Many years ago (I think I’m now old enough that this is no longer an understatement :-\), I was home one night after school and had nothing to do. My mother was out, at her dart league, and my sister and her friend were downstairs watching TV. I was in university at the time, but I had no outstanding school work that night and couldn’t think of anything to do. I was completely bored. I’ve always had a lot to do, but for some reason, I just couldn’t think of anything specific to do in that moment, at least nothing that I could easily start doing right away.
Despite not being diagnosed with it, I definitely have (and likely always had ADHD) and find it excruciatingly frustrating to sit still and do nothing. I need constant stimulation. It got pretty bad that night. I swear I felt actual, physical pain from the boredom. At one point, I was squirming on my bed and writhing in agony (looking back, it might have been what they call in the Autism community, “stimming”).
I decided to get something to eat. I went down to the second floor and looked through the fridge for something. I don’t think I was specifically hungry, but I just needed to do something, anything. I ended up grabbing an orange, a tangerine, and a grapefruit (I like citrus).
On the way back up the stairs, I continued keeping myself busy by playing ball with the orange, throwing it up in the air, then bringing my hand down fast from above it to catch it with a hard thwack. I got back to my room and sat on the bed and continued throwing the orange up and catching it, increasing the speed at which I would smack-catch it.
Then, on one throw, I didn’t quite close my fingers fast enough, and instead of catching the orange, I ended up hitting it, hard. The orange came towards me, propelled by the hard hit from my hand. It flew downward in the blink of an eye and before I knew it, it had taken up residence square in my crotch.
Needles to say, I keeled over, once again writhing in agony, squirming in physical pain, but this time, not from boredom, but from the likelihood of being unable to bear children anymore. I wriggled around for a while, waiting anxiously for the pain to subside, but it took its sweet time.
Then I started laughing.
I was thankful that it wasn’t the grapefruit.