe a screw popped out and the wrist is just loose?
Minutes later, without me even lifting my arm, the wrist completely loosens, the plate pops off, and my hook is dangling off my arm. This has never, in my nearly 33 years of wearing prosthetics, happened to me. What do I do? I mean, after all, I still have a full glass of beer left. Plus you have all these Shanas and Alyssas here - I ain't about to leave this party!
I say a quick prayer, thanking God that this happened AFTER my work day, and then just asking for His help to get through this. Where I'm standing, no one can actually see my arm because it's tucked underneath the table, so I decide to play it cool and not say anything. At my table is Edgar, KMad, AG, Joycey, and Kara and I figure either they'll see it eventually or I'll just choose a quiet moment and ask for help.
Joyce then asks about a Facebook status I posted a couple days ago in which I described slipping off a chair at a law firm, grabbing a cookie on my way down, and falling to the ground and kicking like a turtle stuck in his shell. While eating the cookie. True story.
"OMG, that was so funny!" Alison exclaims, startling Karen. "I'm surprised you didn't break your arm!"
"Uh, funny you should say that, AG," I replied. I then lift my right arm up above the table, hook dangling and all. "My arm literally just broke right now."
Bedlam. Pandemonium. Chaos. Shouts and gasps and laughter. Except for Edgar, he was like, Whoa.
KMad and AG shouted simultaneously, "Whaaaat happpennned? Are you okaaaay?"
Before I could assure them, yes, I was fine, Karen busts out her camera. "Lift your arm, I need a picture." She snaps a pic and then AG takes one with her phone, which I tell her to Mobile Upload. She doesn't, opting instead to send it to Slick Nick and Rossi, who are down the street eating sushi at The Dragon's Den.
By now everyone around us is noticing my calamity. Warren Miller takes a black cloth napkin and turns it into a tourniquet and Mikey Grace, my fellow Star Wars buddy, says in a British voice, "Just leave me! Save yourselves!" a la C-3PO when he was dismembered in Empire Strikes Back. Shana looks shocked so I wink at her. Doug Botos, who's an engineer, points out that every screw in the wrist is gone, at which point the hook disconnects from the cable and falls onto a chair.
There I am, a man with one hook, a suddenly-lightweight right arm (it's hollow), half a glass of beer now, and in need of a good screw.
KMad takes more pictures and I order more beer. When tough moments come in life, you have two choices: cry about it or laugh about it. We laughed about it.
AG grabs my wayward hook and clasps it onto the back of my shirt collar, Edgar and I continue our tradition of posing for pics together while looking mean and gangsta, we pay our bill, and we leave Proper. Steve Carter has joined us so he walks with our crew to Dragon Den on 10th & K. As we enter that establishment, we see Wuller, Slick, Rossi, and three girls on the patio, sitting at a fire pit. They look at me expectantly, I lift my hook-less arm, and whirl around so they can see the hook attached to my neck. LOL'sand OMG's ensue.
I tell Shawny that this is proof I would give my right arm for the Padres organization. I tell Golden he's my right-hand man. I tell Wuller I'm on the 15-day DL with a dislocated wrist. Don't stop me, AG, I'm on a roll.
Not wanting the entire conversation to be about my wrist management - you see what I did there, Erika? - I ask Slick if he's going to donate a kidney to alleviate Wuller's recurring kidney stones. Wull accepts. Slick refuses.
That crew had pretty much wrapped up their sushi so they cashed out and we all trotted to Toast, an Italian restaurant up one street on 9th & J. We sat down for some food and a nightcap - Slick, Rossi, AG, KMad, Carter, and me. AG removed the hook from my neckline, placed it in one of my four shirt pockets (I was wearing a cream-colored guayavera), and helped me with everything from pulling my credit card out to cutting up the chicken I ordered. She was awesome. P.S. - Yes, even at an Italian cucina, I order chicken.
I offer to use my free arm to stir KMad's wine but she declines. While laughing at our table's banter, I bang my arm against the table, as if to pound it, which I think embarassed Carter. We wave at people we see and know at the restaurant. Spotted: AJ Remen, dining with his parents, and also George Stieren, and Ann Pickard. Georgie and Ann pay a visit. I shake their hands with my left arm.
At the bar is Warren, enjoying a quick nightcap. He asks if I'm ok and I assure him I am and that KMad is driving me home, so my arm situation won't even be an ishoo. He then says, "Hey, thank youuu for the laughs, brother." I tell him as long as you have faith and friends, you can deal with anything, bruther.
So here I sit, wearing my backup set of arms, and guess what? The right cable snaps, meaning the arm elbow is stuck. Oh well, it's nowhere as severe as having a hook fall off. I'll get by with a little help from my friends.
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