Conversation with a 13-year-old

[Sound of mobile phone ringing.  I know it's Gilad calling because his ring is set to the theme song to 'Our Gang' (The Little Rascals)]

Me:  Hi Gili... what's up?

Gilad:  Hi abba, I'm calling from the school office.

Me:  [after long pause]  What happened?

Gilad:  Nothing.  My teacher said I should call you.

Me:  You want to be more specific?  You're calling me at work in the middle of a school day at the behest of your teacher to tell me something... good?

Gilad:  [sensing the extreme sarcasm in my last remark] No, I mean yes... I mean, I'm not in trouble, if that's what you 're worried about.

Me:  OK, so you have my undivided attention.  It is the second week of school and your teacher asked you to call me in the middle of the school day.  Did you win some sort of award?

Gilad [sensing that my sarcasm is now off the scale]:  He thinks I might have broken my finger.

Me:  He thinks?  What do you think?

Gilad:  Well, it hurts pretty bad... and it's swollen to almost twice its normal size.

Me:  I'm guessing this was one of those study-related injuries we're always hearing about?

Gilad: [missing the sarcasm altogether now]  Huh?  No, I mean it happened playing basketball during our break.

Me:  Okay, which finger are you talking about.

Gilad:  The fourth one.

Me:  You have ten fingers. Five on each hand.  Can you throw me a bone here?

Gilad:  My fourth finger... on my right hand.

Me:  You mean your right ring finger?

Gilad:  Um, I don't know... I don't wear rings.

Me:  You are aware that most people who wear rings tend to wear them on the finger next to the pinkie, right?

Gilad:  I guess... I never noticed.

Me:  Never mind... so you were about to tell me which finger you broke?

Gilad:  They're not sure it's broken...

Me:  [Yelling into the phone]  Gilad, if you don't tell me which finger it is so help me G-d...!

Gilad:  Oh yeah, sorry.... it's my fourth, um I mean my right ring finger.  But like I said, they aren't sure it's broken.  That's why they asked me to call you.

Me:  Because they know I have magical diagnostic powers on the phone?

Gilad:  No, because they don't know whether to send me home.

Me:  Let me ask you a question:  Does it hurt?

Gilad:  Yeah.

Me:  Will it hurt less at home?

Gilad:  No... but they think I should have it seen by a doctor.

Me:  Oh, I'm sure you should.  But I'm in Beer Sheva and Ima is teaching today in Jerusalem.  So you aren't going to be able to get to a doctor until after school anyway.  Why not just put some ice on it and wait a couple hours until we can actually do something about the problem?

Gilad:  They don't have ice in school.  And besides, I can't write.

Me:  That must have been a hellava basketball game... your ears and eyes also got hurt?

Gilad:  No, but it really hurts and I can't ice it here.  Besides, if I go home I can take something for the pain and put an ice pack on it.  I'll get all my assignments before I leave.

Me:  [Relenting]  Okay, let me talk to the secretary...  you can go home... but I'd better not find out you didn't do all your schoolwork.

Postscript:  I ended up leaving work early and told Gilad to meet me at the Jerusalem Terem (like an emergency triage clinic).  Gilad's finger was indeed quite swollen.  It looked like one of those really big hot dogs - the kind my Grandma Fay used to call 'specials' - albeit a hot dog that had been left in the sun to swell and blacken.  X-rays showed that it wasn't broken, but he had certainly jammed it pretty badly.

While we were waiting for the nurse to come tape his swollen digit to it's larger neighbor, I gently explained to Gilad that he needed to work on his phone manner. 

I asked him if he'd ever watched ER on TV.  When he nodded his head, I asked if he'd ever noticed that when the paramedics were wheeling in a new patient, they would pass on a bunch of relevant information in an information-packed stream of vitals and medical history called a 'bullet'. 

I told him that if he was well enough to call me to tell me about an injury, he'd better take a moment to collect his thoughts so he could give me the bullet... a nice succinct, information-rich description of the situation.  Otherwise if I had to drag the information out of him like I'd done that afternoon.... a broken or sprained finger would be the least of his problems.