September 13th, 2005
Rusty Medal
As I’m sitting down to type, I see the scar on my right hand is still pretty noticeable, which is cool. It’s good to have a few scars, especially in highly-visible places. You don’t want anything longer than three inches, of course. Or anything across your eye or cheek. Unless you’re planning on going to prison at some point. In which case you probably want both.
I consider this scar my consolation prize. What I wanted was stitches. I’ve already got a few good scars, but I have never gotten stitches in my life. It’s not that I really want to damage or injure my body. But whenever I accidentally cut myself semi-seriously, and I’ve gotten used to the fact that it hurts and it’s bleeding like crazy, I think, “I could really go for some stitches right about now. You know, something to show for all this blood and pain. Then I could contribute when everyone is gathered in a circle, sharing tales of their major injuries and how they got them and what happened at the hospital.” I know, I know, “be careful what you wish for,” but it’s almost emasculating to have never needed to be stitched up. Maybe I’m not participating in enough “extreme” behavior?
This time, I even would have had a manly story to go with the stitches: I got cut changing out the muffler on my car.
Incidentally, my muffler recently broke into two pieces. I was out driving around and it just broke. I dragged half of it home by it’s hooks, thinking “Hmm… My car just got a lot louder for some reason.” This was, of course, fate, sitting down and digging in, after I tempted him with that scrumptious little entree of an entry where I mentioned not seeing the need to perform regular maintenance on my car (07.14.05). He came back for seconds yesterday by killing my battery, too. That Fate, he’s one hungry guy. Probably all those long, hard days of getting people what’s coming to them, and fixing it so soul-mates find one another.
While my cut was pretty deep, and it gushed a bit, it stopped bleeding pretty quickly, and the excitement died down, and, in half-an-hour, whether or not I needed stitches was old news. I was encouraged, by mom and dad, to go for a tetanus shot the next morning, because the muffler metal was pretty rusty. When I went in, the nurse who gave me the shot told me they would have stitched my hand if I had gone to the ER right after it happened, but that it was too late to stitch it at that point. (So close!)
It’s futile, I suppose. There is in only one member of my family who gets rushed off with matters that are obviously for the emergency room. That would be Kevin. He’s the one who tripped and skidded his face across the street, taking big chips out of both his front teeth. He’s the one who has twice fallen and cut his head open, bad enough to get stitches. (So many stitches…. Tiny, beautiful stitches….) And it’s not that he’s clumsy or accident prone. It may be that he’s unlucky, but my guess is he’s always getting hurt because he’s the youngest. For example, when he tripped in the street, he was trying to keep up with us older kids, as we ran back from our neighbor’s house. When our rickety backyard gazebo crashed down on him and he needed head x-rays, it was because I had attached a rope to one of the beams and was swinging around on it. He was sitting quietly on the ground watching me.
Serious-injury-duty falls on Kevin.
Especially when Kate falls on Kevin — because I push her because she and I are fighting.
(That’s how he broke his arm.)
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