Every Scar Tells a Story

By Sarah 

A week ago Sunday, I was about to take my dog for a walk on a lovely, brisk autumn day when behind me the front door slammed. Right on my left middle finger. 

This is the part where, if you're eating breakfast, you might want to hold off on reading the rest.

At first, I thought I had sliced off the top, except there was very little blood. This hardly mattered as I had been struck speechless, like I'd been sucker punched in the sternum, there was so much pain. I let go of the dog and scrambled inside to check out the damage. Tissue burst forth from the split. Blood seeped under the nail. Days later, I would realize that under the pressure of the clamping deadbolt it had, well, popped.

For a writer, a popped finger is a particularly nasty bit of luck. I have been unable to type R.E.D. without pain or, barring that, wrapping my finger in gauze. Yes, I should have gone to the emergency room but there are few worse outings than sitting in a central Vermont emergency room on a Sunday afternoon. Frankly, a bandaged finger did not qualify. Though now I'm having second thoughts.

It still hasn't quite healed and writing has been a pain though, being a human, my brain has quickly recircuited to adapt, my index finger doing double, if awkward, duty. As a result, I didn't get much writing done last week though that might also have been because I had a swine flu patient to care for at home.

The good news is it is creating an interesting scar. I only wish I had a better story to go with it because good scars should all come with good stories. They are like the tattoos of hard knocks.

My grandmother had a scar running down the length of her right cheek and this, my mother theorized, was what kept her from being married until the ripe old age of 27. Her story - the polite version - was that as a child she'd fallen against a hot iron. Considering she was born in 1890, that was the kind of iron you used to heat on the stove. The real version, I would learn later, was that her drunken father, a German playboy whose family had sent to America to run a vineyard and get out of the damn house, had burned her with a hot poker after she scolded him for beating the horses.

Fun times.

I have a, ahem, friend who has a scar on his wrist the size of a dime. Apparently, his story goes, someone had convinced him that a cigarette could not burn through a dollar bill and to test this theory, my friend  held a cigarette against a dollar bill against his own wrist. Why he didn't test it against a piece of paper or another cigarette is beyond me. Was alcohol involved? I'll let you be the judge.

There are very few people I know who don't have scars on their chins of some size or another left over from childhood. I got mine slipping in the bathtub when I was four. A kid I knew in high school got his when he slipped against a knife blade when he was fourteen. He never told me if he was in the bath then, too.

I do have another scar. It's under my eye and was caused when I was seven years old under my brother's care in Cape Cod. We were staying at a friend's home on an island off Wellfleet. My parents had gone to dinner and taken the only car. Also, the tide was high which meant the roads were covered with water - a cool aspect of staying on the island, unless you needed to go to the hospital.

That night, to entertain me, my brother who was ten years older took me to the top of a dune to fly a kite. I distinctly remember the kite rising and then disappearing into the night sky only to reappear rapidly with the sound of fluttering dive bombing straight down. Into my eye.

In that case, there was a lot of blood. There also wasn't much we could do. This was before cell phones and parents who cared. My parents hadn't left any numbers so when they returned, they found a heavily bandaged little girl, a scared teenage brother and a lot of bloody towels. By that time, they figured, it was too late to get stitches. I remember being extremely relieved since the idea of a needle in that area would have been almost too much to bear.

If you've ever seen the movie After Hours, you'll know scars and the treatment thereof are key plot devices. I loved that movie. But I think I'm the only one.

The point is that I need a better back story for my scarred middle finger. A slammed door while walking the dog just won't do. So far, I've been playing around with a flipping-the-bird theme but coming up short. I am willing to consider any and all suggestions.

In the meantime, got any scar stories? I bet you do. Hey...if it's a good one, I just might steal it.

Sarah

P.S. My interview on Marketplace ran this morning. Check it out: _ http://tiny.cc/M3KJN 

Comments

[Josh]

I loved that movie, too. For quite a while, I would say "Surrender Dorothy!" when my wife and I, well, you know if you saw the movie.

But I guess that's just a psychological scar.

[Kathy Sweeney]

I have a big scar on my right knee from a car accident when I was a kid. I think my mother's OB/GYN stitched it up because he kept trying to distract me with stories of my birth.

He was not a cosmetic surgeon, I kept bending it even though I wasn't supposed to, then I scratched it constantly when it was supposed to be healing nicely under a big bandage wrap. As if a kid can't figure out how to get around that.

As a result, I have a relatively nasty scar. As I am fond of saying, it is the only reason I was not Miss America. heh.

Sometimes, if someone asks about it in a really rude way, I just get a freaky look in my eyes, shake my head and mutter: "'Nam, man." No disrespect intended.

[Charles]

Maybe the dollar bill was actually a 20 pound note (back in the 80s, when 20 pounds was worth something) and that the bet was, if your friend could burn a whole through it, he'd get the note. That's my guess, anyway.

[Charles]

a whole hole, that is.

[Darlene]

Toe number 4 on my right foot has a scar that bisects the toe. That's because when I was a kid I cut the toe in half. Because I grew up in a single parent family with no money, my mom's solution was to drown the toe--which looked like the letter "V"--in peroxide, wrap it around and around with gauze, then put on my rubber boots which were the only thing that fit over the bandage and send me back out to play. Hence the scar and the mutant shape of the toe today. On the other hand I spent about 10 fun days grossing out the boys at school with glimpses under my bandage.

[peach]

Three childhood traumatic accidents two of which I remember:

I have no memory of the accident which created all the scars on my wrist, but my parents tell me I was sent to the fruit cellar in my grandparents basement to retrieve a canning jar of peaches for supper. Somehow on the way back I fell on the steps and the glass shattered and my wrist was sliced up.

I do remember the accident where I stepped on the garden rake. I was five years old, again at my grandparents, and my father was working on their lawn using the garden rake. For those who don't know the difference in rakes, a garden rake has short stiff tines which back in the day came to a very sharp point. Anyway back to my story. I was playing in the yard in my bare feet and not paying any attention. My father had left the rake laying in the yard pointy end up and foot met tine. Needless to say there was a lot drama. As this was the early sixties, the doctor was called and he came to the house. I was ensconced upon a lounge chair on the porch and I can remember him saying as it was a puncture wound it would be better not to have stitches. This story has become a tale oft repeated and my father because of his guilt makes sure to this day all rakes are placed tine side down.

I don't know if I have a scar from this accident or not as I can't actually see this spot on my body, but it was very traumatic. I think more so to my mother than to me. Again we hearken back to the early sixties. My mother washed clothes using a wringer washer and metal laundry tubs on a bench. When the laundry was done, we clamored to get in the tubs to pretend we were swimming. Of course we took off all our clothes. I stepped over the rim of the tub, slipped, and you guessed it, hit that very vital part of a woman's body. Lots of blood and again the doctor was called. I remember my mother frantically asking him if it was going to effect me in the future, but I don't remember his reply. Needless to say there was no more playing in laundry tubs for me after that.

After surviving all my early childhood traumas, you'd think I'd be covered with scars, but fortunately I must have wised up a little after the age of six.

[Terry Odell]

I have a small scar through my right eyebrow. And another, the result of stitches to put my lower lip together when I fell going up the concrete steps when I was two. The eyebrow scar is one of those stories I prefer not to tell (although the hubster doesn't seem to have that same compunction).

I scar if you look at me too hard, so I could make up lots of stories. But they'd all be made up.

[judy merrill larsen]

Kathy, I love your "Nam, man" response!

I have a stomach full of scars . . . all related to various surgeries. The two biggest are from an operation I had at 3 days old, done at a time they didn't believe infants felt pain so they gave no anesthesia (just sort of strapped me down). Thinking of that still gives me the willies.

The scars on my ankles are from that as well (the IVs.).

My only other stitches are on the tip of my thumb which I sliced off when I was five and playing meter reader with some neighborhood kids.

[Harley]

It's inconceivable to me that anyone could think that infants don't feel pain. Didn't anyone have babies back in the olden days?

I loved AFTER HOURS. It starred Griffin Dunne, with whom I had onscreen sex in a movie called The Android Affair. He was the android, I was the affair.

My best scar was in first grade. I was being chased by a boy on the playground, looked back to see if he was gaining on me, and went flying into the ground onto a rock. I have a nice thick scar on the side of my knee 4 inches long. Men. [head shake.] I always fall too hard.

[Harley]

Oh, and p.s.: the nun at school just stuck a bandaid on it and let it bleed. At home, mom took a look at it and said brightly, "come! Let's go to the hospital!" 9 stitches.

[Karen in Ohio]

A Bandaid on a gaping wound. Hunh. Sounds like almost everything a certain recent president tried to do. But I digress.

Sarah, I bet you turned the air blue when you smooshed your finger. Your story is cringe-making. I somehow cut the first inside joint of the same finger on my right hand yesterday, and that little cut is reminding me often, in a much smaller way, of how much pain you must be in.

One of my boy cousins was so accident prone that my uncle used to say that if Austin was ever asked for identifying marks he could say "There's this small patch here with no scars."

Most of my scars came in adulthood. I'm the biggest klutz, and now I understand why my mother never let me do anything; somehow she knew. I have three tiny scars on my jawline from oral surgeries, and split my right eyebrow open in such an embarrassing incident that, like Terry, I refuse to tell the story. Especially since my husband is so gleeful about telling it. However, he has now finally stopped doing that, since a rock thrown up by the bush hog he was operating at the farm hit me in the side of the head hard enough to knock me over. All day he didn't realize that I had not just fallen over spontaneously, and all my goings on about "I could have been killed" weren't just a lot of drama. When he finally realized it was HIS fault for a change he said "If you had died I'd have gone to prison forever because I would never have changed my story that you fell and hit your head." Yeah, there's a scar. If the rock had hit one quarter inch to one side or the other I wouldn't be here to tell the tale.

[William Simon]

Appendix.
Hernia.
Namath Knees.
Right pinkie broken, compound.
Burn from belt sander, left hand.
Right lower leg, dent/crooked bone.
Right middle finger, knife scar.
Dent upper left forehead.

I take my clothes off, I look like a relief map of downtown Chicago, fer crissakes.....

[Pam aka SisterZip]

Forehead & eyebrow: don't know, my mom doesn't remember so it must have been when I was very little.

Inner forearm: has almost faded completely away, but burned arm while ironing my dads boxers at age 9.

Hands: various wart removals.

top of hands, inner elbows, outer forearm: IV scars-kept blowing it out.

Right index finger: broke a lamp and cut the top part of the section between the hand knuckle & the middle knuckle. Should have had stitches, but it was a Friday night at about 1am. Not the best time to hit the emergency room. Just taped it together & it healed fine. Just a big scar.

Knuckles on left pinkie: elementary school stupidity. scraped on stone retaining wall.

Hysterectomy scar...wasn't supposed to be one, then should have been one inch. Ended up 8 inches across. Long, long now humorous story.

I bruise & scar very easily. I have so many small ones that I couldn't even begin to remember them all. I'm surprised I actually have skin on my knees. I slammed my fingers in car doors so many times as a kid its amazing I have any fingers.

[Debra in MN]

William -- relief map comment made me laugh out loud!!

Anyway -- back in 1998 I was crossing the street with the walk light in my favor in the middle of the day on a way to a work meeting. Bimbo who was too busy trying to get to wherever made a right on a red and "didn't see me" even though I was right in front of her car. Did I mention that it was 12:50 in the afternoon and I am not a teeny tiny person?

Bumper of her car hit me and suddenly I'm in the middle of the street (in Minnesota in January) and I can't get up. No blood or bones sticking out or anything and suddenly it's like the hospital dramas -- people all around me telling me to lay still -- DUH!!! I can't get up.

Long story shortened up -- diagnosis is a shattered tibial plateau (where the tibia meets the knee). A metal plate and eight pins hold it together and the scar is long and lovely, as far as scars go.

Lucky for me I got full movement back, but can't kneel for anything anymore and getting up off the ground isn't pretty.

I know have my very own barometric pressure device in my leg. Can't tell you what the weather is going to do, but can tell you when it's changing.

The only other plus side to this whole situation was that it was worker comp, so I had help with bathing, driving, cleaning, etc and the settlement helped too -- took the kids to Disney.

[Josh]

I have surgical scars in my abdomen from a couple of surgeries a dozen years ago. It was difficult to get back to the swimming pool after that. Now, aren't surgical scars sort of a rite of passage for us aging Boomers?

[Josh]

And Harley, in the movie, did he vibrate? Because that would save me some money.

[Holly Gault]

I have scars up each ankle. I broke the right one slipping on wet snow six years before the left, slipping on wet leaves. When in a macabre mood, I tell people that I didn't know the proper way to commit suicide.

[Sarah]

See? Scars are fun.

But Griffin Dunne? Yum!

[Elaine Viets]

Ouch, Sarah, it's the "little" injuries that cause the most pain. My condolences and wishes for a quick recovery.
I have Frankenstein scars on my head from brain surgery and my skull is held together with four titanium bolts. But the IV lines hurt worse than the head. Go figure.

[Pam aka SisterZip]

Those scars are badges of honor & courage, Elaine!

[Maryann Mercer]

Knives and I don't get along...hence the several scars on each hand from misadventure, usually when slicing bread. My 'best' one though is from slashing my index finger with broken glass on July 3rd. Ten stitches and one of those metal sheath things that made it impossible to eat corn on the cob or anything else with my left hand...and I am left handed! Got me out of doing the dishes for a week or so and taught me to use those long handled brushes (not for long though...now I just buy unbreakable glasses!). My other 'scars' are from my laproscopic gall bladder surgery. Five little lines on my abdomen. So, I could wear a bikini if I ever really entertained the idea of frightening most of the kids at the pool :o)
Heal quickly, Sarah...our birthday's are just around the corner and you need to be well!

[Kathy Sweeney]

Okay Holly - how come you have a little black cat and the rest of us have Etch-a-Sketch?

[nancy martin]

The massive scar on my back came from a native of Uganda with a machete.

[JanetLynn13]

William, can we get more details on the "Right middle finger, knife scar?"

My 'favorite' scar is from my brother. He was playing with my dad's knife that flipped open while we were in the car on the way to the beach. He was probably 8, and kept getting yelled at to stop flipping the knife open... Of course, he flipped it open and it flew, and it hit my wrist. Everything happened so fast, and so much blood spattered up my arm, that we couldn't tell were it hit me. Turned out to be small (1/2 inch) on my writst and the salt water helped it heal. Gotta love little brothers...

The biggest is my c-section scar - how ugly can you get? sigh.

[nancy martin]

Okay, it might have been my back surgeon, but it looks like it came from a machete.

[Josh]

I HATED IT when they would redo my IV lines, even when I was completed laced with morphine. Especially because it meant that I would probably be imprisoned for another couple of days. I think I liked it worse than when they would jab my stomach with Heparin twice a day--and there's a story that my barber will never forget, when my father-in-law took me for a shave right after being on Heparin for ten days. Blood seeping out of my face all over the place. First (and last) shave I've ever had at a barber.

[Sheila Connolly]

Years ago I worked with a Philadelphia lawyer who had apparently suffered some accident to his hand, which left his middle finger in a permanently straight position. Since he was a lawyer, I always wondered if he'd left it that way on purpose.

My scar? One that goes along the length of my eyebrow. When I was about three, I was hit in the head by a falling can of pineapple in a grocery store. My parents took the store to court, but I totally blew the trial when I had a tantrum in the courtroom.

[Holly Gault]

Mr. Typepad didn't like my macabre comment, so I had to sign in on my blog and that is my avatar.

I wanna hear about Willam's right middle finger, knife scar too. And make it good -- I don't want to hear kitchen mistakes, I've got enough of those, myself.

[Kim West]

My son, god bless him, and a gaggle of his fraternity brothers, thought it would be fun to see if you could brand yourself with a hot bottle opener...and he has the ugly scar to prove it...on his chest for all the world to see! Need I make comment that great amounts of alchohol were involved? No, I didn't think so...sigh

[Karen in Ohio]

Kim, my youngest daughter went to a prominent senior military college. Some of her classmates, doofuses all, "branded" themselves with the letter denoting their company in the corps of cadets. School spirit is one thing, but that's just... Oh, never mind. It was guys. In college.

Geez, I didn't even mention my knees, which are nothing but scar tissue, along with both shins. I'm like Kathy, just one horrendous mishap with the merry-go-round away from perfection.

[Maryann Miller]

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! My finger hurt just reading about yours, Sarah.

I have many surgical scars, but perhaps the most noteworthy scar I have is on my index finger. Got that one when I was a kid visiting grandparents in West Virginia. Grandpa was whittling and when he put his knife up on the mantle, he told us kids not to touch it. This story is pretty predictable, so you probably know what happened next.

What makes this so memorable to me is that Grandpa did not get angry as he watched Grandma bandage the cut on my finger. He simply shook his head and said how disappointed he was that I didn't mind him.

[Kerry]

Lessee: Vertical scar high up on my forehead from when I was about 4 and persisted in running the circuit from hall, through kitchen, around living room and back into hall in spite of my parents' oft-repeated warnings. I crashed into the wall. The worst part was when the bandage came off (naturally I had a ton of fine hair trapped underneath).

Second facial scar is right under my chin, from when I tried to follow our Laborador from the back seat of the car to the front (this before mandatory seat belts and during a time when front bench seats had metal strips along the tops). We were on the way to the vet, and Mom figured he was just as well qualified to stitch me up as the pediatrician.

Third facial scar is a little one next to my right eyebrow from a car accident about 2 weeks after marriage #1. After I'd been stitched, I was sitting on my bed in the ER crying. "Does it hurt?" asked the nurse. "No." "Then why are you crying?" I could have killed her.

Otherwise - knife scar on left forefinger from trying to bore a hole in a purse strap with a kitchen knife (I was 10, I think). Inside of left thigh from a bike accident as a teenager. Various puncture marks from various laparoscopies, and one dandy hysterectomy scar.

These days, I'm mostly bruised up various martial arts encounters . . .

[Mo]

Way too many surgical scars to list. One of my parents favorite stories was how I got the scar on the side of my left eye. I was 4 and teaching my 6 year old brother how to let the air out the car tire. My Dad caught us and I slipped and landed on the stem. Ouch.

[Rita Scott]

hmmm, gall bladder, before laprascopy, about 13 inches long.
strangulated hernia, about the same which is twice as long as they thought it would be but had to take out 18 inches of bowel. Yeah Josh, those heperin shots in the belly are kinda freaky!
Funny, but don't have any scars from when I was a kid & stepped on nails, had to get stitches in head from rock fights with the kids across the creek, scrapes from building tree houses & rafts, etc.
More as an adult from cat scratches but when you've got ahold of a feral cat, you don't let go or you'll never get them in the crate to go get fixed! 10 inch one down my forearm.Nurse asked me if I'd ever attempted suicide!!! "no dear, you cut across your wrist for that!" Another nurse asked what that big scar on my belly was from, 'duh, you can't tell a scar from a 2 inch wide stretch mark??'

[chairy]

My wife & I once threw a scar party -- everyone had to be prepared to show off & tell all about a scar. We also had a faux psychic there to 'read' scars. Great fun.

[Debby]

Sarah...you should read Lisa Scottoline's story of how she recently lost the tip of her finger breaking up a tussle between her dogs. :)

As for me, I have got scars aplenty! Besides the standard childhood accident scars, I have a bunch of others.

I hope I keep my hair as when I was a toddler I fell and cracked my skull. Blood was everywhere.

Another kiddoe accident was on Easter Sunday, playing duck-duck-goose in the church parking lot. I was the goose and fell on the gravel...on my face.

Left knee arthroscopic, followed a few years later by a Right knee alograph/ arthroscopic with a wonderful scar due to the surgeon not specifying my height as opposed to the donor ACL. Ugh.

Tail bone surgery (mentioned in a prior post). Boobs (discussed earlier). Abdomen surgery....no bikinis for me, thank you very much!

And finally, the 98 visits (and counting) to Red Cross to do my pheresis donations has caused quite a bit of scarring at my inner elbow. I always carry my RC donor card, in case somebody doubts the authenticity of the scars (as opposed to illegal drugs...since I hate needles).

[Karen in Ohio]

Actually, Rita, any ER nurse will tell you that cutting across the wrist is NOT the most efficient way to commit suicide, and will more likely end in a bandaged wrist and a bruised ego.

[Sarah]

To all of you, may I just say....Ewwww.

Halloween Scar Parties - now there's a concept. (Have a "Scarry Halloween" - get it?)

[Rita Scott]

Oh well. I always said "why would commit suicide & make my ex happy when I can stick around & make him miserable?" LOL

[Karen in Ohio]

Good plan, Rita! LOL

[Doc in CA]

Having been a victim of psoriasis for the last 35 years, many of my scars have been erased when a patch of scaly skin has formed over them. Once the psoriasis goes away, as it does under my current UVB regimen, the skin below is scar free...but freckled.

What that means is that I no longer have my two stab wounds (one accidental, one done by a knife wielding drunk), my bullet wound scar(which was pretty small to begin with), the bird shot scars on my butt and upper right thigh (the result of an unfortunate waremelon stealing adventure in my teens), the scar where a stick poked into my calf or the scar on my chest where my favorite girl cousin once accidently sliced me open with a carelessly tossed rock.

I DO still have the scar from being speared in the shoulder with a broken pool cue, the scar where I almost cut my funger off, the scar on my palm from yet another knife wound (by the same crazed drunk) and a scar on the back of one hand where I shoved it in a dogs mouth to keep him from biting me.

I also have a scar from a tragic zipper accident when I was in college, but I won't go into details about it.

[Amy]

My favorite scar is a little one on the back of my hand. It's about the size of a cigarette burn, an inch or so below my right index finger. I got bitten by a horse. She liked lipping loose skin, and my withering flesh was apparently so wonderful she had to get her sizable teeth involved. She just held it there between her teeth while her lips went to town on my hand, but then she twisted her head with my skin still between her teeth. It was rather painful.

Most of my scars are stretch marks, actually. I was young and in pretty good shape, if I do say so, when I got pregnant with the baby who turned out to be the biggest in my family's history. My skin just couldn't keep up; it stretched so much I had scabs after she was born. Gross.

Harley, is onscreen sex fun at all? Or is it all camera angles and lighting and blocking? Do you get to go with it or do you have to have at it according to the director's vision? Or does it depend on who you're working with? What was the best onscreen sex you've had? Best as in however you want to interpret that.

[Peg H]

Left ankle inside and out--dog bite, almost lost my Achilles tendon to a wolf GSD mix. Inside elbow left arm--dog bite, our female miniature poodle nabbed me by accident. Right hip, same poodle nabbed me again while trying to nip our male poodle he dodged I got it. Right hand below thumb--dog bite, vicious Shih Tzu at the vet's where I worked. Tiny scar under lower lip--yep another dog bite, little Rottie with very sharp puppy teeth, she didn't mean to do it she was over excited and very happy to meet me.
Abdominal scars from various surgeries.
Right foot--tiny scar on top from where I stepped on a roofing nail as a child, it went clean through the foot.
Slight scar on cheek from a knife--won't go there it was high school.
Several knife slices on fingers from klutzy cutting of food.

[Sarah]

May I just say I would kill for a bullet wound scar.

[Rita Scott]

Ask Nancie! LOL I'm sure she could give you a 'non-fatal' one

[ArkansasCyndi]

Scars:

Middle finger Left Hand - Coca-cola bottle exploded when I shook it up and the cap was still on (age about 3 or 4)

Left eyebrow - Playing chase in house (yes, yes I know. Don't run in the house). Dad ran into a room and closed the door. I lunged for the doorknob. Hit my eye on the corner of a bookshelf. (Now that I read that, I guess I'm glad I didn't hit my eye)

Chin - Middle - Feel down a stoop of concrete stairs.

Second Toe on both feet - had bone spurs that that to be ground down.

Left shoulder (on back) - removal of a congenital nevus

Left knee - Total knee replacement

Nothing sexy or interesting in my scar patterns!

[Steve]

I have a thin, faint scar between my left thumb and forefinger. When I arrived at the hospital 5am that Monday morning, the ER nurse looked at it and uttered a one word question: "Bagel?"

There is an oval scar on the outside edge of the little finger on my right hand. I had given my mom a mandoline (kitchen tool, not mandolin the instrument) but she wasn't comfortable with its blade. So, I was slicing an eggplant demonstrating how easy and safe it was to use when.... Anyway, the ER nurse said her husband was a chef and wouldn't let her have one. He claimed it was to dangerous for the average person to use. I did learn not to talk when using it. Oh, I threw the finger piece in a Baggie and stuffed that in another one containing ice to take it to the hospital. They sewed it back on (yes, I watched) and two doctors told me it probably wouldn't take while the plastic surgeon said maybe. It did.

Then there were the few years I worked in a bakery. A scar on one finger cut while clearing a scale and on another that got caught in a bread mixer moments after saying something about one of its safeguards, adding that you'd have to be an idiot to get hurt on the machine.

Then there's my more recent surgical scar. I offer to show it to people and keep getting a resounding "NO!". I think we'll let that one go for now.

[Nancie aka Gun Tart]

Sarah, I could drive you around South Phoenix and we could get into a rolling gun battle so you'll have a great story to tell about the bullet wound scar.

My best scars came from being crushed between a car and a pickup at the age of eight and the numerous surgeries to fix me. My traction scar from this accident can be used as a bullet wound scar. "Yep, it went clean through." I've also got a half moon scar on my right arch from the brilliant plan to stomp on a semi broken bottle to break it, unfortunately, the bottle wasn't receptive to the plan and in retaliation flipped up and stabbed me in the foot.

[Debby]

Oh, I almost forgot about my right index finger scar. I was closing the garage door (before automatic openers) and squished my finger. Opened the door, removed finger and then had to run to the neighbors holding the gusher. The neighbors (acre away), didn't answer to my knock or my door kick. I let out a piercing scream and they came running.

A few days later, I finally went to the doctor...it was crushed at the tip. No stitches as I had waited too long.

Today, it is longer than my other index finger and there is also an air bubble in it from when I flipped the tip back on and had it bandaided. :) My nieces love the bubble when it grows whenever we are at the resort hot tub. LOL!

[T]

My brother is really the one to talk to about scars, but I have a few.

Left cheek - nasty playpen incident where my cousin scratched me.

Right shoulder - 3 dots from surgery

Left thumb - I was cutting stained glass late at night and as I was breaking out a piece, I slipped. My first thought was, "I wasn't cutting red glass!" My mom thought I cut off my thumb because I was wearing gloves and she saw the bloody thumb of the glove on the ground. I got stitched up and then had to have surgery to repair the nerve.

Bottom of foot - I was in a 70' hole at work testing rock anchors in artesian well conditions when I stepped in a hole and a nail went through my boot. I thought something bit me then the water sloshing out of my boot turned pink. They wanted to lift me out of the hole in the manbasket of a crane, but I refused and climbed the ladders like everyone else. They didn't close it, because it was a puncture wound.

Back - I was home sick from school, laying on the couch, and a piece of a light fixture fell on me.

I saved the best for last. I blame this scar for my inability to pose for Playboy. I had MRSA 2 years ago and I have a 3" x 1.5" scar in my bikini area (the part actually covered by a bikini) where I had 3 surgeries to get the infection out. It's kind of hard to describe that area to people, so my work people thought it was in the groin and my grandma thought it was inside. One guy at work asked to see it - I told him that if he saw it, we were going to go to HR. Then I had to set gram straight.

I forgot that I'm missing a tooth, too. I have a bridge because I just never had an adult tooth there. I lost the baby one when my brother and I were wrestling and he kneed me in the mouth. I tell kids I lost it in a bar fight.

[T]

I forgot my elbow scar, too! On Friday night of Labor Day weekend of my freshman year of college, I was in the shower and I had my leg up on the wall while shaving. I slipped like there was a banana peel in there. I split open my elbow and when my arm is straight it still looks like there's a cut.