Odd Injuries

As I was skimming through the new topics on the mom's site I am a member of (BuffaloMommies.com) I saw that someone started a thread asking about odd injuries. Thankfully I have made it 33 years without a broken bone or any other major injuries-however, I have had a few odd ones.

When I was about 6 or 8 maybe? I was playing on the top step to our porch while my mother was working on the flower beds in front of our house. Someone, maybe my grandmother, had given me a metal shovel and bucket set (who the heck manufactures a metal shovel for kids?) and I had this with me. I sat on the top step resting my chin on the shovel and rocking my head. Then for some reason I had the shovel in my mouth and wouldn't you know, I rocked too far, jamming the shovel into my mouth and cutting myself with the metal edge. Boy did that sucker bleed! Thankfully I did not need stitches and my mother threw that shovel in the garbage.

When I was in college I read in a magazine about a photography contest. I had recently developed a great black and white photograph of grape vines in my photography class and thought it would be a perfect entry. Sitting in my dorm room I had an 8x10 print I made, an exacto knife, t-square, and a huge newsprint drawing pad that I was going to use as a cutting surface to trim the print on. When I picked up the exacto knife, I decided it was too dull and put a new blade on. I sat on my bed, lined the t-square up with the edge of the print and started cutting. For some reason the knife blade skipped up onto the t-square and I cut right into my left pointer finger. It was quick and painless. At first I wasn't even sure I really cut myself but I still jumped up and bolted to the bathroom and ran my finger under cold water. That's when it started to bleed and I saw the huge flap of skin move. I couldn't get it to stop so I had to take my shirt off to wrap around my finger to go back to my dorm room. Long story short, I ended up with six stitches and didn't submit the photo.

There have been more-double riding a Huffy bike down a steep hill and wiping out, punching myself in the eye somehow in my sleep...but those two are prominent in my mind.