It was August, 2003. Mark and I decided to take our daughter Riva to the Black Hills of South Dakota for our family vacation. We borrowed my brothers RV, packed it up with the kid and our two dogs and hit the road. Like usual we got a late start and didn’t leave town till about 7 pm on a Sunday evening. Mark took the wheel and drove till he was too tired to drive, when we pulled into an RV campground for the night. The RV was set up so that there was a double bed above the drivers cab, and another bed could be made by lifting up the kitchen table, pulling out a heavy steal pole that held up the table, and then the table top butted up on top of the two booth-seats. The seat cushions spread out over the length of this, thus making a single bed for our daughter. That first night we were all so tired and nothing significant happened. We found our campground, hooked up the toilet, set up the bed for Riva and went to bed.

The next morning we stopped at the sewage dump to empty our sewage before we hit the road. Mark did the honors, spilt a bit of sewage on himself, but otherwise everything went smoothly. Life was good. Mark took the wheel again with Springstein blaring on the stereo and wanderlust in our hearts we were on our way to adventure and showing our daughter this great country of ours. As we drove and watched the scenery the one thing that sticks out mostly in my mind was the miles and miles of sunflowers on both sides of the highway. I felt like I was Dorothy on The Wizard of Oz. Sunflowers as far as the eye could see. But wait. Was there an idiot in The Wizard of Oz? If only I had a brain. Oh yeah, the scarecrow. It only goes to prove that every great story has its idiot, or is it every idiot has a great story?

We drove through the day and late into the night. I think it was about midnight when we started looking for another RV park. At about 1:30 we pulled into our campground and started setting up the RV. Mark did his duty of hooking up the toilet while I fixed us a snack, and Riva took the dogs out. After we ate I started making the table into a bed. I wasn’t strong enough to pull the pole out by myself, it seemed to be stuck. Mark came to help and he was having a hard time with it too. Riva and I watched in horror as Mark bent over the pole, his forehead aligned with it, while he grunted and pulled with all his might. Just as the words of warning were coming out of my mouth, the pole flew out and hit Mark smack between the eyebrows. He screamed in pain as he held his forehead, blood dripping down his face. Riva started crying for fear that her daddy might be hurt badly. I asked Mark if he was okay as I packed a towel with ice to press against his head. He immediately took the ice pack and held it on his forehead without letting me look at it. I had to cuss and swear at him while Riva screamed at him because he would not let me look at it. We finally scared him into believing he might need stitched because of all the blood. Reluctantly he let me look at it. As I cleaned off the blood a small gash appeared right in the middle of his forehead. I couldn’t help but laugh because the skin around the gash was swollen and the gash itself began to take the shape of a butt crack. I laughed and laughed and told him that now he was a real butthead. Riva couldn’t take it anymore; she had to get a good look at what I was laughing at. We both laughed so hard we were in tears. I know I shouldn’t have laughed, my husband whom I love dearly was hurt and in pain, but he had a tiny little butt in the middle of his forehead, and it looked like a real butt! Mark finally had to see what we were laughing at; he proceeded to the bathroom mirror. As he turned around I could see the smirk on his face. He was still in pain but even he couldn’t stop from laughing at his butthead. Relieved that he wasn’t hurt badly, I put a band-aid on his boo-boo and we all went to bed tired but laughing. The next morning Mark’s little butthead swelled up to big butthead, leaving us in tears and laughter all over again.

Before I sat down to write this article I had to go take a good look at Mark’s forehead to see if I could still detect the butt between his eyebrows. I am happy to report that it is well healed and has turned to a tiny scar that is unnoticeable unless you look very closely.