So this toddler walks into a bar and says gahblaslkjdlkjelj!

In my mid-20s, while taking a break from the media business, I was bartending at a local country club, pulling in a (very) modest wage from the twenty-five cent tips so graciously left for me by the elderly golfers and faring better monetarily during the weekend wedding gigs and holiday parties. It wasn't going to make me rich but it was a good job and I enjoyed my time working there.

One afternoon after tending to a boring, though, strangely fascinating reception where an 85 year old woman and her wheelchair-bound 90 year old husband renewed their wedding vows on site (The bride wore her old wedding dress. Oh yes she did.) I had a lull toward the end of my shift. Part of my job was to restock the liquor bottles when the bar got low from the store room in the cold, stone basement, so I grabbed my empty Tanqueray box and headed for the cellar door.

Through poor design the basement door was located directly in the path of the kitchen door. If left open the door would be in the way of the waitresses rushing into the kitchen with their empty trays ready to be filled with dry wedding chicken or baked scrod. So leaving the door open would mean unhappy waitresses, which would mean a stingy payout to me, the humble bartender, at the end of our shift.

As I started down the first few steps with my unwieldy box I realized I had left the door ajar. I took a step up to close it, then turned and - for some reason that still to this day I don't understand - I chose to step not onto the stair in front of me but the step in front of that. The forward momentum propelled me down the rest of the stairs, ass over teakettle, and I landed with a thump on the concrete slab at the bottom. But not before I cracked my head open on the exposed rock wall.

I lay there stunned and bleeding (head wounds bleed like a sumofabeech but thankfully I think I was only knocked out for a few seconds) and afraid to move, until someone heard my cries for help through the now closed door. I laid there until the EMTs put me on a backboard and brought me to the emergency room. And I laid there cracking jokes to put everyone else at ease.

Hi! I could have a broken back, but did you hear the one about the priest, the rabbi and the duck who walked into a bar...

I wasn't trying to be strong, really, it's a defense mechanism. Whenever something gets uncomfortable I make jokes. Usually self-deprecating ones. On that day I think I probably made fun of my clumsiness and my inability to see things spatially, and probably the 12 inch crack in the stone I made with my thick skull.

That poor rock, just minding its own business...

Unfortunately, it's not a trait that I've grown out of and whenever I have to go see the doctor, any doctor for any reason, I'll usually undermine the severity of the situation by poking fun of myself. I make it very hard on myself to get an accurate diagnosis.

To make a long story short, I was fine. I have back problems and the occasional migraine that I didn't experience before, but I healed quickly. However, this story has nothing to do with my health or my back and everything to do with Chicky.

Didn't see that coming, did you? Neither did the rock.

(See?? There I go again! It's a sickness. I can't stop.)

The other day during her two year well visit I told the pediatrician that I was concerned about Chicky's speech development. She's speaking, just not nearly as well as most of her peers.

It's probably nothing, I told the pediatrician. I'm sure she's fine and just taking her own sweet time...

But I can't ignore the red flags popping up whenever I hear Chicky say "Dat" instead of "Cat". My kid can't say "cat". She can say other things, but not "cat"? And she speaks very simply, with very few sentences.

I'm sure we'll have a great laugh about that when Chicky grows up. It will be our little joke - Hey! Wook at dat Dat! Ha! That'll be hilarious when she's 16! Of course, not if she's still talking like that. Not that she would but...

I don't want to seem like an overprotective mom...

I'm sure she's fine...

But...

So there I was, trying to talk myself out of getting help for my daughter by joking about being a neurotic mother who can't stop hovering over her child. Thankfully her pediatrician saw right through me and recommended a call to Early Intervention.

You know, just in case. It's probably nothing, but better safe than sorry.

God help me, if it would have been for me I would have shrugged off the idea of a specialist. I would have poo poo'd the whole idea. It's fine. I'm fine. It's all fine. But for my daughter I can't live like that. I've got to start changing my ways. Chicky is going to see a specialist.

And if it's nothing I won't feel badly for taking up that specialist's time.

Now, if I can just convince myself of that.

Until then I'd better brush up on my knock knock jokes.