FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER!

(re-run)

When you get to be my age, you’re bound to have a few scars. I haven’t had any big surgeries, but I do have scars from burns, bumps, and scrapes along the way.  Right now it’s my thumb that is most noticeable.

I broke it by pulling down a three-piece sectional garage door an sticking my thumb in-between the sections thirty-some years ago.  The nail fell off and grew back crooked and with ridges, like a Ruffles potato chip. Yes, it is ugly.

I stepped on a rusty can as a child and got stitches in my heel, plus a tetanus shot. That scar has faded.

I had a mark on my right forearm where I burned it with the McDonald’s French fryer. Hot oil jumped out of the fryer and burned my skin. But that was almost fifty years ago, so it has faded.

The dog bite on the back of knee, the first blemish on my stop-traffic teen-aged legs, was a heart break. Becky Somebody’s dog attacked me while I was visiting her. I was fourteen or fifteen.  The dog was sneaky and got me as I was walking away from it. It sort of ended my desire to go back to Becky’s house.

I student-taught in Venezuela and went to the beach, at the equator in January about forty-two years ago and stayed for three hours.  No hat. My Swedish roommate got a tan. I got 2^nd degree burns on my face, water blisters, peeling skin, and lots of future trips to the dermatologist to check for skin cancer.

When I was a teacher, the high school principal forced me to chaperone the Spanish club, along with a new teacher who got the job that I had applied for and wanted (I was half-time at the middle school).  We had a midnight bowling party.

I am a morning person. When I stepped over the line onto the slicked-up lane, I went down, and my glasses cut my brow line, just months before my wedding. I pretty much forgot about that one, but whenever I apply eye shadow, the old scar reappears. It has lasted longer than the marriage.

My ex-boyfriend wanted to borrow my truck one day, but first he had to help me unload a heavy deck box with a plastic lid. I wasn’t ready when he pulled it out of the truck, and I lost my grip. The plastic lid slid down my finger, slicing it all the way down until it hit my great great grandmother’s ring. Long story, short, four stitches and two weeks of meals provided by said ex-boyfriend.

Now all I have to remember that by is a thick spot on my ring finger on my right hand. I have to wear my ancestor’s ring on my left hand, third finger. Thanks so much, Bill.

The biggest scar is my missing tooth. I felt a big zing of pain on December 16^th of 2016.  I went to the the dentist, who said I had a sinus infection. Three months later, after I had been to the ER twice, it turned out I had cracked my tooth under a back crown and had a festering infection. My gum exploded one morning, and the same dentist admitted that maybe I should see a specialist. I lost the tooth and $2000. Needless to say, I see a different dentist now.

Overall, this is not too bad for six and one half decades of life (almost). Scars show the world that we have lived.  And survived.  Everyone with any age on them has scars unless they are rich or home-bound.

Scars show that we are still here and kicking.  Be proud of your scars.

When a new guy friend grabbed my hand, stared at my thumb, and said, “What happened?” my first reaction was, hey, if you want perfection, don’t hang around with me, baby.

“Old injury from an accident,” I said.

He didn’t really care how it had happened. That’s all I needed to know about him and who he was.

But I digress.

Embrace your scars. They make you who you are (although I would like my tooth back).

Couldda Wouldda Shouldda

My days of oiling up to spend a day in the sun have caught up with me., says the dermatologist.

I predict more scars in my future.