My Dad Got Run Over by a Train
Following the tracks of my tears
My dad got run over by a train. You heard me!
It happened years ago in Florida when I was accompanying the golden child on his annual spring pilgrimage to see his grandparents. I was there eight days before my dad finally hugged me and said hello.
As per usual protocol when visiting grandparents, vegetables were eschewed, bedtime routines were blown off, and hands are forever coated in a sticky, gunky, sugary type substance that resembles a combination of frosting and maple syrup. Sometimes it is frosting and maple syrup.
The child received many gifts daily from his grandparents, but one night he was given an especially exciting present. While my mom and I pawed through pawed through merchandise at the Saks OFF 5th outlet, my dad whisked the child away to the Toys R’ Us outlet. Several times during our shopping excavation, my dad sent videos of the holy child so tender and mild running through aisles laden with toys. Imagine being a kid in a soon-to-be-defunct toy store, surrounded by the dead-eyed stares and waving paws of your most beloved friends from Paw Patrol, Thomas the Train, and Daniel Tiger while a grown-ass man chases after you with his gold Amex screaming, Whatever you want! Just point, it’s yours!
“Should we pull the car around to the loading dock?” I asked. “Or do you think they have someone to help get a pallet to the car?”
“Just so you know,” my mom said. “We were planning to leave you and your brother something in our will, but…”
The Track Master Shakedown
When we met up again, the child was hugging a Thomas Track Master expansion pack containing 57 pieces we would undoubtedly lose within the next three hours. He was beaming.
“MOMMY, LOOK WHAT GEKKY* GOT ME! MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY LOOK! LET’S GO HOME AND PLAY RIGHT NOW!”
Now, if you know anything about this Thomas racket, you know there’s at least three different types of tracks and specific trains that go with them. Of course the tracks and trains are not compatible with one another because of course not. They’re close enough to completely frustrate a child because his train won’t stay on the track although it looks like it should and confuse a grandparent because why the hell would there be THREE DIFFERENT TYPES OF IDENTICAL LOOKING TRACK? But because I was a Thomas the Train savant, and I worked in marketing and have written my fair share of misleading box copy, and I have witnessed an abyss-opening tantrum because some asshole copywriter made me think I had purchased something whole and complete only to later find a crucial component was woefully absent, I knew enough to check the fine print to see if this particular product came with at least one train.
“Of course it does!” my dad shouted. “For that price why wouldn’t it?”
Oh Dad. Have you totally forgotten this whole parenting thing?
“Look, Mommy!” the child said. “There’s Gordon and James and Percy and Edward and THOMAS!”
Indeed there they were. Photographed right under the words: ALSO AVAILABLE.
“There is no train in this box.” I hated having to tell them this. It was like when I had to tell my dad scarfing 12-inch Meatball Marinaras seven times a day was not considered the Subway Diet. “He can’t play with this. We don’t have compatible trains.”
“He needs a train,” my dad stage whispered so the kid cradling his new Thomas track wouldn’t overhear us talking about this grave oversight. “He has to play with this.”
“Umm,” I said, looking around. Store clerks were shutting doors. Pretzel makers were pulling in sandwich boards.
“GET HIM A TRAIN RIGHT NOW!” my parents yelled in unison.
The mall closed at 9:00 PM. It was 8:56 PM. Of course Toys R’ Us was at the opposite end.
“GO!” the grandparents shouted, shoving credit cards and wads of bills in my hands. “GET US A TRAIN!”
I threw my Saks shopping bag at my mom and took off, running past Banana Republic and Tumi and ooooh, Le Crueset. I didn’t know they had one of those here. I would love a good deal on a Dutch oven. But how would I stuff that thing in my suitcase… Oh right! Like Thomas and his stupid, confusing friends, I was on a mission!
I got to Toys R’ Us with at least 32 seconds to spare. I found the Track Master compatible trains of which they had Percy, Emily, Sampson and James. Hmm…he does like Emily and who doesn’t love that pompous asshole James? No freakin’ idea who that Sampson character was. Can’t really go wrong with Percy, right? He’s Thomas’s best friend which is almost as cool as the eponymous engine himself. And this particular model talked (which I would later regret as I’m still hearing Percy’s “I must deliver the mail ON TIME” affirmations in my dreams.)
I returned to the car where the child was mis-buckled in his car seat and still clutching the box of track, but none the wiser.
LET’S GO HOME AND PLAY TRAINS!
It took my mom and I an hour to put that damn expansion track together. Forty-nine minutes of me swigging wine right out of the bottle while throwing plastic pieces around the living room and 11 minutes for my mom to sit calmly and quietly with the instructions and complete the project. The child was wildly in love with the track and watching Percy chug up the hill commenting about what a God damn busy engine he was and down the corkscrew hill worrying about getting the mail delivered on time. When it was time to put on his pajamas and do stories the child insisted Percy came too.
My dad laid next to the child in the tiny twin bed, shooting the shit, talking about trains and how useful Percy was because he DELIVERED THE MAIl ON TIME and never once gave him the ol’ “less talking, more doing” lecture my brother and I were subjected to when we got a little sloppy bagging leaves in our yard. With no track in bed, the child improvised and used his grandpa. Percy chugged over grandpa’s belly, to his shoulders, up the back of his neck to the top of his thinning hair. Percy is a dedicated little engine with a strong desire to please. He is also a battery operated masochist who promptly grabbed each precious strand of my dad’s hair in his spinning wheels and ripped them from the follicles like the wretched, should-be-banned-in-all-states Epilady torture device of the 80’s. (Someday I’ll tell you about my one and only run-in with that bitch.)
“HELP!” my dad shouted. “MAKE IT STOP!”
Although I was sitting right there and plainly saw Percy gathering and eating hair, and heard my dad call for help for the first time ever in my life it didn’t make sense to me. What was going on? What was my dad asking me to do? Could that be a toy train devouring my father from the noggin down?
Don’t Call Me
Here’s the deal. I’m no good in crisis. Once when I thought Bart had shut the child’s finger in the car door, I ran behind our yard waste bin, clasped my hands over my ears, bobbed back and forth and screamed, NO NO NO! until he came outside to ask if I knew where the Pirate’s Booty was. And other times when bad things happen I laugh. I know it’s wrong! My brain tells me it’s not an appropriate response. I want to help. Yet, I cry or I laugh. In this case, my response was the latter. All the while my dad was yelling to turn the damn thing off!
Oh right. The train!
“I don’t know how to turn it off!” I laughed. This Percy had a different off switch than the Track Masters I was used to and I couldn’t locate it because I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Also my fine motor skills were compromised due to the bottle of wine I consumed putting that stupid track together!
“STOP MOVING HIM!” my dad yelled.
“I’m trying to find the off switch!”
“IT’S A KID’S TOY! HOW HARD CAN IT BE?!”
“Bust my buffers! I’m a really busy engine!”
“SHUT UP, PERCY!” We both yelled.
I finally found the switch, but the damage was done. Each of Percy’s wheels were wrapped around my dad’s sparse locks like a tight perm on a roller. Every time I moved the train, I pulled my dad’s hair.
“MOM!” I yelled. “We need help!”
And because I get my caring, compassionate nature from my mother, she basically told us to fuck off, she was busy playing Words with Friends, and she hates April Fool’s Day.
“It’s not a joke!” I laugh-yelled, thinking what an awesome joke it would have been if it were even April Fool’s Day! Her refusal to help made things even funnier. I mean, I could see her sitting at the dining room table like 16 feet away, punching letters into her iPad, totally nonplussed about all the excitement happening in the guest room.
“GOD DAMMIT, PERCY!”
“Seriously, Mom, we need you!” Oh, this was too much. I was doubled over, busting a gut and dislocating my shoulder because every time my arm moved, my dad winced in more pain. Finally the two year-old took matters into his tiny hands. The little Lassie-in-training ran straight to Grandma Juju and demanded she put down her iPad and come help his Gekky.
“Oh fine,” she complied. “But this better be good.”
“Hold Percy right here,” I said, putting her hand next to my dad’s almost scalped scalp. “Be right back!”
The child threw his arms around his grandpa and started whimpering.
“I’m sorry, Gekky!”
My dad tried to turn his head and comfort the human he loved most in the world. “OWWW!!! Sorry! No, it’s not your fault! Never your fault! You didn’t do anything wrong! Never ever ever!”
I returned seconds later with my phone and began snapping photos for this year’s Shutterfly retrospective. Naturally. This is also why you should never ask me to be your emergency contact. Or your partner on Naked and Afraid. While you’re pulling maggots out of your butt crack, I’ll be Instagraming that shit.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU’RE TAKING PICTURES? REALLY?”
I did this for you people. Content over caring.
Once satisfied with my photo documentary, I resumed the task of untangling my dad’s precious strands from Percy’s determined wheels. It was an effort in futility which my mom recognized immediately. The child was sobbing and clinging to my father’s neck and of course that made me feel terrible. I’m not a total monster. I laughed until I cried, which mad the child cry harder because now his grandpa and his mom were crying!
“Mommy’s not really crying,” I tried to explain. “I’m laughing so hard tears are coming out.”
“BECAUSE YOUR MOMMY IS HEARTLESS!”
My mom returned with scissors. She would make a wonderful Naked and Afraid partner if it didn’t involve being naked. Or afraid.
“Move,” she directed and got to work.
Percy was freed seconds later. My dad was relived. The child stopped crying. I left to call my brother because I knew he would love this story.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MAIL!!??
For a minute I thought Percy’s fate was sealed. He was the train who hurt Gekky. Fuck anyone who wanted their mail on time. He would be cast off, banished to the Rubbermaid bin of misfit toys along with slip proof baby kneepads and Touchy Feely Elmo. But the next day the great debacle was all but a distant memory. My dad combed his hair in such a way the scalping was barely evident and Percy was back to climbing up and down plastic corkscrew tracks and BEING A GOOD LITTLE TRAIN. We were just sitting down to coffee and homemade biscuits when the child approached his grandfather, Percy in hand. My dad’s face paled a bit when he saw the little engine that could pluck a bitch coming towards him.
“Gekky?” he asked. “Can you get the hair out of Percy’s wheels please? It’s gross.”
I mean ew, right? Rude. Leaving your hair all tangled up in a child’s toy train wheels?
Clearly my son has inherited the compassion gene.
XO,
Shelly
*Gekky is the child’s nickname for my dad an no one, including the child, knows why.
Had a blast answering very probing and deep questions from Mr.
himself which was an honor and a privilege! Seriously, I loved every second of coming up with answers. This is my kind of interview. Make sure you check out Lee’s whole Brief Interviews with Hilarious Substackers series this week. Thank you, Lee!
Oh my word this is hilarious 😂 poor Gekky!
Also we had a Percy that would shout BUST MY BUFFERS at us too, the pervert
Has your dad recovered? There needs to be a warning label-- May Cause Hair Loss.
And Bart wanting the hair removed! Haha. 🤣