The people of Nashville must have overlooked my missive expressing displeasure with my role as a strange man wandering up to families outside schools. You’re right to think the world is just awful, but #ScaiaBlog is about hope.

Around this time 8 years ago, the ol’ Scaia Sagacity [or, “Scaigacity,” if you will] was rebooting after the car crash that, to my recollection, did not actually happen.

Now, I volunteer at Baylor Rehab. When I was there last weekend, I had a chance to meet several others who’d had a traumatic brain injury. The hospital wanted to show that goals can still be attainable and you can still live a positive, productive life. I was presented as someone who’d had success after an injury, so having me wander into their rooms as a model was surely a disappointment to the other survivors.

When I arrived, I was strangely proud of myself for remembering people’s names eight years later. I started rattling off the names of therapists, nurses and doctors I remembered to people who hadn’t, technically, asked me to do so.

But that visit put me back in the mindset of the fella who woke up in a hospital one morning not sure where he was. And I really mean that, too. That first morning, I recall wondering why I would have been in Texas.

I was at JPS in Fort Worth about eight weeks and then Baylor Rehab another six. I only remember the last two. #ScaiaFam reports it’s probably better I don’t remember the other 12. I’m told I would alternate between being belligerent to nurses who were trying to help and asking them to marry me [sometimes during the same trip to the room]. In between, I was in a fair amount of pain. Given that I still have some handsome scars running down my leg, I believe that story checks out.

Having gone back to visit, though, part of me now misses being able to just hang out in bed all day and maybe someone shows up to take you on a brief walk or play some problem solving games.

I bring this up because the other day, I noticed water in the kitchen sink at the Ol’ Scaia Place was draining slowly. I wound up having to take apart the entire racket under there to find the clog.

I do not recall a plumbing course at Baylor Rehab, but instead of muttering under my breath about who thought it was a good idea to put coffee grounds down there, I could have been grateful. I was, after all, able to solve the problem of the clogged drain.

For a lot of people in Arlington, Dallas and now Nashville, they’d long for a clogged drain to be the biggest thing they have to worry about today.

Let us all be grateful for the drain clogs in our lives.

But I probably should replace that dish sponge.