Horrible Accidents and Gnarly Scars: A Tour of My Body

I love a good scar story. For many reasons, but a) there is usually a visual aid, and b) the pride with which people tell these stories of pain, stupidity, or sheer dumb luck. Because, let's face it, no one tries to mutilate themselves (and when I say no one, I am not including those sycophantic leaders of tomorrow(i.e. unfortunate teenagers) that cut each other because they are so emo, and I also don't include anyone who gets off on pain. Because that is not in the realm of normalcy).

Anyhoo, love me a good scar story, so in order to get the ball rolling, I'll tell you my best.

• Middle finger, right hand, age 2.

So I'm two years old, and hanging at the mall with my mom. She is at the top of the escalator, probably fighting with bio-dad, and I have somehow wandered to the bottom of the escalators. I look between the moving stairs, and there is the awesome green light, that in my 2 year old brain I recognize as Jello. (Everyone loves J-E-L-L-O!) So I stick my little hand between the stairs, promptly almost ripping my entire finger apart. By the time my mom pries my little hand from the escalator, I have mercifully blacked out and my finger is dangling away from the bone, which luckily, wasn't broken. I just had to have my finger stitched back on, and now I have a Frankenstein-style scar. Rockin'.

• Upper left thigh, age 11.

I'm playing with our then-canine pal, Fluffy, (my brother named her) in the backyard of our quaint little home. I jump onto the wooden swing (you know the type; it's a bench with long woode slats) and Fluffy jumps up beside me. I jump off and turn around, expecting her to jump off after me, and she has somehow gotten her little back leg stuck between the wooden slats of the swing, and is hanging there, yelping in extreme pain. Horrified and scared, I run over to free her from the evil swing, and she reaches over and clamps her jaws around the top of my leg, causing me to start screaming at the same pitch of her yelping. My dad runs from the garage to free us both, take me to the doctor, and Fluffy to the vet. Sad ending: Fluffy never came near me again, and ran away about three weeks after that. I was so so so sad. :(

• Right ankle, age 16.

I played soccer through middle school and high school, and in high school, our team was damn good. (Won State Champ two years running.) During practice, a particularly nasty girl on my team (we were scrimmaging) slide-tackled me, and foot got stuck in a small hole on the field. My foot stayed there, and my body went forward. I ripped every tendon and ligament in my ankle, and was on crutches for the rest of the season. Stupid bitch. She's lucky that I didn't need surgery. I almost did, but I begged out of it. Fuck some damn surgery, you know?

• Left gluteus muscle, small scars on upper left thigh, age 20.

This is the one scar that I wish I didn't have, mainly because it affects how I look in a bikini (which isn't half bad). Me and my college buds (Craige Dorm effin' rules) went to a friend's evergreen tree farm in the mountains for Labor Day weekend. Lots of drinking and driving ATVs (of which I am a pro; I've been driving them since I was 10 on my grandparent's farm). The cabin is on top of a small mountain, with a long, winding gravel driveway that leads to the road. A few of my friends were leaving, and I was teaching my friend Ali how to drive the ATV. With me sitting on the back. Wearing flip-flops. With a beer in my hand. A combination that I have come to realize would not affect the outcome whatsoever (except for the flipflop part). So Ali and I decide it would be a grand time to chase our friends at top speed down this steep, rocky, cut-into-the-side-of-the-mountain driveway. Coming around the first turn, I can already tell that Ali isn't cutting sharply enough, and as I'm starting to tell him as much, he screams, "OH SHIRT!!! HOLD ON!!"
Our right front tire catches the edge of the road, and we flip off the drive and careen down the mountain. Luckily, after the second flip, I was thrown off, and after the third, Ali made it off. But when the ATV landed the first time, it landed directly on my ass, bounced, and kept going. Being that I can't move, Ali attempts to carry me up the mountain. We make is to a field, and I have to walk the rest of the way to the cabin. My flipflops, of course, flew off, and we have to trek through briars and brambles. My feet looked like I had run through razorblades. We get back to the cabin, where everyone else is blindly drunk, and for the first time I look down at my legs. I was wearing shorts. Protruding from my left leg was over 15 sticks. I pulled them all out, except one, which when I pulled it out it broke right beneath the skin and stayed inside my leg.*
Luckily, I had not damaged my pelvic gurdle (with the weight of the ATV crashing onto me, it should, by all rights, have crushed my bones to powder), however, it completely severed my left gluteus muscle, causing interal bleeding, etc.
But I made it out alive.

There have been other occasions of serious proportions, but after the ATV accident, everything pales in comparison. So give me your worst people. I love this "shirt".


*Oh, the stick was buried so deeply, the doctor thought I was lying. I insisted he cut the fucker out, or I would goddamn well do it myself, right there. After digging 4 inches into my leg, he found it. It was shaped like the barb on a fishhook. I still have it at home.
There was nothing, on the other hand, that he could do for my ass. So now I sport a highly fashionable and well-earned dent that goes entirely across my left ass cheek. Hot, I know. My husband calls it my handle.