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A Few Ways In Which I Have Hurt Myself Grievously

Number 1 : I am 5 years old, in the back yard with my friend CJ. We are smashing bricks onto the top of a low retaining wall, for some reason that I now forget, which is only reasonable, damn it! That was a helluva long time ago! I can't be expected to remember every damn thing...Am I gonna have to kick yer....

Sorry. Lost track there. Anyway, CJ took a mighty swing with one of those rusty red bricks, and managed to bring it down squarely on the middle finger of my right hand, mashing it flat. I screamed like a petroleum-powered chrome-plated screaming machine, and he took the f--k off up the path, running home. I'd have done the same, if I were him. Once I realized that all that blood wasn't a good thing, I pounded up the hill to the house after him, looking for mom or somef--kingbody to help me out with this newly-flat finger I'd acquired. CJ had gotten about fifteen feet ahead of me when he realized, I guess, that he still had the brick in his hand, so, still running, he flung it behind him. Hit me square on the forehead. I was a blood-streaked howling mess when my mom opened the screen door. That finger is still 50% wider than it's twin on the other hand, streaked with scar tissue. I'm a little proud of it, actually.

Number 2 : I'm a couple of years older, and I've traded bikes with my friend David, and we're about to zoom down the switchbacks to the public pool, which is in a deep hollow near the centre of our hilly town. The only problem is that I've never actually ridden a bicycle with hand brakes before, and am somewhat unclear on the concept. As I roar down the hill towards the first switchback, the back of which is a 100-foot dropoff, backpedalling madly to no avail, I take one of the sorts of off-the-cuff decisions which will end up characterizing most of the rest of my life : drop and slide, or sail off the edge into the abyss? I drop and slide through the gravel and broken glass, ripping most of the skin off the left side of my body, and embedding a few pebbles in the babyfat around my beltline. I stop sliding a few feet from the lip of the cliff, and David's bike sails off into space. Still got one of those rocks buried in there. Not much in the way of scars, though, which still amazes me.

Stay tuned to this channel for more amusing tales of agonizing pain!

Or not. Your call.