Geoff had banged up his legs and one of his feet pretty badly at the quarry. Although he insisted on stopping at the store to buy some more things for the dinner of his dreams, I was scared that he had really hurt himself. We went back to the house
in Stockbridge, and Geoff kept saying that he was fine while at the
same time limping terribly. I looked at him with worry. "You keep
looking at me with your beautiful big tragic eyes," he said. "I love
you. What can I do to make you stop worrying?"
"We can go to
the hospital," I said.
"But we were going to stay home and have steak
and corn," Geoff said. "I was looking forward to that."
"We
can have steak and corn tomorrow night," I pleaded. Finally he
agreed. We looked up the nearest hospital emergency room, which seemed
to be in Pittsfield. "We should get something to eat, though," said
Geoff. "I'm sure we're going to be stuck in that ER for a long time."
So, strange as it may seem, we stopped at the
Over the Rainbow restaurant and
got grinders, as they say in Massachusetts. Then we went to the ER,
and after triage we watched one of the Star Trek movies on the waiting
room TV while we waited for Geoff to be called.
The x-rays showed that he hadn't broken anything, but had some torn ligaments and tissue. The doctor kept warning us about some sort of dire complication, which fortunately never came to pass. It was late when we finally drove back to Stockbridge, but at least I felt better. And Geoff, well -- he was hoping they'd give him some painkillers. Which they did, sort of. Tylenol, whoo-hoo.
That was a few years ago, and we haven't been back up to Stockbridge since then. Whenever I bring it up, Geoff mentions the Berkshire Medical Center emergency room, chicken parm grinders, and the Star Trek movie, all with great fondness for the memory of that particular evening of our vacation. "Good times, he says with a sigh, "good times."
