A Fractured Fairy Tale

This was going to be a report from the Austin Film Festival about Friday night's screening of Big Wednesday, of writer/director John Milius and his love of guns and surfing, but a funny thing happened on the way to the film fest.

Actually, not very funny at all.

Five minutes before I was going to leave, my son Liam jumped to the floor and broke his foot -- a spiral fracture of the first metatarsal in his right foot to be precise. So instead of hobnobbing with celebs and cineastes, I spent six hours in the emergency room at the Dell Children's Hospital, as my son went mental from the pain and his inherent distrust of doctors, nurses, and the medical trade in general.

The first three hours were spent among the downtrodden in the waiting room, then after we had attained deliverance to the actual ER, we spent ten minutes getting treatment and two hours and fifty minutes waiting around. While we were able to spend that time removed from the Tex-Mex germ lab that was the waiting area, we were doubtless subjected to many viruses and pathogens, such as whatever psycho death germs were emanating from the next bed, where a screaming toddler was having a very nasty boil lanced.

As we were kept waiting, I watched ten innings of the National League Championship Series game two between Colorado and Arizona while waiting for the tech to come and put a cast on Liam, who had mercifully fallen asleep in the interim. If he had been awake, he would kicked the guy in the face while shrieking in terror, so thank heaven for small favors.

Finally, we were able to get out of there, and luckily the hospital accepted our Florida insurance, or else the credit card would've taken another hit.

Sleep has been a rare commodity in the time since then, with the boy waking up screaming in pain every twenty minutes. It doesn't help that he spits out the Children's Motrin when we try to administer it. Maybe he's paranoid because he heard the FDA report on over-the-counter medications.

I was too groggy to make it to Oliver Stone's presentation the next morning, and only went to a couple of films later in the day.

I will return with a recap of the parts of the festival I actually attended, but right now, I've got to look after the little man.