Sean’s Terrible Horrible No-Good Very-Bad Day

I tweeted a few days ago about watching “Independence Day” and thinking of my son, who busted a lip and a front tooth while watching it 14 years ago. “Long story” I said. And here it is.

The day didn’t even start well. Excited about playing Aslan in his summer camp’s production of “The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe,” he bravely donned the costume I made….in which he more resembled a daisy than a lion. During the play, one of the kids untied him, and the plastic end of the jump rope whipped around and smacked him right in the kisser. That should have been a warning.

Since Sean was only 10 at the time, Bruce and I pre-screened ID4 to ensure appropriateness. Only one “boo shot” (a family term): when the alien wakes up in the isolation room and starts running amok. Sean always trusted our “boo shot” judgment, and he and I went out for a pit stop right before the scene started.

I waited in the lobby, and after a while, an usher came up and asked me if I had a blond-headed son. Why yes, I do. “You better come with me,” he says. Oh dear.

Turns out Sean got into too big of a hurry, ran to the bathroom, and tried to open the heavy metal door. With his face. Gashed lip, broken front tooth, blood everywhere, howling 10-year-old. I had him sit with the usher so I could retrieve Bruce from the theater.

Four stitches and several dentist visits later, repairs were complete. He boasts a wee scar on his lip, and half of his left front tooth is fake, although you can’t tell by looking at it. Our church pictures that year feature him in his Webelo uniform with a closed-lip smile, so the big ugly silver brace wouldn’t show (the dentist removed it later). I always warned the youth director about the tooth prior to the ski trip, knowing that if he face-planted on the slope, the fake tooth would snap clean off. Youth director panic was not required, I told her. Sure enough, he came home one year all snaggle-toothed and very proud of it.

He calls it “the cursed movie” to this day (he’s now 25; pictured). And I think of him every time I watch it.