ajarora^1.0

Those of you that have been unfortunate enough to see me with my shirt off have probably seen the wicked scars on my left shoulder. Although I sometimes tell people I got them in Vietnam to assess our nation’s education system (it’s pretty bad), the real story involves boiling water in a freak accident at a hotel room in Mississippi when I was a baby.

There was a dust storm the night it happened, and our car ran out of gas on the way to the hospital. My dad ran out with an empty pot and flagged down a truck for fuel. We made it to the hospital just in time and I was in critical condition.

My parents were hysterical and angry, and probably blamed themselves a lot. I guess it was around Easter because a bunch of random people gave us baskets full of goodies and toys. I can’t imagine how much their support could have meant to my parents.

Ever since then my family has made a bunch of Easter baskets every March and taken them to the pediatrics ward of our local hospitals. These days we’re always spread out, so we usually hit multiple regions. But this was the first year I bought the supplies and made the baskets without a single family member.

It was kind of fun picking out what chocolates and toys to get. I mostly approached it from a kid’s perspective (I’d be pissed if I opened an egg with a pencil topper), but also found myself thinking like a parent (didn’t wanna overload the sick kids with HFCS). Obviously had to hook ‘em up with Reese’s Peanut Butter and Cadbury Cream eggs (proof of Christ’s resurrection) and some sweet unisex toys.

A few days before there was a good story on All Things Considered about some  (stupidly conducted) research about how spending money on others makes you happier than spending that money on things for yourself. In this case (as always) I spent it for both.

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