a walking story

"I'm on my way! gonna be a couple minutes late", so read the text from my last tutee of the day yesterday.

It was a few minutes before our appointed time, so I wandered over to the tutoring center to wait. He came in a few minutes later, looking a bit disheveled.

"Sorry I'm late", he began. "I just crashed my bike", thus explaining the disheveledness.

I think I was looking at him funnily, mainly because I'd noticed dirt patches on his shirt, a few scrapes, and most noticeably, a decent abrasion on his forehead.

Nonetheless, he commenced sitting down and digging into his backpack like we would just start doing tutor things. And I was thinking, he can't tell me he just crashed his bike and show up with visible fresh wounds without elaborating.

I sought elaboration. 

He said he took his usual route to campus, which includes a short mountain bike trail. He hit a jump he always does, but this time, he missed the landing. 

During the telling of his tale, he paused to make a little "ptooey", noting that, "hmm, I still have some dirt in my mouth".

He then began to assess his wounds, seemingly for the first time. I indicated the scraped forehead and asked if he wore a helmet. He sheepishly pointed to the threadbare baseball cap he'd laid on the desk.

dramatization of his crash description

I mentioned that I also bicycle commute to campus, but not the same way he does - and by "way", I didn't just mean the route.

He had some visible scrapes on his left arm, then he noticed more scrapes on his chest where "this didn't do me any favors", regarding a chain thing he had around his neck, under his shirt.

He said he'd come straight to the tutoring center after arriving on campus, mentioning that others were looking at him on the way in, "like I was a walking story".

I told him not to worry about being a few minutes late, and to go ahead and hit the bathroom to "freshen up" if he wanted. He did.

When he returned, he said, "huh, you were right about my forehead, I didn't even feel anything there", which I found rather concerning.

He certainly seemed lucid enough. He's naturally a very chatty person, and seemed his usual self. Plus, he's a former US Marine, so I know he can take a punch.

I reminded him how adrenaline spikes after such an event, so even though he was feeling fine at the time, the full effects might not kick in until later. He seemed more concerned about his "$150-ish" sport sunglasses he'd broken the earpiece off of.

That out of the way, he whipped out a calculus packet. Most of it was completed, but he wanted help with a word problem.

We read the word problem together, and I started making a sketch to set things up. He stared at the problem, he stared at my sketch, went back to staring at the word problem... this went back and forth a couple more times as I tried to explain the sketch in connection with the words.

Eventually, he looked up from the paper and said, "I think I'm gonna go home".

"I'm in support of that", I replied, "In fact, you should probably go to urgent care"

Be careful out there, kids.