Ten Scars
for thetenspot
Ten Scars
1. My right knee. I was twelve. I’d just gotten new rollerblades and was trying them out on the sidewalk. The road kind of sloped downhill in front of Mrs. Hammersmith’s house. She had these big whiskey barrels of germaniums sitting out in her yard. I ran into one, gashed my knee open and got 24 stitches.
2. I was walking on top of the monkey bars the summer I turned fourteen. I fell off and broke my arm. I broke it so bad the bone actually came through the skin so I had stitches on top of a broken arm. The intern helping the doctor was really impressed. He was cute too.
3. Sixteen, I was cheerleading on the football field, goofing off, not paying attention and got run over by our defensive line. It broke my leg and sliced open my ankle on someone’s cleats. They were able to butterfly bandage the ankle but there’s a pretty good sized scar.
4. Seventeen, I was shaving in the tub and talking on the phone, not paying attention. I sliced my shin really, really good. No stitches but a nice scar.
5. Seventeen, I had the most awesome pair of Gucci wedges. Had being the operative word. I tripped, twisted my ankle and skinned the fire out of my left elbow. There’s still a nice sized white scar there and the shoes were hopelessly scuffed. I loved those shoes.
6. Eighteen, okay so I was drunk. Bad move on my part. Worse move, letting Ronnie Thompson talk me into going out into the backyard alone. He was an ass, I slapped him and attempted to go all Buffy on his ass. Now going all Buffy is something I don’t have the grace, agility or coordination to do while sober, I should NEVER attempt it drunk. I fell, hit the grill with my shoulder and gashed it open. 36 stitches later, Ronnie Thompson was groveling just so I didn’t talk about what happened. FYI, I didn’t talk at all. I wrote it in Sharpie all over the girl’s bathroom walls. Ass couldn’t get a date after that.
7. Eighteen, I was talking to Jill and watching the totally hot new guy we’d gotten in school that day. I slammed my locker door shut really hard…and the corner hit me in the head. Blood went everywhere. There was rumor floating around that I’d died. We got a plastic surgeon in for that one and he did a nice job with the six stitches. You can barely see the scar just above my left eyebrow.
8. Nineteen, Jill and I went out this barn party. Which is exactly what it sounds like. It was in the middle of nowhere outside Birmingham and they were keeping the barn door shut so they attracted less attention, like an entire cotton field of cars isn’t attention grabbing enough but whatever. They screamed at me to shut the door when we walked in. It was one of those big, huge sliding doors. It had this little point of metal underneath one of the boards near the edge where you pulled it back. I am proud to say I was the only one at the party that managed to cut themselves on it. I should have gotten stitches but that would have meant leaving the party before it ever got started. I wrapped it up with Bethany Linz’s at the time new Hermes scarf and numbed the pain with Tequila. I was fashionable and drunk. There’s now about a three inch scar on top of my right wrist.
9. Twenty, Jill and I had just moved to Berkeley. I was cooking and talking and being so excited about cooking our first meal in California. My thumb got in the way of the avocados. Dinner was ruined and four stitches later I have a smallish scar on my left thumb.
10. Twenty-one, so very recent. I slammed my car door shut, realized that my new Nicole Miller scarf was about to get shut in the door, attempted to rescue it and just ended up getting blood on it when my finger got smashed in the door. It was cut on the little latch thingy. Six stitches and I’ve got a scar on the fingerprint side of my right index finger. I broke my nail too. I had to have a fake one for weeks.
Ten Scars
1. My right knee. I was twelve. I’d just gotten new rollerblades and was trying them out on the sidewalk. The road kind of sloped downhill in front of Mrs. Hammersmith’s house. She had these big whiskey barrels of germaniums sitting out in her yard. I ran into one, gashed my knee open and got 24 stitches.
2. I was walking on top of the monkey bars the summer I turned fourteen. I fell off and broke my arm. I broke it so bad the bone actually came through the skin so I had stitches on top of a broken arm. The intern helping the doctor was really impressed. He was cute too.
3. Sixteen, I was cheerleading on the football field, goofing off, not paying attention and got run over by our defensive line. It broke my leg and sliced open my ankle on someone’s cleats. They were able to butterfly bandage the ankle but there’s a pretty good sized scar.
4. Seventeen, I was shaving in the tub and talking on the phone, not paying attention. I sliced my shin really, really good. No stitches but a nice scar.
5. Seventeen, I had the most awesome pair of Gucci wedges. Had being the operative word. I tripped, twisted my ankle and skinned the fire out of my left elbow. There’s still a nice sized white scar there and the shoes were hopelessly scuffed. I loved those shoes.
6. Eighteen, okay so I was drunk. Bad move on my part. Worse move, letting Ronnie Thompson talk me into going out into the backyard alone. He was an ass, I slapped him and attempted to go all Buffy on his ass. Now going all Buffy is something I don’t have the grace, agility or coordination to do while sober, I should NEVER attempt it drunk. I fell, hit the grill with my shoulder and gashed it open. 36 stitches later, Ronnie Thompson was groveling just so I didn’t talk about what happened. FYI, I didn’t talk at all. I wrote it in Sharpie all over the girl’s bathroom walls. Ass couldn’t get a date after that.
7. Eighteen, I was talking to Jill and watching the totally hot new guy we’d gotten in school that day. I slammed my locker door shut really hard…and the corner hit me in the head. Blood went everywhere. There was rumor floating around that I’d died. We got a plastic surgeon in for that one and he did a nice job with the six stitches. You can barely see the scar just above my left eyebrow.
8. Nineteen, Jill and I went out this barn party. Which is exactly what it sounds like. It was in the middle of nowhere outside Birmingham and they were keeping the barn door shut so they attracted less attention, like an entire cotton field of cars isn’t attention grabbing enough but whatever. They screamed at me to shut the door when we walked in. It was one of those big, huge sliding doors. It had this little point of metal underneath one of the boards near the edge where you pulled it back. I am proud to say I was the only one at the party that managed to cut themselves on it. I should have gotten stitches but that would have meant leaving the party before it ever got started. I wrapped it up with Bethany Linz’s at the time new Hermes scarf and numbed the pain with Tequila. I was fashionable and drunk. There’s now about a three inch scar on top of my right wrist.
9. Twenty, Jill and I had just moved to Berkeley. I was cooking and talking and being so excited about cooking our first meal in California. My thumb got in the way of the avocados. Dinner was ruined and four stitches later I have a smallish scar on my left thumb.
10. Twenty-one, so very recent. I slammed my car door shut, realized that my new Nicole Miller scarf was about to get shut in the door, attempted to rescue it and just ended up getting blood on it when my finger got smashed in the door. It was cut on the little latch thingy. Six stitches and I’ve got a scar on the fingerprint side of my right index finger. I broke my nail too. I had to have a fake one for weeks.