web analytics

Show me your favorite scar!

I have an awful habit: whenever I spot somebody with a really interesting scar, I ask them about it. You’d be surprised how often people seem relieved to tell me the story. I suspect most people would rather talk about it than think of you staring at their scar in horrified silence.

So, as it’s the weekend — and as I don’t have anything else to post about — how about we share scar stories?

I’m a clumsy woman, so I have many interesting scars — but I think this one’s my favorite. That there is right above my knee, and the scar is wide and faint because it’s terribly, terribly old.

I was about three. I was in the bathtub. My mother and her friend were standing at the bathroom sink with their backs to me putting highlights in their hair or clamping their lashes or whatever spooky shit women did with cosmetics in 1960-mumble.

I got to looking at that razor and thinking, “I can do that! I can shave my legs!” I gave it one good tug, with the result that you see. “Safety razor” is a slight misnomer.

But here’s the thing; I was sitting in a nice, warm tub of water. Turns out it’s quite true what they say — razor cuts don’t hurt at all in a warm tub. I knew I was going to get in trouble when my mother saw what I’d done, so I covered my knee with my hand and kept perfectly quiet.

It’s also true what they say: in warm water, you bleed like a bastard. By the time my mother turned around, her little girl was sitting in a huge steamy tub of bright scarlet. Hilarity ensued.

So, what’s your favorite scar? C’mon, what’s a girl got to do to hear your war stories, Bill (still the .00358% of my traffic that’s from Iraq) T? Drop her pants on the internet?

Comments


Comment from Joan of Argghh!
Time: April 23, 2010, 10:01 pm

I’ve got one just like it on my shin bone for the same reason: safety razor.

Getting my finger caught in a Multilith 1250 printing press is my favorite scar. A wicked “v” on the inside of my right index finger. 14 stitches in that tiny spot and still a bit of ink under the skin after mumble years. Of course I never once looked at the wound until the next day when the nurse changed the dressing. I passed right out.

Eyebrow, other index finger, little finger, big toe, chin and of course the obligatory c-section scar rounds out the total to about 70, give or take a few. And that’s not counting the ones that should’ve been stitched.

FrankenArgghh!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 23, 2010, 10:06 pm

I got a very small nick on my thumb when I was working in the kitchen at Dunkin’ Donuts. But I cut it on a can of lubricant we used to grease muffin pans, so it wouldn’t close. Like, ever. Nice little white scar.

This thread is going to hurt to read, isn’t it?


Comment from Mal
Time: April 23, 2010, 10:09 pm

I still have a scar through the centre of my right palm to the back of my hand from the day I climbed a chain-link fence while watching my Dad referee a football match. I was 7, and though it wasn’t a very high fence, it was high enough to keep me suspended with my feet off the ground as I hung by my impaled hand from the top spikes until I could get my feet inserted and lift my hand up and off.
Not a GREAT scar,mind you. But one that, when I see it, can still take me back to my childhood, “romping with my school chums in the fens and spinneys, when the twilight bathed the hedgerows like a lambent flame”.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 23, 2010, 10:41 pm

Oh, man, you have hit the universal nerve. This is gonna be a classic thread!

Um. Possible overshare alert?

I was accident-prone as a child. When 3, at a neighborhood picnic in Ithaca, New York, I ran behind the swingset, and was hit in the forehead by the edge of a swing in brisk motion: scar; about the time it was almost healed I was running upstairs and caught my bare toes in the hot-air heating register, fell, hit the stairs, and reopened the scar. Hadn’t thought about it for years (I mean, that was well over 50 years ago!), but I just looked, and it’s still there. As is. . .

The little scar below my lower lip. When I was five, in Phoenix Arizona, I was taken for swim lessons to Dick Smith’s Swim Gym–and there were folks training for competitive stuff there at the same time we wee tots were being taught how to do the basics. Apparently, I paid some attention, and thought those folks were pretty cool. A neighboring childless couple allowed my family (and a couple of others) to use their pool, on condition that the adults helped with maintenance. So, one day while we were practicing our swimming there, when noone was paying attention, I decided to try the backflip dive I had seen at DSSG. . .walked to the end of the diving board and jumped backwards. Came down with my chin on the board and, regrettably, I had my lip between my teeth at the time (wonder why, hm?). I bit right through my lower lip, and was on a liquid diet for a week. My family was not imaginative about certain things, and they owned a blender (a pretty fancy thing back then). So, anything the family ate, I ate blended. Yech! I’ll take milkshakes, thank you!

Glenville New York, age about 8. Brownies fly-up ceremony. I rode with several other girls in someone else’s mother’s car. I got out and (being the tiresome little twit I was back then. . .well, never mind), held the car door for the other kids, then closed it. On my thumb. I wasn’t quite sure what to do about that, but within a reasonably short period of time an adult noticed, opened the door, and whisked me off to hold my thumb under water running from the cold tap (and it was COLD!). Got a scar and no residual problems with movement of the thumb, so I figure I made out like a bandit.

And, of course, as I fell while running/biking/skating on the average of once a month throughout my childhood, invariably hitting the right knee, I had a fairly ugly right knee for many years. One of the few advantages to aging I can tally–it actually looks pretty normal these days. Not that anyone ever sees it, but, Oh, well!


Comment from Gromulin
Time: April 23, 2010, 10:43 pm

I still have a nice scar on the top of my left thumb from a model building mishap, circa 1972. It was the coolest model anyone ever gave me…a Klingon “Bird of Prey” with lights and shit. I messed up putting some glue on(oh, how I pine for the smell of Testors model glue sometimes) and was trying to scrape it off – holding the part in my left hand – when the VERY sharp pocket knife slipped. Straight down to the bone. I remember seeing white before the blood started gushing out. I’m sure that model met the same firecracker / bb gun fate as the rest of them, but I’ll never forget seeing my own bone. Dad was just pissed that I got blood everywhere.


Comment from Gromulin
Time: April 23, 2010, 10:45 pm

Now the real question on everyones mind…did you intend to post about the scar…or just have the camera with you when you went into the loo?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 23, 2010, 10:47 pm

The whole freaking internet has just seen my knee, Can’t hark. But it’s comforting to know I’m not the clumsiest woman in this place.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 23, 2010, 10:51 pm

Oh. Um, you like wanted pictures? I have never in my life successfully taken a photograph. Trust me–the pictures would NOT be exciting. That’s the joy of being old and fat, it seems–your scars get to be understated. The forehead/chin/thumb scars are still there (but real dull); the knee is not something anyone would recognize as a scar.

NONETHELESS. If you demand pictures, I’ll see what I can do with my cell phone (the only camera I own). But, um–why subject the rest of the minions to that?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 23, 2010, 10:55 pm

Oh, no…I wasn’t soliciting pictures. Anyhow, it’s hard to get pictures of scars to come out, as I’ve discovered.

I was just marveling that I dropped my pants for the internet.


Comment from Mrs. Compton
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:07 pm

I’ll try to get this chronological, gonna do a Cliff Notes, if you have questions feel free to ask. I can post pics if wanted as well.

I had a curtain rod in my mouth in the bathtub and fell, thus thrusting it up into the roof of my mouth. Yeah, my mother was that great a parent. She was standing right there.

Fell backwards off front porch onto broken jar I had been told to pick up, cut my Achilles tendon in half.

Going down hill on bike, fell off seat to center of bike, envision feet splayed out behind me skin being left on road.

Hit upside the head with a golf club, beautiful scar runs along my ear.

While pushing the glass water tube into my hamsters bottle it broke off into the palm of my hand.

During a rainstorm I was trying to cover up the back of my VW cause it always got fubared in the rain, the lid came down and nearly cut off the tips of my pointy finger and middle finger.

Shopping in Toys R Us a plastic chair fell off a shelf and hit my hand, resulting in muscle damage that had to be removed. Yeah, I got moneys!!

I think the rest are all from surgeries, some really boring, some not, some real icky.

This is fun, really creepy and skin crawly fun!

Oh and Mz Stoaty, did you mean to make that picture really sexy looking? Cause ya did with the saturation and all!!


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:09 pm

Geez, I’d use up all your pixels if I went over all of ’em, buuuuuut

my thumb tip regenerated after a close encounter with a meat-slicer (the original tip wound up in someone’s pastrami sandwich) leaving a nice white bullseye pattern;

there’s two-inch sorta-kinda Tolkein elvish rune-lookin’ one on the inside of my left forearm from a close encounter with a *scared* pit bull;

a nice piratey one across my left ribcage where a pizza-slice sized chunk of Bill was removed to discourage the cancer from getting further ideas (ever see your own ribs?);

a hole just to the left of the bridge of my nose where a chunk of tracer bullet hit after it destroyed my altimeter;

a hole in my right thigh from a skinny guy with no ammo for his AK, but he remembered the bayonet;

‘nother hole in my right thigh where an irate female stabbed me (she thought I was the agent who arrested her doper/dealer boyfriend);

a trough on my left shin from a blunt axe;

the four-inch — *augh!* catastrophic pixel loss!!!!


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:18 pm

Well, sweasel, you didn’t exactly drop an embarrassing part of your pants for the internet. And look what a haul you have already made with such fairly tame bait!

Bill: you are still alive, yes? I mean, we’re not dealing with bionic or zombie Bill? ‘Cause it sounds like an awful lot of you is missing. . . bringing new meaning to the .00358% thing. And, well, yeah, mazel tov! on the survival thing!


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:20 pm

Oh, yeah, Mal: Eeewww! That image will haunt my dreams tonight! Glad it all worked out for you, of course, but, well, OUCH!


Comment from Allen
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:22 pm

My favorite, or the one you just can’t miss. It starts under my left eye and goes down to just above my lip. Gives me that devilishly rakish look. Kind of like a duelling scar. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong jail. That was the first and only time I’ve ever been in a Mexican jail.

I swear.


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:23 pm

Yes,’m, Mizz Can’t hark — still alive and still bilaterally-symmetrical.

Although my left side is probably a tad lighter than my right…


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:29 pm

Uh-oh. How’d you know it was Mizz CH?
Ah, well, never mind. Can you spell “paranoid” boys & girls?


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:30 pm

Oh, never mind! Brownies. Yeah. Silly me!


Comment from Mrs. Compton
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:31 pm

snicker


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:39 pm

Oh, sure, Mrs. Compton–you can afford to snicker, given that you win this thread hands down (um, you should pardon the expression?), if we exclude Bill, who seems to be a professional, and shouldn’t be allowed to compete against us amateurs. Admittedly, that’s only after about 2 hours, so maybe there is someone out there with a more impressive array of scars and stories. . .


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:47 pm

True. I *do* set a high bar.

In fact, that’s where I got stabbed.

Twice…


Comment from DirtyBlueshirt
Time: April 23, 2010, 11:57 pm

In 2006 I was in a pump lab before reporting to my ship, we were putting a pump back together after seeing how it worked and my left pinkey got stuck between the spinny-bit and the not-spinny-bit. Turns out there are some sharp bits in there. Wound up with a 1/2″x1/4″ flap sliced off.

That wasn’t such a big deal to me, I’ve had worse, but one of the instructors started freaking out, so I went to Medical to see if I needed stitches. Actually I was escorted to medical in case I passed out from the “massive blood loss”. After a two hour wait that was compounded by confusion because the Fleet Training Center on the west coast has a bunch of people who are only there temporarily and don’t keep their medical records at medical I was able to see a staff member, who rinsed off the clotted blood, cleaned the area with a giant Q-tip, then flipped the flap over to poke around the inside (ever had your skin flipped inside out? A uniquely odd sensation). Then he went to get the actual doctor, who did the same thing again! Finally he told the corpsman to wrap it up, so what does he do first? Hose everything down and flip the goram flap over for a third time.

Welcome to the future of your medical care.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:09 am

I took the top of my ring finger off in the chain of a bike when I was three. There was exposed bone and everything. I have a bit of a lump on my left forearm from slipping on gravel when I was eight. And that’s about it.

Except for the diabetic foot ulcer I currently have. When that finally heals up the scar is going to be very, very gnarly. When you take off the dressing and the nurse says, “Jesus,” you know it’s a doozy.


Comment from Joan of Argghh!
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:30 am

My son was reading this thread and really really wants to share his story about the scar at the base of his spine. Where his tail used to be. . .


Comment from scubafreak
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:32 am

Well, the one I’m thinking about is almost imposible to see, since I was less than 6 months old at the time. My parents had a crazy kitteh called Cho-Cho-San that decided to go full ninja on my back in the crib. After laying my back open, my dad came running because of the noise and promptly spent the next hour trying to catch Cho-Cho to wring his neck. Cho-Cho, of course headed for the hills for a few days, and was able to quietly come back after my mom forbade him to kill the cat. Of course, I was never left alone with the cat again.

Now, at 39, it is all but impossible to see the scar, but sometimes when I’m working out in the sun, I can feel it just as if it had happened less than a minute ago…


Comment from jwpaine
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:33 am

When I initially saw the Weez’s salaciously illustrated post, I was thinking “Oh, Man! I can finally brag about the scar on my right cheekbone I got during a fight between me & 4 of my buddies and a dozen Guamanians!”

But now that I’ve read my way down here to the comment box, I am stricken with extreme scar envy. Even the chicks have better scars & scar stories. Sheesh. I am such a puss.


Comment from scubafreak
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:38 am

Of course, there is also the scar in my right eyebrow where a baseball shoved the lens of my glasses up under my forehead…

My right index finger that had to be rebuilt after beingdrug between the ships hull and a shore power cable….

My appendectomy scar, in the usual place…..

Fingers on my left hand that were trapped in a disk sander….

Surgical scar on my left clavical where a sebacious cyst was removed….

And, of course the crem-de-la-crem, the one on my sternum where Mary Ellen Moffat broke my heart…. 😉


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:38 am

jwp: It’s all in the telling. Don’t be such a, um, OK, don’t be such a wimp. Make the story engrossing, and the scar will be sufficiently gross. Step up to the plate, man!


Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:39 am

My favorite, huh? Well, I’m am going to guess that you mean on me, rather than those that I have inflicted (which, as a general rule, were much funner).

One and a half inches just following the hairline above my left eye. High school wrestling match, start of the second round, my advantage. My opponent was new to the sport, and good at listening to his coach, and managed to prevent me from pinning him in the first by slithering out of bounds repeatedly. His coach was yelling “Switch! Switch!” as the ref got ready to whistle the beginning of the round, and he was “cocking” to attempt the reversal with a switch as soon as he heard it.

Fortunately for my opponent, I was much, much faster than he was; and by the time he realized the whistle had gone off I had completely changed which side of him I was on, and was getting ready to drive him forward into the mat as soon as he lifted his hand to throw his arm back for the switch, which he did with great enthusiasm. In doing so, he made a very solid contact with his elbow against my forehead, which I thought nothing more of.

I drove him over on the mat, and realized as I did so that there was blood everywhere. Feeling that going for a pin while my opponent was bleeding out his life’s blood from the gash he must have sustained to his elbow when I walloped it with my head was a trifle unsportsmanlike, I sat back in a relaxed position to ride him until the ref called a time. Which took him forever. And which he didn’t do until I looked up at him and told him he should call a timeout with that much blood on the mat, because it was getting very slippery.

The ref blew the whistle, and I stood, releasing my opponent, and suddenly was blinded in the left eye by streaming blood. This was my first clue that the blood might, in fact, be mine. And so it was, and my opponent recorded his first win when my coach wouldn’t allow me to continue the match and instead sent me off in care of the vice-principal to the local emergency department. Where I worked. And much hilarity ensued when the emergency department staff got to treat one of their own.

Since developing the kind of diabetes where they make you check your blood sugar, I have realized that I spent most of my life hypoglycemic…which makes me exceedingly clumsy…and I have many another scar to prove it.


Comment from jwpaine
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:48 am

Oh, wait! I thought of one! As an infant, I had not even left the hospital yet when someone (they were never able to find the perpetrator) crept into my room, produced an extremely sharp knife, and proceeded to saw off a significant chunk of my skin! I have the ugly ugly scar to this day!

True story.


Comment from bad cat robot
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:48 am

Guess I should contribute, seeing as Bill will probably blame me for starting this game.
-diagonal slice through left thumb and thumbnail, razor blade, from clearing out nearly 100 year old putty from a window frame I was restoring. I can remember seeing the razor blade in and wondering why it didn’t hurt, and then it did …
-knees, due to an adversarial relationship with gravity when I was young and my home’s brick and concrete walkway. I pretty much skinned my knee every week for a year.
-left index finger, third degree burn, soldering iron, due to me thinking it was easier and faster to solder a broken component in situ than do it right and take the damn thing apart. I do not like the smell of my own burning skin.
-appendectomy. They gave me anesthesia but did not let me keep the offending bit in a jar.
-shin, permanent bruise, courtesy of a horse kicking me and poor blood circulation.
-left hand, web between finger and thumb, from me hauling off with a 5lb hammer and ever so slightly missing. I was hunting fossils.
-shoulder, chickenpox scar.


Pingback from Tweets that mention S. Weasel — Topsy.com
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:49 am

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Marie. Marie said: S. Weasel: My mother and her friend were standing at the bathroom sink with their backs to me putting highlights i… http://bit.ly/cdlHyE […]


Comment from Pupster
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:50 am

Huh. Weasels shave their legs.

Who knew?

My best scars are all of the emotional type.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:57 am

I think you will find, Pups, that that is what is technically known as stubble.

Meaning, yes…I shave my legs. But I’m not overly scrupulous.


Comment from mommer
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:58 am

Wow What a lively thread! I’m kinda jealous that I have no real interestin scars. Just the kind of stuff you get as a kid from riding bikes (trying to stear with my feet) and dressing up the family tomcat in dolly clothes.

I do have 2 interesting depressions if that counts. When I was 4 my little brother hit me on the head with a croquat (sp?) mallet when my back was turned (to tell my mom that he was going to hit me). It left a flat spot on the back top the exact roundness of the mallet. My brother is a great guy now 50 years later but back then his inner child was a mean little f***er.

When I was about 35 or so I was trying to get a shetland pony I wanted to sell out of a pasture so show someone. I had her in with this psycho AQHA mare I had. I got a little bucket of grain to entice the pony to me and my mare noticed I wasn’t going to let her have it so she turned around to kick me. Her other trick was to pin her ears and strike like rattler, but I digress. I saw where she was going and turned to move away (luckly) and she nailed me on the back of my thigh. I though she had broke my femur. It barely made it back to the house. It crushed the muscles in where she got me and I still have a BIG dent where she got me. That was 20yrs ago.

My daughter has reminded me that I do have a scar on my thumb where I cut it almost all the way off, wrapped it in a clean cotton sock and told the kids to get in the truck I had to get it stiched back on. But you can’t really see the scar, she just loves to tell the story.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 24, 2010, 1:05 am

Sorry, jwp–circumcision is NOT going to be sufficient to excuse you from telling us about the Guamanians. I mean. . .I told about my quite quotidian childhood boo-boos. And others have shared their (much more unnerving) tales of childhood and adult suffering that have scarred physically, mentally, emotionally. . . And all you can come up with is a briss?


Comment from mesa in Texas
Time: April 24, 2010, 1:36 am

I almost choppeded my fingers off in January…

http://thehostages.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/dsc00802.jpg

And…

http://thehostages.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/dsc00805.jpg

Scars are pretty gnarly now.

I have a much larger scar on my leg — don’t have a picture. I also have a three inch X on my forehead just above my hairline that shows when I cut my hair really short.


Comment from mesa in Texas
Time: April 24, 2010, 1:39 am

And, I tried to climb an ironing board when I was about three and the board fell over pinning me to the ground — the iron landed on my face, of course.

My mom came running in the room screaming. She screamed even louder when she grabbed the iron and took half my face with it. Luckily, I only have a small scar on my face from that. Young skin is a good thing.


Comment from mesa in Texas
Time: April 24, 2010, 1:43 am

Oh, and when I was in second grade, I got a staph infection (caught at the hospital when getting a couple of stitches) in my head that ate away all of my eyelid and part of the brow. That looked pretty nasty for a while.

The eye doctor cried when he saw me six months later — they thought I was going to lose both my eyes.


Comment from Andy
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:00 am

What happened to the back of my left hand can be best summed up with these Lynyrd Skynyrd lyrics …

Whiskey bottles and brand new cars
Oak tree you’re in my way

The car was mangled much worse than the hand, and I’m lucky to be sitting here typing this.


Comment from Dave in Texas
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:02 am

Well shoot. The best one I have, a jagged three inch one in my forehead is still covered with hair (Thanks God!) and I don’t feel like exposing it. I did that with the steering wheel of a 65 Chrysler running into a telephone pole.

SO I’ll pick the one on my left forefinger, I got it when I was nine, chasing a squirrel up a tree and reaching into the hole to try to pull him out. He came out. On my finger. Gnawing like a sonofabitch.

I learned later that day that you didn’t get rabies shots in 1968 for squirrel bites, docs did not think they carried rabies.

I don’t know if that’s so. I just know I didn’t get rabies.

As far as you know.


Comment from Vmaximus
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:03 am

In 8th grade, I decided I absolutely had to have some acid that I was playing with in my chemistry class. test tube full, in my tube sock. getting off the buss on my way home the stopper fell out. I have a really great scar from tube sock top level on my left leg to my ankle bone. Shows up well when I get a tan on my legs.

Damn Mesa!


Comment from roamingfirehydrant
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:06 am

Mesa, you’re making me glad I rarely iron.

I was in an appropriately skimpy outfit at a sci-fi convention on the top floor of a hotel. Someone said, hey, they left a ladder on the balcony, we can climb onto the roof. Sounded like a good idea at the time, so I followed my friends up the ladder. As I was trying to step onto the roof, my costume caught on the ladder, and I fell. Fortunately, I fell onto the roof and not off the hotel, but the top of the ladder took a chunk out of my right buttock. Now cold sober, trying to make my way back down the ladder, ow ow ow.


Comment from Vmaximus
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:14 am

Heheh Romy,
I was in NYC and locked myself out of my hotel room. My buddy was in the room next door, and my window was open. Yup I was that stupid. I climbed out his window into mine. I was only on the 15th floor. (heh) The next day I decided I was too stupid to drink in public.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:16 am

Vmaximus, um, I represent school districts and am constantly trying to understand what goes on in schools (all I can say for sure is that is DEFINITELY doesn’t resemble what went on in American public schools when I attendend them over 35 years ago!). And in the minds of people enrolled as students in public schools. So I’m curious about WHY you wanted the acid… what was the idea that so gripped you that you felt possession of a dangerous substance was vital to your continued existence? Or, well, however that played out. . .


Comment from MCPO Airdale
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:17 am

Got a 2 inch scar below my left eye courtesy of a Gyrene. Hit me in the face with a beer bottle when I was on Shore Patrol trying to break up a fight. Missing part of my middle finger on my left hand – not much scar tissue as the USAF surgeon did a great job repairing it (even saved the nail!). Also have a really nice scar on my buttocks from having a boil lanced when we were in Ft. Hood. Other than that, just a few on my knuckles.


Comment from porknbean
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:19 am

I got a staph infection (caught at the hospital when getting a couple of stitches) in my head that ate away all of my eyelid and part of the brow. That looked pretty nasty for a while

Are you for serious? I saw pictures of you and you’ve got eyelids. Where did they find a replacement?
Gotta say though, them fingers scars are impressive. Scars via accidents are not as scarey as bacteria munching kinds.

You need to get sohos over here to post her bad boy.

He came out. On my finger. Gnawing like a sonofabitch.

HAHAHAHA


Comment from Vmaximus
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:23 am

CHMC,
I don’t know, but I was a Science Geek/Gear head/Motorcycle freak. I cannot recall now why I needed that particular acid. I did have one of those home chemistry sets that I supplemented with stuff from the public schools. Do they still sell chemistry sets?


Comment from porknbean
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:25 am

I’ve got a ‘bald spot’ at the tip of my pate where the doctor on duty, in trying to deliver me, doing the episiotomy thing, nicked my rather large newborn head. My mother’s regular OB/GYN was pissed when he found out….’cause she didn’t need no cuttin’. I was her largest (9# 14oz) and easiest birth because I’m considerate like that.

*oops, I forgot, my youngest sibling was her largest at 12 pounds


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:31 am

Ah (of course, I had to go look up “gear head”). ‘K. Makes sense–one of my observations (not just as a school attorney) is that amazingly often in life, looking back, we can’t actually remember why we followed a particular path. . .even though it led us over a cliff. But I’m always curious.

And, dunno about chemistry sets, although if they are still sold I’d guess it is in specialty shops. My curiousity about the population I serve stops short, however, of actually going out and roaming the malls. Call me pusillanimous if you will . . .


Comment from MCPO Airdale
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:40 am

Call me pusillanimous if you will . . .

I was going to say, “parsimonious”. But hey, that’s just me.


Comment from Vmaximus
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:41 am

CHMC,
I know I had access to Muratic Acid that I used to adjust the PH in the pool. I also had access to Sulfuric acid from batteries. I might have remembered now that it was Hydrofluoric acid, but I really cannot tell. It has been 37 years or so.

But it is a cool scar. I also have on the same leg a scar that needed 15 stitches to close. A guy hired me to clean the cat tails out of the pond in his back yard. My Machete when it hit the water acted like a rudder and I cut my leg to the bone.

Straight 3″ scar on my leg, nothing exciting. Except for getting hit by a Machete!


Comment from d3ft punk
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:50 am

EDITOR’S NOTE: this is a little graphic. But cathartic. And bloody. Feel free to skip.

One day, my sister decided to lock me out of the house (oddly enough, the same day she was with one of her friends and some guy with whom she was really flirting hard). The young child was trapped outside whilst fun and teen-age mischief (presumably) were going on inside. The been-to-at-least-seven-karate-lessons youngster outside decided he wanted in-and he was going to use karate to do it.

I learned this thing called “the backfist” from, well, at least one of those seven martial arts lessons. Or from the Kung-Fu movies that came on USA every Sunday afternoon. One of those. That was the way I was going to make my way into the very locked storm door that was my barrier to entry.

At this point, I should note that I figured out the ‘use a rock’ and ‘just shove the door’ and ‘it really isn’t worth it’ ideas out already. These, and many other courses of action occurred to me as I was cleaning up the glass later that day. But just to let you know, my pre-teen angst led me to a life-altering decision that I made.

I carefully surveyed the glass portion of the door. Yes, I was aiming for the weak point of the door, the part that would shatter into a thousand, sharp, pointing, skin-penetrating pieces. I still remember tapping my right hand on the glass, then pulling it back, trying to get the angle right. I needed enough speed, I thought, to break the glass.

Now, you have to imagine that I figured glass broke pretty much the same way wood does. This was what I thought. So when I finally got enough courage to swing away, I found out several things. One, a backfist to glass works like a charm. Second, nobody faints at the sight of blood. This is good, because of what happened next.

As I was taking in the glory of the successfully penetrated door, I happened to notice something, horribly, horribly wrong. My hand, the back of it, was red. Very red. And getting redder. I saw the glass leave part of my fist as the blood started going even faster.

For reasons I cannot explain, I ran to the other door, the one on the side. As I was beating on it senselessly, my sister (who locked it in teenage mischief) asked my what was so important. She heard the loud noise, and figured it was me. She was angry at my disturbance, until I showed her my hand. More accurately, the blood.

She literally grabbed me and dragged me into the kitchen, and the guy, whoever he was, put a wet towel on my hand and tried to calm her down. To say she was hysterical would be an incredible understatement. There was a trail of blood from the front door to the kitchen, something my mother said was one of the most sickening things she ever saw.

I got a scolding for that. My sister got grounded. I learned about rocks, and the throwing of them through glass instead of human parts. And I learned that I can’t stand watching needles go in (though I have no problem with anything else related to surgery).

Uh, scarly speaking, I have two big scars on the back of my right hand. And a few of us have some mental scarring, as well.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:52 am

MCPO Airdale–well, I see your point, but actually. . .I’m a spendthrift, in any independent locally-owned business. Our local independent bookstore has one of those discount cards where you spend $100 dollars on books, and you get a 30% discount on your next purchase of up to $75. I tend to end up with two or three fully-paid-up discount cards in my wallet because they’ll give me credit for special-order books, but they won’t let me use the credits against them. . .But it works out well when cousins visit, or in December (I buy books for holiday gifts. Period. Except for my sister-in-law.)

I don’t do Walmart, Barnes & Noble, or any other outpost of the evil empire. And I do find myself conflicted when ordering from Zazzle. . .yeah. The minute her Weaselship starts sellling in a locally owned business, I’m on it.

Ayup. Mm-hm.

What? oh,yeah, sorry. My bad. I do egoize and all. Um, folks? Back On-Topic? yes? SCARS?

You alreay know about ALL of mine. . .


Comment from jwpaine
Time: April 24, 2010, 4:28 am

OK, Hark, but it’s mostly a dumbassed drunken sailor story (or is that redundancy cubed?):

My ship was in Guam for a month. The first night there, me and four of my buddies prettied ourselves up and hopped in a taxi bound for the nearest place that sold alky-hall. We started our standard bar crawl (perfected in Pearl Harbor, Olongopo, Subic City, Kaosung, and Hong Kong), and eventually, found ourselves weaving and stumbling across the street to the next spot marked X.

There were a dozen or so Guamanians standing in the small parking lot outside our target, and as we approached, two of them broke away from the group and started toward us. One was pointing at the other with his thumb and laughing as he locked eyes with me, so being a good-natured sort I stopped and joined him in laughing at whatever joke he thought was so fucking funny. Once he was just short of arms-reach, however, his jocularity vanished and he tried kicking me in the direct objects. Naturally, my cat-like reflexes (or my drunken sway—one of those, anyway) made him miss.

My four buddies were slightly behind me, and I glanced over at them; they were uniformly agape at the turn of events, all of them holding up their palms in the universal signal for “we don’t want no hassle, man.” The erstwhile butt of kick-boy’s unknown joke suddenly sprang into action: he stepped forward, and, swinging from the pavement, punched one of my buddies in the jaw, lifting him off his feet an inch or so. My buddy went stiff and toppled over backwards, his head bouncing off the asphalt at least twice. The two horrified buddies flanking him watched this as if it were in slow motion (and maybe it was… all of this happened in about 12 seconds). I was closest to the bar door, so I stepped over, opened it, and yelled “call the cops!” then turned around and waded back in to the fray, which now consisted of the rest of Guamanians, my three still-conscious buddies, and one buddy down for the count and leaking dark stuff onto the pavement.

I picked out the Guamanian I was pretty sure was kick-boy, and headed toward him, prepared to do him some discourtesy, when a Guamanian beat me to this strategy by coming out of nowhere and smashing me in the face as he ran in front of me. The blow, glancing though it was, swiveled my head around a bit, but not enough to slow my progress toward kick-boy.

I wish I could say I whupped ’em all, but right about that moment a passing patrol car pulled up (coincidence; the barkeep may not have even called the cops; in any case, less than a minute had passed since I’d opened that bar door), and the Guamanians suddenly recalled the better part of valor (or perhaps they were late for tea).

We told the cops what happened (I’m sure they marveled at the sheer volume of detail three drunk sailors are capable of providing simultaneously), they called a USN ambulance to come for our unconscious and bleeding buddy, then left.

After some consultation, we volunteered one of our buddies (who, in our defense, agreed the fun had gone out of the evening for him) to remain with the cold-cocked one, and the remaining three of us headed back across the street to the bar we’d came from.

Our ship’s captain and XO were seated at a table, and one of my buddies suggested I ask the band if they’d let me sing with them (I should probably mention that before enlisting, I had performed professionally *cough*for pizza*cough*), so I did, and of course, the band let me, and I noticed with satisfaction that when I was finished, the captain and XO applauded slightly more than politeness demanded.

Anyway… My remaining two buddies and I decided to move on up the street to another bar. We were in that one for at least one beer, when the owner came over and told me to follow him. He took me in to the bathroom and directed my attention to the mirror. It was only then that I saw that my cheek had been laid open, and my face–as well as the front of my shirt–was covered in blood. The owner was a retired jarhead and a fatherly kind of guy; he patted the cut on my cheek with a wet paper towel and noted that it looked a lot worse than it actually was, pronounced me fit for duty, and warned me to stay away from the kick-boy’s favorite bar. We both returned to the bar, where we all drank a few more beers and regaled the owner with our various versions of the night’s festivities.

The next day the ship’s corpsman told me the cut should be stitched up, but after he admitted he’d only practiced on oranges I declined.

To this day, I can’t figure out why my buddies (not to mention the captain and executive officer of my ship) never bothered to point out the fact that I was a gory mess. I guess they decided that if it wasn’t bothering me, they should mind their own business.


Comment from jwpaine
Time: April 24, 2010, 4:49 am

Incidentally, Weez: You seem to have discovered the mother lode of blog topics here.


Comment from naleta
Time: April 24, 2010, 5:11 am

After all those gory stories, my own are rather tame. When I was about 9, I was at the neighbors house and it was time to head for home. They had a very long driveway that sloped downward to the gravel country road. I misjudged my speed going down hill and slid quite a ways in the gravel when I tried to turn and fell over into the freshly graveled road. The inside of my ankle and knee were scraped raw, and the scars remained for several years. I also have a scar on the back of my left hand where my horse bit me when I tried to take him out for an early spring (still muddy and some snow on the ground) ride. He didn’t want to go and chomped down hard. I punched him in the nose. He let go, and I dragged him over and tied him up where I was going to put the tack on. Then I went in the house, cleaned my hand and bandaged it. (I was either 14 or 15 at that time.) When I came back out, I saddled him up and we rode up the road to the corner, and came back home. I didn’t really feel like going for a ride after that, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with biting me! So we rode a little ways, came back and I brushed him down and gave him the usual bit of sweet grain that he always got after a ride. He never tried to bite me again, no matter how much he didn’t want to do what I wanted to do. 🙂


Comment from Pavel
Time: April 24, 2010, 5:14 am

World class thread, Stoatie.

Installing those pull-down attic stairs, with giant spring-loaded scissor-like finger cutting-off metal dealies. Instructions that said, DON’T TRY TO PUT THIS UP BY YOURSELF. THIS IS A TWO MAN JOB. IF YOU TRY TO DO THIS YOURSELF, YOU WILL PROBABLY CUT OFF YOUR FINGERS, GIVEN THE GIANT FUCKING SPRINGS AND LARGE SLABS OF SHARP METAL ATTACHED TO THE SPRINGS. DON’T BE A MORON. THIS MEANS YOU PAVEL. WE TOTALLY MEAN IT.

Me. Stair kit. No helpers.

Beer.

Etc.


Comment from scubafreak
Time: April 24, 2010, 5:32 am

Then there are the rocks still imbedded in my left elbow from a motorcycle get-off when I was a stupid teenager, and the spot on my right eye where I was impaled by barbed wire at the Petrified Forest…..

Carpal and Cubital tunnel surgery on the right arm, but I doubt that those really count….


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 24, 2010, 8:54 am

Whoa — you guys are too modest! There are a whole bunch of you that could compete professionally, and with better stories than mine, too.

I’ll hold off on the hole just inside my hairline, the crease on top of my skull, the four-incher along my jaw, the souvenirs on my knuckles (and upper lip), various and assorted holes in my back and sides, and the ones that I got (and still get) from my bod shedding porphyrins trying to extract the dioxin from my arms because I acquired those in the course of my employment.

I’m also not mentioning the “happy to see you” collection across my shoulder blades.

V-max, aren’t your parents thankful that you didn’t take Small Arms Repair in shop class?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:08 pm

My mom had the COOLEST scars on her forearms from a series of colorful mishaps. Not disfiguring enough to be a hit to her vanity, but terrific conversation starters. Remember these?

No, no…not the sea horses. The darling monkey. One of her friends bought one. Turns out the fuckers were shipped as adults, completely untame. Friend panicked and gave adorable monkey to my mother, who had the scars to show for it.

Not long after, she got between our dog and our pet raccoon. The raccoon was ordinarily a very nice animal, so after it had chewed her up, Mother showed it the wounds thinking it would feel guilty. It bit her again one more time, and sulked away.

And when she was a special ed teacher she once had to walk toward an angry retard flinging shards of broken glass. She had a couch cushion to shield her face with, so that was okay.

Oh, not counting the time she gestured for my brother to take the garbage OUT! and put her forearm through a plate glass door.


Comment from Pavel
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:18 pm

I would never use raccoon and nice in the same sentence. One a them bastids literally disemboweled the neighbor’s dog. Mrs. Neighbor can’t speak of it to this day without crying.


Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:35 pm

Pavel sed:

I would never use raccoon and nice in the same sentence.

Me neither, and people wonder why I shoot ’em when I find ’em in the kitchen. Nutz.

Pavel, I think you have a thread winner up there with the folding stairs.

Of course, I could be biased, since my stair kit came with the same instructions. Fortunately, I was out of beer that day and came away bloody but unscarred.

ETA: Did I mention that our shop motto at the Applied Physics Laboratory was “If you ain’t bloody, you ain’t working.” I emphasize the “Applied” because that’s the part that leads to bandages.


Comment from Spad13
Time: April 24, 2010, 12:59 pm

Ah scars. Finally I can post about somthing I am good at.
The left side of my forhead looks a little hambugerish do to the truck accident I had in ’92. I was hit by an IH tractor trailer with a load of logs I was in a mitsibushi might max pick up. The nurse at the trauma center got tired of picking bits of widow and dashboard out of my head and just bandaged it. She said it would work it’s way out. Last week another piece popped out. I figure if I live another 20 years or so it will be gone. My goal is to be completely biodegradable again when they bury me.


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 24, 2010, 1:15 pm

I work with a guy who was in a helicopter that came down inverted from 2,500 feet — he spent probably 15 months in the hospital and now sets off airport metal detectors two feet before he gets to them.

If I let him in on this, he’d list all the places he’s now bionic and kill the thread just from the “Holy Sh*t!” factor.


Comment from Spad13
Time: April 24, 2010, 1:23 pm

Then there is the rack incedent. I was a new ET3 at my first duty station. NAS BDA. The division had a hail and farewell party for people rotating out and in. During the course of said party I was challenged to chug a bottle of Two Fingers Tequila. I’m not a smart man.

So they eventually get me back to the BEQ and into my rack, the top rack. The past 6 months at ET A school I had slept in the bottom rack. I rolled out about 2 A.M. to piss. I passed out in the head due to blood loss and came pretty close to bleeding to death. 15 stitches no anesthiesia because I was drunk. You can hear the needle scrape the skull.


Comment from Mrs Compton
Time: April 24, 2010, 2:13 pm

Oh oh oh, that reminds me, Spad!!! I had screws in my head and it just freaked me out when they went to remove them with an electric drill!!! The sound was just awesome. I thought for sure it would hurt, but not at all, just this whirrr whirrr whirrr. I swear I was on This Old House!

Best thread ever, Mz Wheazie!!!


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 24, 2010, 3:10 pm

*snerk*

We were doin’ a barbecue on the grill we made out of scrap armor plate and the lid slammed on JJ’s arm — bent the titanium rod he has instead of an ulna…


Comment from Pupster
Time: April 24, 2010, 4:00 pm

Heh. Uparmored BBQ.


Comment from Mcgyver
Time: April 24, 2010, 4:33 pm

I have a very nice burn scar I got while riding my motorcycle nekid one dark night

… and flail injuries

Mcgyver, Out


Comment from Spad13
Time: April 24, 2010, 5:17 pm

Yea that kinda stuff is weird isn’t it Mrs.C it is kinda like your not hearing it with your ears but inside your head.


Comment from Spad13
Time: April 24, 2010, 5:24 pm

Bill, don’t take this the wrong way but could you stand on the other side of the blog? I’m tryin not to get hurt here and you seem to attract danger.


Comment from Malcolm Kirkpatrick
Time: April 24, 2010, 5:45 pm

Shark bite, left hand (Johnston atoll). AC separation, right shoulder (Sandy Beach). Right knee (Off-The-Wall). Chin (Hawaiian sling recoil. Don’t ask). Left eye-brow (face plant on mossy boat ramp, Johnston atoll). Circumcision, but you’d need a wide-angle lens for that one. I’m 60, and that’s enough.


Comment from armybrat
Time: April 24, 2010, 5:49 pm

I have a nice 4″ scar just under my right knee from my close encounter with a tornado.


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 24, 2010, 6:08 pm

Spad, you knew the thread was dangerous when you checked in.

Deal with it.


Comment from bad cat robot
Time: April 24, 2010, 8:02 pm

There’s a reason Our Bill is described as a refugee from the law of averages …


Comment from Spad13
Time: April 24, 2010, 8:16 pm

Full face motorcycle helmet. check
Padded leather jacket. check
Shinn gaurds. check
Cut proof gloves. check (I think I should be safe now.)
Hey Bill! I got some beer in the cooler, you want one?


Comment from Pavel
Time: April 24, 2010, 8:37 pm

Yeah, the beer was definitely not consistent with my mission on that one, EW1(SG). I managed to get by with a big scar and some nerve damage, but it could have been so very much worse if I hadn’t fallen off the ladder at precisely the right moment. Thank goodness for serious inebriation.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 24, 2010, 9:01 pm

Now, see, jwpaine, that didn’t hurt at all, did it? (The telling, I mean–it’s pretty much a given that the facial flap hurt like a sonovabitch once you were fully sober.) And it was pretty funny. . .could it be that the Captain and XO were themselves in an state and just didn’t NOTICE?


Comment from harbqll
Time: April 24, 2010, 9:10 pm

This is waaaaaay off topic, but I bring news:

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=22116


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 24, 2010, 10:02 pm

Oh, I am so on that, harbqll. Saw it on HotAir earlier.


Comment from Anonymous
Time: April 24, 2010, 10:10 pm

Good lord, y’all got scars! I only have a couple from fairly minor incidents. I was pretty bookish as a child and not very adventuresome so I didn’t get hurt very often or badly.

I have a small scar on left knee from bending over to get some beads off the floor and kneeling on a needle I was using to thread beads with. It bent 90 degrees and stayed that way. I couldn’t bend my knee all the way to the hospital. And a scar on my right thumb from catching a can of cheese before it slid off into the sink at Taco Bell. Saved the cheese… sliced my thumb open. Then I wrapped it in paper towels and first aid tape and finished my shift before I went to the hospital.

The hub has/had a very nice one. He dropped a shotgun when he was 17 and it blew through his forearm. He had a nice divot in his arm for years along with gnarly scars on his hip area from where they attached his forearm to his hip to let it heal and grow skin. After years of dealing with constant pain, he researched the options and had the forearm amputated. It still didn’t get rid of all the scar tissue above his elbow so a couple of years ago, he had it revised to above elbow. Now he has a nice fish mouth/envelope type of scar on his stump. 🙂

Doh. Forgot to put my id stuff in before I hit submit. This is Nicole. 🙂


Comment from scubafreak
Time: April 24, 2010, 11:00 pm

I think we also need ot have a “Make the earth move in Iran” day where, in honor of the idiot ayatollah who claimed that female immodesty causes earthquakes, women will, for one day, dress in sexy clothes and flirt outragiously with every man available…


Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: April 24, 2010, 11:54 pm

Man. I can’t believe I’m even bothering to tell my scar story:

I was sitting in the German classroom one day, taking a test. I forget why (maybe I had been sick?), but I was taking it by myself, during my teacher’s off period. Anyway, the desk I was using didn’t have four legs, but rather, two arches. The arch on the right side was warped and bent, but I didn’t think anything about it as I tucked my right leg underneath me and proceeded to take the test.

A few minutes into the test, I dropped my eraser (or “rubber” if you prefer), off the right side of the desk. I leaned over to pick it up, and the next thing I knew, the desk and I were sprawled on the floor, and the writing surface of the desk had taken a lump of skin off my knuckle.

The resulting scar is the only one I have that is clearly visible. The rest of my scars are small or virtually invisible. (For example, when I scraped a dime-sized chunk of skin off my palm while chasing down Pepper [my dog] a few months ago, my palm healed up very nicely. I can still tell where it happened, but I don’t think anyone else would notice unless they knew exactly what they were looking for.)


Comment from Wiccapundit
Time: April 25, 2010, 12:26 am

Weas, I had a run-in with a razor when I was six. I was playing with my Granpa’s ELECTRIC safety razor. Whoever thought it was a good idea to take a double-edge blade and add POWER to it? Sliced my thumb good.

At 12, washing my Dad’s car (on top of the car, ’cause that seemed cool), I slid down the windshield and sliced a big flappy thing out of my knee. Flaps are gross.

At 17, our house caught fire, and running next door to call the fire department (pre-911) because our phone line was dead, I jumped up on the neighbor’s porch, and my metal watchband caught on the roof post, ripping the watch off my arm. Left a nifty fishhook-shaped scar on my wrist.

Circumcision scar, of course, but unlike Malcolm, a wide-angle lens won’t show it. You’d need a telephoto lens to see all of it and you’d have to view it from a distance.

On a semi-related and slightly off-thread note (new thread idea, Stoaty?), the STUPIDEST thing I’ve ever done (besides marry my first wife, ackkk) was to try waterskiing on a pair of slalom skis with me standing in the front set of boots and my buddy stepping into the back set of boots from another set of skis while we were moving. We were tandem on one pair of skis. Then we realized we had to find a way to stop. I suggested letting go of the rope and coasting to a stop, which we did. Unfortunately, we didn’t see the wake from another boat crossing far ahead of us. We both went arms and legs akimbo, with his nose striking my cheek in a firm and unforgiving manner. As the boat came around to pick up the water-sputtering pair of us, all I could ask was: “did you get a picture of that?”

They did.


Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: April 25, 2010, 12:32 am

Spad13 sez:

Full face motorcycle helmet. check …

One of the things I’ve noticed as I grow older is that I tend to appreciate safety gear now in ways I never did before. And the advances in effectiveness as well.

Still get friction burns sliding down the road (and could probably avoid those by wearing something more substantial than shorts under my mesh safety pants), but no longer leave pounds of hamburger behind. Recovery now is down to pouring some water on my ass to cool it off, and checking to make sure the kill switch is toggled back.

Whatever will they think of next?


Comment from embycil
Time: April 25, 2010, 1:19 am

Got a couple I’m proud of, including one that was treated by the doctor that saved Gen. Tojo after he tried to commit suicide right before/after we captured him, got him healthy so he could be executed later (completely off topic, I just thought it was a cool story when he was putting my arm back together, then checked and found out it was true).

My favorite tho isn’t as neat as some of the others I’ve seen here so far. I used to carry what they called a gravity knife. Blade came out the front of the hilt. It wasn’t spring loaded or anything, it would just open if you pushed the button with it pointing down (hence gravity knife) or flicked your wrist.

To close it you pushed the button again while pressing the point against something solid. I got in the habit of closing it by pushing the button while I pressed the tip of the knife against my wallet (right rear pocket, of course). I had just come back from a run when I noticed my roommate had thrown my mail on the desk. I grabbed my trusty knife and slit the envelopes then absent mindedely tried to close the knife in the usual way. Only went in about 3/4 of an inch before I realized I wasn’t carrying my wallet.


Comment from EZnSF
Time: April 25, 2010, 3:07 am

I’ve got a faded half inch scare under my chin. Was about 6 years old and river fishing in Washington with dad and grandpa. They were fishing deep water, I was several years away fishing in water a couple of inches deep. I caught a newt. A BIG newt. As it was swinging around in the air at the end of my line, I freaked out and did a face plant into the river rocks. For some reason, I still remember the blond nurse who stitched me up. She was pretty.

I also have about a foot long scar on my left side where they needed to go in with a pair of rib spreaders. But I don’t like that story much.


Comment from scubafreak
Time: April 25, 2010, 4:30 am

Also, my Dad’s left moob is an inny, because my brother did a nipple twister on him about 25 years ago, and it turns out dad had a cyst in his left breast. When the surgeon was done, it looked like someone had carved out a hole with an ice cream scoop……


Comment from JC
Time: April 25, 2010, 5:05 am

I was at work (Health club, I was Director of Maint.) a couple years ago and snagged a pallet with my hip, lodging a ~5 inch splinter in the meat of my leg. Requested help from the senior health consultant to give me a hand. Sent a junior assistant out to my car for the emergency whiskey to sterilize the wound area and my Swiss Army Knife, a quick slash, and pulled out this gnarly wooden dagger. The boss fainted, and was revived with the residue of my auto flask. Neat work with needle and thread (by myself) closed up the incision, with no visible scar. Almost got fired for having a flask in the car, though; despite saving the employer on the order of $1k in ER fees. Maybe because of his fainting.


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 25, 2010, 10:15 am

“Hello — I’m Sally Struthers. Do you realize that millions and millions of people go through their entire lives without ever knowing the joy of telling a scar story in an S. Weasel thread, because … *sniff* … because … *sob* … they have no scars!

“But now, there’s hope — *you* can make a difference in the lives of these unfortunate people! For only $9.95 per day, you can sponsor a scarless person and have him or her actually *live* with one of Stoatie Weasel’s readers until they *get* a scar! Dog bites, raccoon bites, squirrel bites, we can even offer *shark* bites! Motorcycles, acid, curtain rods, collapsible stairs, edged weaponry and personal grooming devices — we offer it *all*! And the best part is, you’ll only spend $9.95 per day *and* they’ll probably *get* a scar within only 24 hours!

“Won’t you help?”


Comment from Mrs Compton
Time: April 25, 2010, 12:06 pm

Bill, you crack me up!!


Comment from J.S.Bridges
Time: April 25, 2010, 1:00 pm

For a lot of years, I had this little “knot” in my scalp, right on top of my punkin’ head, where the family doctor, tired already from an extended struggle with a woman’s breach-delivery labor, “economized” with a single, big stitch. The necessity for the stitch? I was walking under the bleachers at school, fooling around, and raised my dummy third-grade self out of a bent-over position a mite too quick – and an exposed bolt-end fetched me a solid whack atop my mostly-empty head.

More visible, and far less trivial, are the scars – and the sawed-off outer corner and screwed-up nail on one – that two of my fingertips on my left hand still show from when a piece of wood split, dumping my inside-the-safety-margin mitt into a table saw blade. Nasty, that – took a Plastic & Reconstructive surgeon about an hour to clean and stitch it all up, pin the middle finger (broken in two places in the middle joint) and wrap it in about 50 or 60 yards of gauze and cotton batting.

And I was ALLEGEDLY an adult at the time, too – and the Woodworking teacher at the school where it happened. VERY poor example to set for the students.

One good thing; I haven’t bitten my fingernails since.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 25, 2010, 1:14 pm

Things you don’t want to have to tell an ER doc, embycil: oh, I stabbed myself in the ass with a knife.

Other things you don’t want to have to tell an ER doc: I decoupaged myself into my panties. But that’s another story for another thread.


Comment from Gomez Addams
Time: April 25, 2010, 2:11 pm

“decoupage”
“panties”

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?


Comment from jwpaine
Time: April 25, 2010, 2:20 pm

can’t hark: It seems unlikely that no one noticed; I still remember the front of my [previously] light-colored shirt when that bar owner showed me the mirror, and the entire lower side of my face. I’m from English-Irish stock, meaning I am fish-belly white, and believe me, blood shows up well against that sort of background.

So I’m gonna stay with “he wasn’t acting like it bothered him, so we didn’t say anything” as my final answer.

I forgot to mention that my cold-cocked buddy got 32 stitches (at the hospital on base, not from our ship’s orange-sewing corpsman) in the back of his head. Too bad I didn’t stay in touch; I’d have him come here and tell his version of the story.


Comment from Mrs Compton
Time: April 25, 2010, 2:48 pm

Jwp, maybe it was their way of letting you show off a ‘badge of honor’ And to make sure no other pussies took you on cause you can take some shit and wear it proudly!!

Now if it had been a big ol bugger I’m sure they would have said something.

Decoupaged your panties???? God, the things we do in art school. lemme tell you bout the clay and the boobs…..


Comment from jwpaine
Time: April 25, 2010, 3:00 pm

Could be, Mrs Compton. I suppose they might have mistaken my complete drunken lack of awareness for a “Yeah? So fuckin’ what?” attitude.

I never think of how others may percieve me. Which, from most of my posts here, I guess is pretty friggin’ obvious.


Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: April 25, 2010, 3:20 pm

jwpaine:

I’d have him come here and tell his version of the story.

For some reason reminds me of four of my shipmates (who thought a bit of a bar fight all in good fun) returning late one evening after being thrown out of just about every place in town. The Officer of the Deck expressed some concern about their health, as they came up the brow covered in blood. When asked, the first three replied “Not my blood.” In his turn, the fourth (and smallest of the gang) declaimed “Well, don’t look at me! I don’t HAVE that much blood!”

I later did see some of the biggest guy’s blood, after he tried to pick up an oily 425 pound firepump and carry it around by himself below decks, eventually dropping it down his shin and leaving a lovely 6 incher.


Comment from jwpaine
Time: April 25, 2010, 3:43 pm

EW1: Man, don’t even get me started on Navy no-shitter stories.

Good times. Good times.


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 25, 2010, 3:48 pm

I decoupaged myself into my panties.

…lemme tell you bout the clay and the boobs…

I do believe I’ll sit quietly on the sidelines during that thread. Very quietly.


Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: April 25, 2010, 3:54 pm

Bill:

Very quietly.

Pssst. Pass the popcorn…

jwpaine: Ran into an old bud from my first ship a few years ago after not seeing each other for a couple of decades. If anything, we had grown closer together during our time apart. Freakin’ scary.


Comment from Spad13
Time: April 25, 2010, 3:59 pm

EW1 isn’t funny how you never dump the bike when you have the gear on but the one time you don’t wear it you end up slidin down the road?


Comment from jwpaine
Time: April 25, 2010, 4:22 pm

EW1: Yeah. One of my buds on my second ship found me on the innertube a few years ago, and I met him and two other Navy buds down in Albuquerque for the hot air balloon thing (an excuse, really; we all just wanted to see who went bald (me), who got fat (me), and who managed to make something of themselves (um, not me). Amazing that we picked right up on our friendships like they hadn’t been interrupted by a three-decade interval.


Comment from Mr. Compton
Time: April 25, 2010, 4:29 pm

Now I finally know where all those scars my wife has came from *smile*


Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: April 25, 2010, 5:17 pm

Spad13:

but the one time you don’t wear it you end up slidin down the road?

I allus figgered that was some kind of universal law, so I figgered that ATGATT would keep me upright after not ridin’ regular for a couple of decades.

Har har. Funny shit that. NOT.

Well, I must be the exception to that universal law. But with the bike over 700 pounds, and me limited to not lifting more than 35 at a time, its spent a little more time laying on its side than I would like. Only low speed low side getoffs so far though…so I just carry an extra water bottle for hotspots. And apparently there isn’t anything wrong with at least vestigial chicken strips. ERC Instructor (and one time and one time only stand up comedian) asked me in front of the class how often a day I scrape the sidebags.


Comment from Mrs. Compton
Time: April 25, 2010, 5:49 pm

EW1, they make three wheel bikes now. 🙂

http://www.trirodmotorcycles.com/


Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: April 25, 2010, 6:09 pm

Mrs. Compton:

they make three wheel bikes now.

Mrs. Compton, first, I can’t believe that you’ve been holding out on Mr. Compton regarding the origin of your scars, and second, three wheelers make fun like this impossible:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kD0dsvJqlQ


Comment from Mrs. Compton
Time: April 25, 2010, 6:30 pm

Oh, all he had to do was ask! And mebbe if he had been paying attention he would have HEARD me!!!

I betcha you could have some swell wipeouts on the trike. You could like stand up while you’re heading towards a wall and maybe do a back flip off. I see tons of opportunity!!


Comment from embycil
Time: April 25, 2010, 7:07 pm

Never actually explained it to the doc, just used a couple butterfly strips. Dying to here the decoupage and panties story though. I gotta believe there was alcohol involved in that one…


Comment from Warm Mountain
Time: April 25, 2010, 7:35 pm

I was born with a cyst about the size of a chicken egg behind my right ear. When I was a week old, the doctor covered it with Plaster of Paris, allowed it to dry, and ripped that sucker off. I cried and peed my diaper. Grandma said so. 🙂 Have a scar about five inches long and about an inch wide. In the 60+ years since this happened, it has faded somewhat.

My mom has an epic scar. When she was about 10, she was playing baseball catcher, and a big ass gal broke the baseball bat. The big end of the bat hit my mom square in the forehead. The teacher crawled under the school house and scooped up some cobwebs and stuffed it into the hole, and my grandpa drove her to town. She still has a big dent in her skull. It’s a wonder that she wasn’t killed.


Comment from Dawn
Time: April 25, 2010, 7:37 pm

Half of my eyebrow is missing from a necrotic spider bite. I wear bangs to cover it.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 25, 2010, 7:45 pm

Good God, Warm Mountain! Eeeeeww!

Mind you, I expect that at a week old you cried and peed your diaper a lot–but that there form of medical treatment would have given you excuse even at a much greater age.


Comment from Mrs. Compton
Time: April 25, 2010, 8:06 pm

I’m stunned at the cobweb compress as well!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 25, 2010, 8:42 pm

Man! I don’t know what idea freaks me out more: cobwebs in my skull hole or a spiderbite next to my eye.

Oh, and Dawn brings up an fact everyone should know: eyebrows don’t always grow back, so fuck with them not!


Comment from Mrs. Compton
Time: April 25, 2010, 9:25 pm

Yeah, Mz Weazie, I learned that the really hard way. I was involved in a hazing event pre-nanny state hazing prohibition. Don;t ever go to sleep when there are girls just waiting to do something bad to you.


Comment from armybrat
Time: April 25, 2010, 10:43 pm

Oh, I see how you are here! I go out to support the economy and you lay a bomb out there about decoupaged panties!!!!!!!!


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 25, 2010, 11:28 pm

No, no, armybrat, that was just a teaser! You haven’t been left out! Weasel (and Mrs. Compton) will be telling us the full story someday, and we can all profit from their stories.

And, oh yes–thank you for your patriotic support of the economy. Did you get some cool stuff?


Comment from Pupster
Time: April 26, 2010, 12:28 am

*looks up ‘decoupage’*

Man…that sounds a lot dirtier to do to panties than what Wikipedia says it is.


Comment from Jill
Time: April 26, 2010, 2:51 am

I have two little scars in the shape of dragonflies on my left knee, left over from arthroscopic surgery.


Comment from Glenster
Time: April 26, 2010, 3:52 am

I only have two fairly minor scars: one on the back of my head where my skull meets my neck; when I was about 4 or so my Mother took me to Ft. Meade (MD) for a hair cut (We were Army dependants and everything was cheaper there). I was a good, non-squirmy kid, but the idiot barber somehow slashed me back there with a straight razor! (What barber uses a straight razor on a kid’s neck?)(Sweeney Todd?) There was lots and LOTS of blood and the associated crying, screaming and fainting of other mothers who had brought their Juniors in for a shearing. I don’t remember much after the initial hubbub, but even today, almost 45 years later, I still get nervous when a barber gets close back there.

The other scar story is boring: I’ve got *really* impressive Frankenstein-like scars down my left leg from Subfascial Endoscopic Perforator Surgery (SEPS), but there’s no great story attached. 🙁

Oh, I’ll tell you about my father real quick: back in 1935 (he was 23), he was admitted to Hammet Hospital in Erie PA for a routine appendectomy. Of course, back then it wasn’t quite as trivial as it is today. Sure enough, he contracted some sort of necrotising fascitis, and the doctors tried everything to stop it. It had already killed several patients in the week before my father arrived, and they never did identify the cause. In spite of the doctor’s best efforts, it spread from below his navel all the way around to his right buttock. He weakened quickly and the doctors told his family to prepare to lose him, probably that evening. His wife went right out and filed for divorce! (Probably to avoid being liable for the bills) His sister called his fellow musician friends and they planned to get him very drunk to ease his “departure”.

To everyone’s surprise, he awakened the next morning and seemed to get stronger every day afterwards. Unfortunately, nothing stopped the infection. The doctors didn’t know what to do with him – so they discharged him! They packed the gaping wound (his intestines were visible according to his sister) with mattress ticking, and sent him home, presumably to die on his own time.

He had made the acquaintance of a nurse who’s father was an old-time naturopath, and she took him to see him. The doctor muttered about the cure being worse than the sickness, but made a red powder that he sprinkled all over the ginormous hole. He bandaged him up and told him to go home and stay in bed for a week, because he was going to break out in enormous pustules and would be too weak to do anything – but after a week, he’d get better and the wound would close. Well, sure enough, the pustule came up, but Daddy-O was too much of a tough guy to stay home… the cop on the beat found him unconscious at the gas station where he worked a midnight shift. The cop got him home and there he stayed with a raging fever – for a week. Once the fever broke, they noticed scar tissue growing in the wound! It took over a year, but the hole finally healed.

When he passed away, the undertaker asked me about what could have possibly caused such a huge and ugly scar!

(Sorry for being so long-winded!)


Comment from Bob
Time: April 26, 2010, 4:21 am

How about a compound spiral fracture of the right femur, tibia, and fibula? There were bones sticking out everywhere! There was even a hunk of some leg bone driven through my sinuses.

Right up until that point, it was my best ski jump ever.

I actually met my current wife while waiting for the ski patrol. She wasn’t actually there, but I hallucinated her just fine.


Comment from grasshopper
Time: April 26, 2010, 4:25 am

Scars. Well, there are the numerous surgery-associated ones; then the first joint of the left middle finger that got caught in a car door; the smallpox vaccine scar on my left shoulder; the exclamation point (literally !) at the base of my left thumb. There’s also the 4-inch one on my chin where my car and I got into an argument with a fast-moving Metro Transit Authority bus at a well-known intersection in Nashville. Bus t-boned my car because I was dumb enough to think I could turn in front of it. The first responders thought it was an abandoned car because I had bounced off the driver’s side window, rolled under the dashboard, and was stuck with my head under the glove compartment and my feet by the gas and brake pedals. They had to cut me out of what remained of my Dodge K-car (remember those?) with the Jaws of Life, and was in the hospital for a week with a concussion and a dislocated left shoulder. If the bus had hit the car 2 inches further to the rear, I would have been an incinerated Grasshopper as that is where the gas tank was located. (Wasn’t drunk, either, believe it or not.. just late for work.)


Comment from iamfelix
Time: April 26, 2010, 8:16 am

My three best scars (although hardly best in class on *this* thread) are: 1) Large flap scar on my left thumb, acquired by trying to pop a lens out of a discarded pair of sunglasses I found (thought it was plastic … it weren’t) – 8 stitches; 2) Inch & 1/2 scar on the arch of my left foot, acquired wading in a creek with my cousin and stepping on a board complete with rusty nail – 3 stitches and my first tetanus shot; 3) 2″ scar on my lower abdomen, another entry in the “necrotic spider bite” category – this was the worst, as I had to pack the inside of the incision daily with fresh gauze, so it would heal from the inside out (did wonders for my already-raging arachnophobia).

Many other small ones, mostly related to domestic chores – triangle-shaped scar on the inside of my arm from the tip of a hot iron, scar on right index knuckle from a drinking glass that basically exploded while I was washing it, scar on right ring-finger knuckle from the lid of an institutional-size can of baked beans (this one was fun – was helping my sis-in-law make food for my nephew’s wedding: As we were up against the clock for the festivities, I put a butterfly bandaid on it and kept on cookin’. By the time the wedding was over, I couldn’t get the ring I was wearing off, woke up the next morning to a purplish-black finger and had to go to urgent care & have the ring cut off and get a large dose of antibiotics, plus another tetanus shot). The rest are a motley bunch of small cuts and burns, mostly food-prep related. Housework is dangerous, which is why I now do so little of it ….


Comment from iamfelix
Time: April 26, 2010, 9:11 am

Forgot one – scar in the middle of my upper lip, thanks to little brother shoving me into a towel bar mounted on the side of the sink during one of our “spirited” disagreements.

😉


Comment from Derek
Time: April 26, 2010, 5:38 pm

My right eyebrow is split in half.

I was 5 at Six Flags Over Georgia. They had a “classic car” ride. These little model-T looking cars with accelerator and brake pedals that worked, but a steering wheel that gave enough control to move a few inches one way or the other from the tracks.

My sister and father where in the car in front. She was a couple years older than me. I couldn’t reach the control pedals, so I sat in my mother’s lap and “steered”.

My sister stopped her car to watch a squirrel. My mother wasn’t paying attention and we slammed into their car. The dash was hard metal. It opened a 5 inch gap on my forehead. One of the young ride operators ran out and grabbed me and sprinted to the first aid station, where I got 15 stitches.

We went back the next year, and those cars had padding all over.

Maybe later I’ll tell you why my right toes look strange…


Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: April 26, 2010, 7:56 pm

Large scar on shin. Tequila binge, drunken stumble through woods, fall in hole, branch through calf, passed out, drunken yet frantic search by friends, found 2hrs later in pool of blood, then off to Denny’s for an emergency grand slam breakfast.

Ridiculed by emergency room nurses, doctors, and a hospital janitor. Didn’t need any morphine though!


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 26, 2010, 9:23 pm

…drunken stumble through woods, fall in hole…

I fell in a hole while making a midnight sprint during a 48-hour E&E exercise in the Great Dismal Swamp back in ’69, but the water moccasins balled together for a warmth orgy sorta cushioned my fall.

I *did* manage to smash my nose into a tree trunk jumping out, though — does that count?


Comment from Mrs. Compton
Time: April 26, 2010, 10:35 pm

Snakes, I hate snakes!!!


Comment from PatAZ
Time: April 27, 2010, 12:27 am

I was never going to tell this story outside the family, but here goes. Age 8, lived in the country with no inside bath or running water. Saturday night bath was behind the wood cook stove in a wash tub. I backed up against the stove. Sizzling skin ensued. It was not a fun few weeks until that healed. No, I wasn’t taken to the doctor. We lived in the country. I think there might be a small white scar still there. Haven’t checked lately.


Comment from porknbean
Time: April 27, 2010, 2:29 am

Holy crap Glenster! Did your dad ever find out what the red stuff was that the doctor sprinkled on him?

Modern medicine is great and all but I think we have lost sight of some simpler things that used to work just as well. Sometimes the cure is worse than the sickness.


Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: April 27, 2010, 2:43 am

porknbean:

Sometimes the cure is worse than the sickness.

Cobwebs and sugar for packing wounds, and Verbascum thapsis tea are all well and good, but I am not doing leaches.

No leaches.

Forgot the lovely 4 incher across the middle of my back from sliding sopping wet up the hood, windshield, and over the razor edged side of the windshield wiper of my best friend’s car at age 16.

Gave new meaning to “wiper blade.”


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 27, 2010, 3:39 am

Cobwebs and sugar for packing wounds, and Verbascum thapsis tea are all well and good, but I am not doing leaches.

Hunh. I’d actually heard about the use of cobweb as a bandage before, and yeah, it shows up pretty quickly in a search. (But I can’t help thinking of the flies that have been caught. Yuck.) And I see some articles about the sugar thing, which sounds interesting; wonder if it matters whether it’s organic? (eyeroll!) And, OK, mullein, yeah. Actually, leeches are one old medical technique I’d be more than happy to have used on me, if necessary (and I can’t help but wonder if they might have done Glenster’s Dad some good BEFORE he needed the red powder). All of that (well, not the red powder, but we don’t have a lot of details there) shows up in simple searches as pretty standard in an off-beat way. But the plaster of paris thing. . .I’m just not finding that. Anybody other than Warm Mountain ever run across that one, or do we conclude WM’s family doctor was just a sadist? Although it does sound as if the treatment was successful, in the sense of getting rid of the cyst while leaving WM otherwise healthy. . .


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 27, 2010, 3:53 am

Oops! I was thinking of maggots, not leeches (although even leeches have their place)–Glenster’s father definitely doesn’t sound like he needed bloodletting, but possibly he could have used the removal of that necrotic flesh. . .


Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: April 27, 2010, 4:00 am

I’m not real crazy about maggots either, but apparently they are quite effective at removing necrotic tissue.

Never heard of plaster used that way, although have seen it mixed with sugar and set out in pie pans to get rid of cockroaches on boats.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 27, 2010, 4:51 am

EW1(SG)–yup. I can deal with maggot therapy–but I want a REAL careful count of maggots in/maggots out. I’m not crazy about the idea of haemostats and bandages and other technojunk being left inside, but the idea of overlooking a maggot when you stitch up the wound. . .

Uh-oh. Did I just talk myself out of an alternative medicine technique?


Comment from Glenster
Time: April 27, 2010, 5:10 am

The doctors did everything they could for my father, and the standard protocol was to remove necrotic tissue, but they couldn’t get ahead of the infection. I’m quite sure he had our old friend, “The Flesh-Eating Bacteria”, and in the days before antibiotics, most people with it just died (as several patients did just before his operation). He told me that while he was there, there were several intense top-to-bottom disinfection attempts throughout the entire hospital, but that they were never sure where it had come from and if they had gotten it all.

I asked him several times about the red powder the naturopath made up to fight the infection, but he truly didn’t have a clue. I don’t think he expected this little old country doctor would be able to heal him when the “real” docs at the hospital had given up. I did find a newspaper clipping in Dad’s effects from 1968 or so, about a Native American doctor curing necrotising fascitis in soldiers returning from Viet Nam – with a mysterious red powder!


Comment from Can\’t hark my cry
Time: April 27, 2010, 5:29 am

Glenster–any harvestable information in that clipping? Like placenames, people names? It is amazing what has (and, ok, yeah, what has not) made it onto the internet. There’s always a chance. . .
It does sound as if the staff in that hospital were really trying to get ahead of the curve on that infection. Glad that, one way or the other, they managed to do that for your dad!


Comment from SCOTTtheBADGER
Time: April 27, 2010, 7:49 am

I have scars on the back of my right paw that I got from a shark, back in my USN days. I was walking along a dock, and there was a dead Bull shark lying on it. Having always heard of the sharpness of the teeth of the shark, I bent over, and put my hand in it’s mouth, and tapped the teeth of the lower jaw. Having satisfied myself that they were, indeed, quite sharp, I pulled my hand back. I had neglected to remember that the upper jaw of a shark is ahead of the lower jaw, and I managed to do a very reputable job of slicing up the back of my hand. It turns around that there is a valid reason why they tell you not to put your hand in a shark’s mouth. It also seems that there is a reason that people think that Reserve Ensigns are expendable.


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 27, 2010, 12:39 pm

And I see some articles about the sugar thing…

Confectioner’s sugar works best, and so will corn starch — they gives the corpuscles some additional help with clotting. Don’t ask me how often my mother used to go for what *was* a new box of confectioner’s sugar, only to find it 80% (or more) gone.

The spiderweb bandaid trick has been around for probably as long as there have been people and spiders. You just have to remember that the webs are *not* sterile, so don’t leave them on the wound all day.


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 27, 2010, 12:48 pm

“In other news, President B. Hussein Obama II announced the appointment of cictatro-activist Sally Struthers as his new Scar Czar. Ms. Struthers announced her first priority will be to ‘have Congress pass Stitch and Trade legislation to penalize — ummmmm — redistribute scar tissue from those who have an excess to those who have a dearth. It’s not *faiiiiiir* that individuals without scars should be prevented from commenting at Stoatie’s just because of the accident of their having had no accidents. Except for, you know, during the President’s appearance on Leno’…”


Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: April 27, 2010, 1:18 pm

Last!

I sliced the tips off two fingers while slashing a teddy bear with a straight razor. Before y’all get judgmental and shunning and TRO’ish and junk, listen:

The. Bear. Deserved. It.

Haha, just kidding really. Mostly.

BBB


Comment from redleg
Time: April 27, 2010, 2:04 pm

Nice long head scar from the brain tumor removal I had in 2002. I was p##ssed that it delayed me 6 weeks going to Afghanistan with my Brigade. I was running 10 days after it, when the stitches came out and my wife would let me.


Comment from Joanna
Time: April 27, 2010, 5:16 pm

Summer 2008, I was riding my bike through town and had to hop off the sidewalk and into the street to avoid pedestrians. Crossing the railroad tracks, I powered down the short, steep slope — right toward an SUV at a red light. Braked hard, hopped forward off the seat and went half over, half under the front of the bike. Sprained my left wrist and got a three-inch patch on my elbow of road rash for my trouble. Still have the dark spot. What I can’t figure out was how the rash got on my right elbow when I fell to the left.

And then there’s the five spots around my stomach from the robot that removed my cervix two days after my 24th birthday. Boo, cancer. (It was actually a super-rare uterine cancer that manifested a little lower than usual; took three labs to identify it.)


Comment from Mags
Time: April 28, 2010, 1:39 am

Well, I am a tad late to the party, but let us see…

My best scar is the one on my face from where the world’s dumbest coworker decided to prop an 8ft, 13inch diameter pvc pipe against a MOVABLE bay door at my lab. Right behind me. So when he yelled
“look out” after he had bumped the door a second later, I, of course, turned around just in time. It cracked the skull, and cut my face in a nice curve from right where the nose meets the eye and swooping down towards my mouth where it turns into a triangle due to everyone’s favorite flap being ripped mostly off. I’m lucky I didn’t lose an eye. They brought the plastic surgeons down to the ER to fix me so its not too bad to look at these days but it always hurts before it rains…

I got stung by a wasp once that became an oozing hole in my arm for a year.
I stepped on an acacia thorn in West Africa that went several inches into my foot and the resulting infection left a nice mark.

Mostly everything else is from shaving, other work at the lab (Lots of them. We didn’t exactly follow code.) and one from an angry rabbit that attacked my shoulder and decided to remove a one inch chunk.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 28, 2010, 1:46 am

I love this thread!


Comment from Warm Mountain
Time: April 28, 2010, 4:36 am

About the use of Plaster of Paris for cyst removal– This was back in 1945 so I imagine that some unusual remedies might have been employed. I often wondered why the doctor chose to rip the cyst off instead of using a scalpel to remove it. Both my mother and grandmother said that it was plaster, but it could have been another substance like it. I’ve never heard of anyone else having a cyst removed that way, for sure. It definitely left a nasty ragged scar. The cobwebs on my mom’s head wound was a common country remedy to stop bleeding at the time, but the doctor was really angry about it when my mom was brought.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: April 28, 2010, 5:27 am

Split in my lip where I ran into a parked truck when I was 8 or so. Visible mark on my right foreknuckle where I put my hand through a glass door, age 14 or so (I was carrying a logbox at the time). Bigger scar over my lip where I hit the edge of a car door that was opened in front of my moving bike (lost two teeth in that one), age 50 or so.

PatAZ: that particular problem was fairly common back in the day. I remember an old cartoon (Hatlo’s “They’ll Do It Every Time”?) with characters joking about “Th’ Rose Tattoo” (because a lot of those old stoves had decorative ironwork on them).


Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: April 28, 2010, 2:20 pm

I am the only commenter here who has a large
scar from a bromine(from the Greek: βρῶμος) burn
on my forearm.

The end result of a weeping ugly sore that took
six months to heal.

Not as manly as an anchor tattoo but it gets me chemistry
lab cred.

BBB


Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: April 28, 2010, 2:32 pm

Man, I love talking about self mutilation.

When I was young fool, I accidently cut a white face hornet’s nest in half with a pair of hedge clippers. Gang stanged by an army of angry hornets I was. Like being the victim of a pygmy blowgun sniper platoon. The emotional scars from this have left me broken and deranged.

On the upside, the venom from 70 or so hornet stings gives you a high just like those hippie mushrooms excepting there is more vomiting and spleen swelling.

I will have the last comment. I am living proof that god protects drunks, fools, and really stupid people with no sense of self preservation.

Bring. It. On.

BBB


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 28, 2010, 7:08 pm

I am living proof that god protects drunks, fools, and really stupid people with no sense of self preservation.

Can’t top that, BBB — I’m not allowed to drink in Iraq and I have a transient sense of self-preservation (although it usually kicks in post facto).


Comment from porknbean
Time: April 28, 2010, 7:51 pm

Like being the victim of a pygmy blowgun sniper platoon. The emotional scars from this have left me broken and deranged.

HAHAHAHAHA….I mean, bless your heart, really. Getting stung by one yellow jacket was enough pain and swelling for 3 days I didn’t care for. I think a platoon of them woulda done me dead.

So how big did you swell up? Did they put you in a coma to get over the worst part?


Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: April 28, 2010, 9:00 pm

It was kinda bad. I was at camp and the medical staff were hippie stoners who would not share their stash. Some sort of hemp poultice was all the treatment available. Stupid hippies. I suffered in their sweat lodge for about 2 days.

It was like that book “Altered States” by Paddy Chaefsky. Except my spirit guide ended up being that doofus drunk guy from the Red Skelton show.

Although it made insect venom my second most likely cause of death, I can laugh about it now.

“Drunk on hornet venom with a stupid hippie poultice on your face is no way to go through life son”. BBB

BBB


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: April 28, 2010, 11:26 pm

Hunh. When I was 8 or thereabouts on my grandparents’ ranch in Texas I ran into a yellow jackets’ nest. I don’t know how many of them stung me (not sure anyone counted), and I don’t remember feeling any particular high; but I was all swoll up and had to lay up for a day or two. As best I recollect, they coated me with a paste made of baking soda and water, and left me to it. I know for sure that no medical professionals were involved. Didn’t leave a scar, though. . .

I love this thread!

Me too! Not just the stories (which are pretty interesting), and the miscellaneous information (new and different uses for plaster of paris! cobwebs! sugar! oranges!)–but the range of narrative approaches. The laconic, the ironic, the self-deprecatory, the self-absorbed (that would be me), the matter-of-factly macabre: oh, this is a wonderful thread!


Comment from d3ft punk
Time: April 29, 2010, 3:53 am

So…drop you pants and you get EPIC THREAD?

Sounds about right.


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 30, 2010, 10:35 am

I don’t have a contribution to the “different ways I almost died” sub-theme at the moment — I’m just seeing if we can bump the comment count for the anniversary “Posts That Drew The Most People Out Of The Woodwork To Comment” post.


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 30, 2010, 10:37 am

Along with the obligatory “Posts I’ve Dropped My — Or Someone Else’s — Pants On” post.


Comment from Nina from GCP
Time: May 1, 2010, 7:34 pm

I have only three scars: one from poking myself in the leg with a pair of scissors when I was preggers the first time (accidently, I swear), and two from surgery. Well, actually three from surgery, but the last two ended up connecting in a wonderful Frankenstein-would-be-proud backwards J-shape that goes from my right ear down to my collarbone, across and up a bit. It’s a righteous scar, but not nearly as amazing as most of yours!


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: May 2, 2010, 1:43 am

Bill(etc.) T: If you don’t count DeadPool threads (which I think you can fairly disregard for these purposes) this is the second longest thread ever on Sweasel.com. Yeah, I checked. What can I say–research is one of my job skills, and I am undiagnosed OCD (also ODD, but that’s a different story). And the longest thread was one where Stoaty was trying to get the edit function up-and-running, so there were a lot of threads that consisted, in essence, of “testing. . .testing. . .is the mike on?”

Yup. Mother lode–even if you disregard the peripheral “count-boosters” like this one.


Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: May 5, 2010, 10:09 am

Now is it the longest thread, Mizz CH, or will I have to keep coming back here to boost the count?

It’s raining here and in the low 80s. Unreal for this time of the year — usually it’s clear except for the fumes from the oil fields and the burn pit and Beelzebub would travel here to thaw out…


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: May 14, 2010, 5:01 am

Shootfire, Bill(yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever)T, I MISSED this post when you originally posted it. Apologies!

But I came back tonight because I wanted to post something that is largely for you, although I hope all will enjoy, assuming anyone other than Stoaty actually sees this post. . .

I have been reading Michael Gruber’s latest, The Good Son. Not gonna comment on a) this particular novel, or b) Gruber in general, here {except to say, it is a change of style and tone for Gruber, but with consistent themes, and I am really enjoying it. If you haven’t read his Jimmy Paz mysteries. . .well, ne’ermind}.

But somehow, I thought of you when reading this passage:

“‘Oh, heroics. The problem with heroics is that it all goes down so fast you can hardly remember what happened. Other people have to tell you what you did, after. Why do you want heroics?’
‘Women love heroes; it’s the secret shame of women’s lib. We want our preciosu eggies to get sprayed by guys who can defend us. And also, you have all these scars on you. Don’t you think I’m curious about how you got them?’. . .”

Not the longest thread, by a long shot with a bush in the way. And probably now moribund. . .well, it was Great fun, but it was Just one of those things!


Trackback from efile tax return
Time: July 16, 2011, 5:00 am

efile tax return…

[…]The eFile Tax Return is a simple and convenient way to pay your taxes online. In fact, it’s so quick and easy, you can even do it yourself. […]…

Write a comment

(as if I cared)

(yeah. I'm going to write)

(oooo! you have a website?)


Beware: more than one link in a comment is apt to earn you a trip to the spam filter, where you will remain -- cold, frightened and alone -- until I remember to clean the trap. But, hey, without Akismet, we'd be up to our asses in...well, ass porn, mostly.


<< carry me back to ol' virginny