#1
I died the day I was born. And really, it doesn't matter how many hospital room visits, cuts, bruises, scrapes, abrasions or illnesses one endures... There's just no topping death on your birthday to make the #1 worst birthday ever.
"Fuck you! I ain't coming out!" I screamed with my little infant mouth from the other side of my mother's belly. "Put all the drops you want in her nose, you ain't gettin' me outta here!"
Well, what did you expect? It was COLD the day I was born! In fact, January 24, 1977 once held the record in Georgia for the coldest day in the history of January 24ths! There was an ICE STORM going on, for chrissake – and I'm not sure if you remember what it's like in a womb, but if you don't, it's certainly a heck of a lot warmer than a damn ice storm.
So, I stood fast. I planted my feet, grabbed on tight, and turned blue in the face. And the arms. And legs, chest, and every other little place that should have been bright pink. In fact, when the doctors and nurses finally got me the heck out of there, they found a 13lb baby who was one white hat and a cute song away from being a Smurf.
Now, at the time, they had no idea what was wrong with me, mostly because the Internet hadn't become a widely-used tool for the common human, so they couldn't visit my website and see just how damn stubborn I really am. They sat there and they scratched their heads and muttered a little, finally deciding that, whatever was causing it, it definitely wasn't a positive thing. So, they decided to just go nuts.
According to my mother, they began preparations to fly me via helicopter to Houston to the best neo-natal cardiac care unit in the nation. And that would have been ultra cool, honestly, as I've never been on a helicopter in my life, and if they'd done that, I wouldn't be able to say that. Not just because I would have been on a helicopter, but also because I would most certainly have died, since my Miles Davis themed hue had nothing to do with my heart.
They put both my mother and I on a screaming ambulance flying west from South Dekalb Medical Center in Decatur to Grady Memorial in Atlanta, the two of us surrounded by 12 cardiac specialists, neo-natal specialists, assistants to the specialists, and at least one monkey (because really, what's a circus without a monkey?). And while in transit to Grady, a very sharp young doctor named Janet decided – against all conventional medical wisdom – to ask my mother a few questions.
You see, my mother had pre-natal pneumonia. And because of this, her little unborn baby smurf had lungs that were filled with fluid. And from those rather morbid discussions that always seem to come up in high school biology involving drowning and suffocation, we all know that when the lungs can't get oxygen, then the blood can't get oxygen, and when the blood has no oxygen, it turns blue.
So, we arrive at Grady with a whole new course of action – get the big smurf into the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Only, there was trouble at the door. You see, I come from a very long line of smartasses. My mother? She's a smartass. And her father? Yep – a smartass. And I assume his father before him was one and HIS father before HIM was one as well (they were also dumbasses, incidentally, which explains why my Mother grew up Baptist). And there had obviously been some argument as to what this new addition to the famly was going to be named.
My mother really liked William Joseph as a name. My birth-father/sperm donor wanted me to be a "junior" (which baffles me, given that he didn't even like me all that much…), so he was pushing for Randal Joseph, Junior. And my grandfather, he didn't like any of it except for Joseph. So, while my mother and birth father gave my name as being William Joseph at South Dekalb, my grandfather – who sped over to Grady to jump-start the check-in process – checked me in as "Haud Nom Bar Joseph."
Which, in Latin, means "No Name But Joseph."
Great, granddad. Name your grandson Anonymous. That's freakin' brilliant. It certainly helped when they were trying to label the charts, and it really made getting me through the door super simple…
So, the doctors rush this anonymous smurf down a hallway while taking my poor mother into another room, so she had no idea that, while being wheeled down the hallway en route to the NICU, her brand new baby's brand new heart stopped making brand new beats.
And there you go. Inside of an hour of being born, this Peacock was no more.
I hadn't yet discovered what Crunch Berries or Jimi Hendrix even were at that point, but there I was, munching down some delicious cereal (with whole milk, because 2% is what they serve IN HELL) and listening to Jimi rip out "Machine Gun" for Ghandi and Einstein when none other than God the Almighty picked me up out of my little high chair, tossed me about three feet in front of him, and punted my ass out of Heaven.
They revived me and stuck me into a room that would end up costing my parents somewhere around the neighborhood of $25,000 a day to house me (I was pretty young, so I don't remember what the strippers looked like or what brand of champagne they served in that room, but I can sure as shit tell you there was no sex going on in there). It was about four days of intensive… Uh… Care… Later before my mom could even come in and see me – during which time I managed to crawl my ass back into that high chair in heaven and subsequently get booted out four more times. When she was finally able to see me, she had to put her hands in these huge robot-looking gloves to pick me up.
When she did, she somehow ripped the IV out of my head, causing a small "dent" and a bald spot in my head that persists to this day. And let me tell you, the only thing more fun than going through middle school with a haircut mandated by my father that showed off my dented-in bald spot was trying to tell this story without having the other kids say "Man, too bad you survived." So, uh... Thanks, mom (kidding, of course - after being separated from her baby for four days straight, naturally she was a little excited - and I'd say having a mother who was overly eager to see me offsets a bunch of dipshits from middle school, wouldn't you?)
So, they put the IV in my wrist, which I subsequently kicked through my skin (even I'm not sure how the hell I did it, but that's what my mom said I did. Apparently, I have super ninja skills that even I don't fully comprehend). The puncture wound didn't simply heal up, however - it actually formed a small 'flap' of skin overtop of another layer of skin, such that there is a hole in my right wrist that served as a constant source of entertainment through my teen years as I shoved nails and body jewelry through it and freaked everyone out. Tongue piecing? Pssssh. I was the only kid who had a WRIST piercing.
If that weren't enough, after they drained my lungs, I ended up developing jaundice - turning from blue to yellow and immediately confusing just about every LSD experimenter in the building. This made me move from a respiratory machine and a feeding tube to living under a blacklight for a few days - and once THAT was done, I developed an infection in my navel, which had to be cleaned out nearly hourly lest I become septic.
Every time they'd call my mom and say "You can take him home now," she'd show up only to find Alan Funt and the cast of Candid Camera standing there saying "HAHAHA! Just kidding, he's got something else wrong with him!"
Finally, I gave up. After fighting God, Jesus and St. Peter for a place at that blasted breakfast table with the greats, I finally accepted the fact that I was just going to end up staying here on Earth - a fact made easier by the release of Star Wars a mere four months after my birth, which made life worth living... That is, until George Lucas decided to make Greedo shoot first in the Special Editions, creating what has to be the absolute WORST editing decision in any film ever (which I will never ever ever forgive him for... YOU HEAR ME GEORGE? I gave up on going to HEAVEN for you, and you went and destroyed the best character ever to appear in any of your movies! I hate you in the face! For now! Until you release the newest remastering of your films on DVD where you fix this mistake, making it the 12th edition of the Star Wars saga I own!)
It was a total of 14 days I spent in the NICU, running up nearly $350,000 in hospital bills (which, adjusted for inflation, ends up being nearly ONE MILLION DOLLARS in 2006 (I guess that makes me a Million Dollar Baby, doesn't it? I wonder if I get an Oscar for that?).
Now you tell me... Have you ever died on your birthday? No? Well then - I win!
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