Trading Scar Stories
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Trading Scar Stories

October 27th, 2010 [ Tags: , ]

Ah, nothing says romance like swapping scar stories in an emergency room. She’s a keeper right there, Bodie!

I’ve got a pretty stupid scar story. I must have been about eight or so. I was playing outside in the playground at daycare when I saw a hub cap lying there in the grass. No one would have ever accused me of being terribly bright when I was that young so it should come as no small surprise to you to hear that I decided it would be fun to play frisbee with said hub cap. It’s round. It’s kinda curved. It looks like a metal frisbee anyway. Why not!

My friends must have been morons as well because they joined in with me. We got through one full rotation of passes and were feeling pretty confident. It was then that I missed my catch and the hub cap bounced off my hand (or so I thought), slammed me in the chest, and fell to the ground. Unfortunately, this particular hub cap was made of a heavy metal and had a rusty jagged edge. I looked down at my hand and saw a gaping, bloody wound on the top of my forefinger. Turns out the hub cap didn’t bounce off my hand. It sliced open my finger.

I was very lucky. It was my right hand, my drawing hand. I don’t know how deep the thing went, but fortunately I didn’t need stitches. Now I’ve got two little scars on my right forefinger reminding me to get friends who have sense enough to not throw a rust, jagged, heavy metal hub cap around a field like a frisbee.

20Comment



  • http://www.verylate.com/ Henry

    That’s Holy Cross, right? =)

  • Jenova

    *OMG* ^^ SO CUTE!
    Love the last panel, made me smile. : )

  • Dave

    Stupid scar stories!! So back in 1st grade there were these very thick heavy solid core wood doors (with tight spring hinges) on the bathrooms at school. I remember seeing the ‘cool’ kids playing a thrill game where they would have their hands in the way of the closing door and pull them out the last second. I wanted to try this but I was not cool, so one day at recess I came back to the room when no one was around and promptly got my hand caught in the closing door (hinge side) causing it to slice throgh my pinky finger. I couldn’t reach the handle and was in so much pain I had to just wait, bleeding, until recess was over to be taken to the ER. I still have a nice scar all the was along my finger.

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie

    @Dave, OWIES!!! Clearly, the cool kids were friggin morons. I’m glad your finger survived!

  • Brian

    Oh I have one. If you’ve never noticed the scar in the center of my freakin’ forehead go look for it next time you see me. Got that when I was a kid. My brothers and I were in a market with my dad picking some stuff up one weekend and I had this notion that it would be fun to run around with my arms out, pretending to be a WWI fighter pilot. Turns out I thought I was pretty good at it. So good, in fact, that I imagined it would be perfectly suitable for a biplane pilot of my caliber to fly with his eyes closed.

    And that’s how I ran into the ladder that split my skull. And it’s odd, because you’d imagine the most visible, noticeable scar would be the one I’m self conscious about. Turns out that when it happens so young you don’t remember ever NOT having it you just accept it as what you’re supposed to look like. It’s the scars nobody sees I get most ashamed of. So weird.

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie

    @Henry, I was going for Suburban, but I couldn’t get a good photo of it. So this is kind of my messed up interpretation of Suburban.

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie

    @Brian, I’ve never noticed your forehead scar! Now I won’t be able NOT to look at it when I see you again.

  • kumiriko

    I have a nice bubblie scar on my left hand. when i was 2 we lived on a farm. sleeping next to a gas heater I rolled and my hand well made a connection that was quite regrettable. over the years its spread out but still noticeable

  • Brian

    Jamie: It’s not super blatant. There’s no discoloration at all and it’s more like an inch long dent right between my eyebrows.

  • Minato

    I have a scary scar story. It happened just a bit over 2 years ago. I had just left work and was walking a little way towards the more busy city center to catch commute back home. Some office on the third (!) floor of the building I was passing by had a window open and there was a bad draft. The window smashed open and the glass panel cracked and fell out of its frame. I always carry a book with me wherever I go, because I go insane if I have to go by a tram or bus with nothing to occupy my brain with. I heard the loud smash above me and instinctively covered my head with my arms. I felt a thud on the book I was holding and a split second later – a hit on my left shoulder and heard a crash on the pavement below. I didn’t feel any pain, but my arm felt a bit weird. When I patted my shoulder I felt it was wet and after looking at my hand…, well, it was blood. I looked down and saw cracked glass and pretty much just 100% calmly turned around and walked back to work where I calmly stated with a smile that one of my coworkers should call an ambulance because I got ambushed by a window ^_^; At which point I proceeded to go into the small office bathroom, calmly pressed a towel down onto my arm and sat down to not make a mess while coworkers panicked ;D I only sneaked a single glance under the fabric. Let me tell you… My arm was cut open to the bone. It was terrifying. {Insert time skip} Long story short – I now have a huge scar on my shoulder (4 inches by 1 inch) and won’t wear tank tops or dresses with thin arm pieces. Here’s where it gets truly scary. Several hours after the whole thing, back home after the ER ride etc, I finally had the much delayed panic attack and adrenaline rush in the privacy of my room. I realized one thing. That broken glass panel hit the book I was carrying and slid down on it onto my arm. If I have not been carrying the book, I would have 1) lost a hand, or 2) probably lost my life because the glass would have went into my skull.
    Thank you Mr Terry Pratchett and your wonderful “Going Postal” book, which was with me on that day.

  • Minato

    Oh God. I wrote a novel. Sorry. ;D

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie

    @Minato, HOLY CRAP! Yes yes, thank gods for Terry Pratchett! I’m glad you made it out mostly safe and mostly not dead!

  • http://sparebrainsgames.com Wayne Zombie

    I have over a dozen scars, but most were surgical. My best self-inflicted via stupidity were: under my chin via swimming, over my eye by a football, and on the top of my ankle from a thrown piece of rebar.

    Such fun!

  • http://sparebrainsgames.com Wayne Zombie

    @Minato: wow. I got to meet Sir Terry last year, I’m sure he would have loved to hear that his writing saved your life.

  • http://techhead0.deviantart.com Techhead

    I got one interesting scar story. It was late at night at a camp I go to. I was sitting outside the camp kitchen for light, whittling with a semi-serrated knife when the knife slipped and caught on the serrated part. It jumped and sliced my left thumb open. I stood just outside the kitchen (sanitation!) with my right hand applying pressure and I asked where the first aid was, as I had sliced my finger open. Everyone more or less panicked, but soon I got some paper towels to hold over it and directions. I then calmly walked across camp to where the first aid was held and sat still got it washed and dressed.
    The only complication from it all was that I had partially severed the extensor pollicis longus muscle, preventing me from hyperextending my interphalangeal joint. Neither I nor insurance wanted to pay the $50K microsurgery, so I wore a splint for two months while I hoped it reconnected on its own. It did, and now I have an interesting semi elliptical scar.
    Oh, and someone threw out the piece of wood that I bled for!

  • Fish

    Iv got dozens of scar stories, all of them self inflicted:
    -most noticeable one is the only one i ever got stitches for. I do back stage theater work and we have a loft where we store all our chairs, dressers, and the likes and the “recommended” way up is a ladder, but being lazy and teenagers there is an ancient path using pipes and a breaker box. iv got up that way since day one, never had a problem. then one day im monkeying my way down and my foot slips on the breaker box due to old shoes and their zero traction. i then fell the last 5-6 feet, clipping my elbow on the box on my way down, i landed on my feet, completely unfazed, or so i though. i keep walking for a few seconds and feel this trickle on my arm i look at it and to my surprise blood and quite a bit. i couldn’t actually see the cut so i walked to my group of friends to get them to look at it. the group was a mix of actors and techs. i walked over and told em all i was bleeding, actors saw it and flipped and ran away. all the tech just when “sigh, bleeding again?” the day ended with freaking the front office out, telling the faculty a total bullshit so the theater department didnt get in trouble, stitched up, not much really only about 5, it was more deep than wide, now iv got me a nice little scar that dimples in all the time
    -other-
    - my hand was scarred for about 3 years from the pan cast iron skillet incident, also had HOT burn into my hand for a bit from that
    -got one from my wrist to just under my 1st thumb knuckle from when a curved pocket knife slipped on the wood i was carving
    - a small one on my forehead form standing on the foot on my bed and falling forward on to my pillow, i missed onetime and hit my nightstand corner, knocked me senseless, bleed all over then passed out
    -iv got a really cool one which spirals up my arm from a rope burn on a high adventure trek, i was throwing a weighted rope over a very high tree branch so we could get out food off the ground, over shot the tree branch and the weighted rope jerked with enough force to almost lift me off the ground

    god iv written too much, iv just got way too many and their all pretty funny stories

  • Jenova

    Oh HOLY BLARP!
    People, what are you doing? OO

    @nearly everyone
    how do you do this? ^^ I do not have even one scar on my body. : P

    @Brian
    Having a scar on your forehead and not caring about it sounds kinda cool. ; )

    @Minato
    ^^ glad you managed to roll a succesfull parade against that sneak-attacking window.
    Isn´t it funny, how everyone around you panics, if theres blood flowing?
    OK, I guess that was a serious injury, but how you told it made me lol.
    And yeah, you wrote a novel! ^^

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie

    Now someone has to tell us a sad story about an ex relationship that has totally scarred them and we can recreate that awesome scene in Jaws!

  • Miller

    Got a pair stupids and a singular scary scar story to share.

    Lets start stupid, my little brother and I had been lockedoutof our house for the upteenth time because we left our house keys in the house when we went to school.
    No problem, we usually just finagled one particular basement window open and slid on inside.
    Problem being this time that the window caught when I tried to slip it open and I ended up putting my hand through the glass as I lost my balance. One particular shard sliced a straight line up my middle finger from the tip of the nail through a bit passed the wrist.
    Doing my very best no to panic I wrapped the slice in paper towel and my brother took off to get the neighbor, a nurse, to help with first aid and see if I needed to go to the hospital, which I didn’t, it only cut deep by the nail. For all the damage, all I’ve got a tiny scar that runs down to the first joint on my middle finger.
    A note of humor hrough it all, both our neighbors on either sides are nurses, the closer of the two is an ER nurse and the other is a veterinary nurse, which do you think my brother went and got?

    The next stupid one involves cooking.
    I’ve currently got 3 scars related to cooking on my hands right now, 2 involving knives and fingertips on my left hand, one involving a searing hot pan on the right.
    The two knife incidents involved cutting garlic and onions with a serated kitchen knife (I ususally use a straight blade), stung like hell after it happened and I’ve since baniched all serated blades but the bread and steak knives from my kitchen.
    The funny thing tying all three together aside from cooking? Tey are all shaped like Startrek Com-badges from The Next Generation.

    My scary one happened not to me, but to my aforementioned little brother. He and a few friends went out joy riding down the backroads in one friends brand new sports car.
    The road they picked kills people every year, even when they don’t go racing down it at twice the speed limit. Needless to say they crash, car goes flipping hundreds of feet into the trees and brush, and they all ended up walking away from it. My brother was the only one hurt, and he now sports a thick scar over his one of his eyes from where he hit the window.

    Man I wrote way too much.

  • http://bendwavy.org/ Tamfang

    I can no longer see the scar I got while slicing meat in ~1987; but the same (or adjacent) finger still remembers when, about the same time, my wife didn’t tell me there was broken glass in the kitchen trash bag.