April 10: Ping!

There is a woodsy area along one of the main roads that I grew up near. You see, in East County San Diego some people have a few acres of land that they will leave unattended and let grow at will. For the most part, a home owner in that area will focus his efforts on the main yard around his house. He'll put in sod and shrubs, but he'll leave most of the land alone. He'll let the natural, dry country brush go crazy. It's these people that wonder why they are always prime targets for the fires that roll through the area every other year, but I digress.

On one particularly hot day when I was a freshmen in high school, some buddies of mine and I thought it would be fun to meet at the road and walk through the woodsy brush towards the home of one of my friends. I'm pretty sure we were going to go swimming once we got there and just hang out at the pool, but we never made it that far.

As we tramped through the fallen oak leaves and deeper into the woods, we were forced to walk in a single file due to the increasingly thick bramble. Dominic, whose house we were going to, led the way, followed by Brad and myself bringing up the rear. I don't know what it was doing there or how it came to rest in this place, but as our trail led towards a solid wood fence, at which point our path would veer left, I found a silver spoon hiding in the ground cover. It was filthy and tarnished from the neglect and years it had experienced from sitting outside.

Being the joker that I am, I thought it would be a fantastic practical joke to play on Dominic to throw the spoon as hard as I possibly could at the approaching fence. In my mind, the spoon would invisibly fly by my friends and crash into the fence with a loud and thunderous boom. The idea was to scare them with this sudden burst of sound and it was, I thought, a fail-proof prank.

I waited until we got a little closer to the fence before cocking my arm back and firing the dirty utensil out of my right hand. I watched in slow motion as the spoon did somersaults in the air past an oblivious Brad. I never knew that the meeting of metal and skull could create such a loud ping sound. The spoon shot straight up after it slammed into the back of Dominic's head and returned to the ground a moment later.

After nearly falling on his face from the sudden impact, Dominic turned around while reaching his hand into his curly, blonde hair. He didn't find the humor in my joke as he looked at two shiny red fingers. He approached slowly at first as I walked backwards and tried to explain to him that my intentions were not malicious. He then sprinted towards me as I told him that it was a spoon that hit him and that I was trying to hit the fence. I even pointed out the spoon that had fallen to the ground which was a bad idea. He picked it up and in his growing anger acted as though it was his turn to throw it at my head. Lucky for me, he threw it into the woods and off the trail, but that was the end of our plans to go swimming. I guess taking a metal object to the back of the head leaves a person just wanting to lie down.

Dominic, if you're reading this, please know that I was and am very sorry. I'm pretty sure we've both laughed at the incident since then, but I don't blame you for wanting to throw it back at me; I'm thrilled that you didn't, though! So, kids. Let that be a lesson to you. Don't ever go walking through the woods with me following. You might just be the next victim to cause an awesome metallic reverberation with your head.