…and this is a 
Scars
Category: Weirdness
Posted on: May 20, 2008 8:34 AM, by PZ Myers
Hank Fox is starting one of those memes: this one asks us to tell the story of a scar.
Tell the story of a (non-surgical) scar you have somewhere on your body. Answer and tag three other bloggers.
Alas, I am a pampered child of the middle class, and I don't have much of a history of trauma and injury. I've got a couple of small slashes on my forehead from when I was a toddler, when I had a series of unfortunate accidents falling headfirst onto coffee tables. My knees were shredded in typical childhood accidents. I've got a massive appendectomy scar that gets admiring comments from doctors when I go in for checkups — most appendectomies nowadays involve teeny-tiny incisions and don't demand a hemisection of the abdomen. That's about it. Boring, I know.
There is one other hairline scar on my left hand, but I already described that. Does a self-inflicted incision with a scalpel count as non-surgical?
Now I'm supposed to tag three other people…wait, I'm supposed to ask some strangers to tell me about their scars? If you did that at a party it would be considered hopelessly rude. To reduce personal culpability, I just punched my magic blogroll randomizer and it spat up three urls: Neurodudes, Amygdala, and Unfogged. Surely somebody in that mob has a notable scar, but if you'd rather not talk about it, that's fine. And please don't feel obligated to show us any.
Comments
I've got a couple of small slashes on my forehead from when I was a toddler, when I had a series of unfortunate accidents falling headfirst onto coffee tables.
I've got one on my forehead from a family trip to San Antonio. I was about 3 or 4, sitting in the back seat of the car, when Dad slammed the breaks. My head slammed into the back of the front seat, and I had to go for stitches.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | May 20, 2008 8:51 AM
Do those of us who don't have blogs get to talk about our scars too? Sadly, I scar easily, so my stories mostly all go along the lines of "Um, I think I scratched myself there once." I do have a tiny one on my lip that I got a few years ago. I was doing fieldwork in the Pacific Northwest. I was in a hotel bathroom taking a shower, the tub was quite slippery, and while reaching out to grab the washcloth I had forgotten I slipped and fell, crashing my face onto the top edge of the toilet tank. Totally split my lip open, then spent 20 minutes driving around town trying to find a hospital because the hotel desk clerk couldn't tell me how to get there, even though it was a small town. Stopped at three places before someone could direct me to the ER. The ER doctor said that it would take a couple of stitches on the outside, but probably not the inside because "almost no one ever needs stitches on the inside of their mouth on a cut like this", then took a look and decided oh, yeah, four or five stitches in there. Thankfully, it happened at the end of the trip rather than the beginning, so it didn't impede specimen collection.
Posted by: Carlie | May 20, 2008 8:55 AM
I have many scars on my body.
As a youth, I was injured sufficiently each Good Friday, several years in a row, to require a visit to the Emergency Room for stitches and repair.
I Believe my Personal Relationship with Jesus springs from this Amazing Series of Coincidae.
Posted by: Hipple, Rev. Paul T. | May 20, 2008 8:56 AM
You got stitches? Your family must have loved you, because all I ever got was bandaids. And they weren't even the cool kind, just the boring beige ones.
At least with the appendectomy I got staples, and the incision got infected, so I also got pus and the ripe aroma of decay!
Posted by: PZ Myers | May 20, 2008 8:58 AM
Does an episiotomy count as a "surgical" scar?
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | May 20, 2008 9:00 AM
OOh, I got a "smiley" neck scar from having my thyroid out for cancer. They put big metal staples in instead of sutures and it looked like I had an imbedded punk type necklace thing happening. My brother calls me Kurgen (out of Highlander) to this day.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | May 20, 2008 9:03 AM
I have a small circular scar on my right upper inner thigh from a lawn dart. Good thing I jumped to (unsuccessfully) avoid it.
Posted by: Dr. Steve | May 20, 2008 9:05 AM
Burn scars on my feet. I learned "don't play with fire" and "shoes melt" simultaneously.
Posted by: bill r | May 20, 2008 9:06 AM
Do duelling scars count?
Posted by: Dave Wisker | May 20, 2008 9:07 AM
I have 11 scars on my forehead. (eventually to be 12, as my hairline recedes).
Posted by: daenku32 | May 20, 2008 9:09 AM
I've got a scar on my chin, from cycling. Actually, it was from crashing while cycling. An injury to a finger tip from a couple of weeks ago is now pretty much healed, along with associated bruises to my back, where I got hit by a passing trailer. I've raced since then, although my back is still painful. I've never come off in a race - it only happens at other times. Jumpin' Jeezus, maybe there is a god!?
Posted by: Richard Harris | May 20, 2008 9:15 AM
I have a lovely one in the underside of my wrist as a result of a particularly brutal savaging from a pet rabbit. And another along the length of my middle finger that I received after I fell over with a stack of plates in my hand, it needed 6 stitches!
But that's about it, most of my scars are internal I think.
Posted by: maxi | May 20, 2008 9:16 AM
ha! a measly little scar on your thigh? I've got two from improbable head traumas. I could sit here and bore people with tales of how I came to have various scars, but I don't think I will.
Posted by: DLC | May 20, 2008 9:18 AM
Only two worth mentioning. One on my chin were I learned a very valuable life lesson about not trying to run up an incline when it's covered in ice (it seemed like a good idea at the time), took a couple of stitches to fix that. And one on my chest, just below and to the right of my heart where I almost impaled myself on a chain link fence.
Posted by: Jamdark | May 20, 2008 9:19 AM
huh, all my known and visible childhood scars seemed to have melted away after adolescents.The only childhood scar I have left is a scratch across my nose from a dog jumping up on me, wait that mostly disappeared too. Um, hey wait I have a couple scars from shaving accidents!
Posted by: Ouchimoo | May 20, 2008 9:20 AM
Last summer I broke my humurous twice, and subsequently had to get two huge metal plates and screws drilled into my arm. The first time I broke it was from arm wrestling at a bar (yea, the other guy has an amazing story to tell anyone who threatens to beat him up). The second time was two months later, playing chicken in a pool at 1am. I have two huge scars on both sides of my left arm now. I usually tell people it was from a shark attack, or a bear attack.
Or a manbearpig.
Posted by: Nate | May 20, 2008 9:22 AM
A subject I am intimately familiar with. I was an accident prone kid my whole childhood. Two scars in particular that stand out.
When I was 2 years old I was at lake Norman, NC siting on a dock with my parents. We were having a typical day at the lake and my parent's friends were there with their dog. Somehow I managed to sit on the dog and it reacted biting through my left cheek. And I mean all the way through. Closest hospital was Charlotte a 30-45 mins drive. I actually remember this incidence even though I was 2. Worst part of the story, the dog was a Bichon Frise. I have an inch + long lightning bolt shaped scar on my cheek to this day.
Secong big scar is when I was in 1st grade and was playing T-Ball at school. I was playing catcher (not that you really need one in T-Ball, but it was practice or something) and the person batting swung the bat when he wasn't supposed to, hit me square in the forehead on the back swing. Split me open like a melon. Got stitches. Got an infection. My head swelled up like a balloon and my grandmother actually asked who the Chinese kid was in the driveway because of how swollen my eyes and face were. i know, not PC but it is what it is. I then had to have another couple sets of stitches and draining tubes etc.. Not fun. I have a big L shaped scar smack in the middle of my forehead near my ever moving hair line.
I have MANY other scars from rock climbing accidents, falling down as a kid accidents and pure drunken stupidity accidents, but those are the most noticeable.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 20, 2008 9:22 AM
I picked up a nice thin scar on my thumb next to the nail in chemistry class. While cleaning up after a lab I was aspirating some water out of glassware. The pipette we were suuposed to use suctioned itself in the neck of the target glassware, I tried to yank it out and found my arm moving at a high rate of speed toward an open flame. A quick move to pull my arm away from the fire neatly inserted the tip of the pipette into my thumb and broke the it off under the skin. I had my lab partner finish cleaning up while I tried to hide the blood from the TA.
That little hollow piece of glass made it very hard to stop the blood before the TA became very upset.
Posted by: Schmeer | May 20, 2008 9:24 AM
Rev. Hipple,
That's funny. My mother wathced me like a hawk around Whitsun every year after I manage to go to hospital two years in a row around that time.
First year was just a broken arm from getting pushed off something or other in the playground. No scar.
The year after that, though, I got two fingers on my left hand squashed in a chain and cogwheel. Ruined the nailbed and the nails are still broken, layered and soft in places.
I've an indentation on my forehead from picking a scab off when I had chicken pox (would be rather convenient if I were hindu, I s'pose).
Ran up some stairs some time in school and lodged the tips of too freshly sharpened pencils in my thigh. Not a scar per se but they're still visible in there.
I'll spare you the story of how I got rid of a handful of moles on my own.Posted by: Sili | May 20, 2008 9:25 AM
yikes. Typos grammar mistakes galore.
Sorry.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbCHimp | May 20, 2008 9:26 AM
What Rev. BigDumbCHimp said ...
Posted by: Sili | May 20, 2008 9:31 AM
Hmm, scars. I never had many, other than a nice, long purple one on my knee. I got that trying to run though an asphalt parking lot in soccer cleats. Traction was not my friend.
Now, if you want to talk bizarre head injury, I'm your man. I used to challenge people to find a piece of sporting equipment that I haven't been struck in the head with. It's harder than most people think (both my head, and the question). I've met exactly two people that were able to do it on the first try, and they hit on the same item (jai a'lai equipment).
@#7 Dr. Steve: So you're one of the ones that ruined it for the rest of us, eh? What fun is a toy if you're not risking injury, I ask you!?
Posted by: Ranson | May 20, 2008 9:38 AM
I have three scars inside my left knee, arranged in a scalene triangle.
When I was eight or so there was this shrub I liked trying to jump over on my way to a neighbors house. I was never really able to clear the thing. One day it snagged me. Bled like mad, really freaked me out, for the limited amount of time an eight year old can be bothered to maintain an interest in something anyway. The bleeding stopped and I thought no more of it. A single scab on an eight year old boys knee isn't a big deal and that's all it looked like after it scabbed over. Something to pick at when I was bored.
It wouldn't heal and kept on leaking pink pus. (:P Eventually there was a visit to some kind of doctor, he was wearing a white coat and had a clipboard anyway. I'm not certain whether any prescriptions were involved, seems like I'd remember pills being taken. I do remember some kind of daily regimen involving water diced potatoes had been soaked in(?), a washcloth and mom pushing and probing around the knee.
Turned out I had a 'splinter' deep under the skin, most likely a snapped off piece of twig given that it was like three quarters of an inch long and more than an eighth of an inch thick. The three scars were the entry wound, a place where it almost pushed through and the exit wound where it eventually did.
Lesson learned. The line between optimism and egotism is drawn in pink pus. {8p
Posted by: Corvis_9 | May 20, 2008 9:45 AM
Posted by: Paul Lundgren | May 20, 2008 9:45 AM
Lets see.
There's the scar on my finger from where I put my hand through a car windshield.
Scars all over my forehead from where I put my face into same windshield.
Scar on my arm from dumpster-diving tens of thousands of dollars worth of museum pieces at age 8 or so, dunno what cut me.
Scar on my right hand from an exploding glass "smelling salt" thingie I'd built a match bonfire under, age 10 (they go "pop" and molten glass goes flying)
Scar on my forehead from where my brother hit me with a rock, age 3 or 4.
Actually ruling out the surgical scars leaves out all my best stuff.
Posted by: craig | May 20, 2008 9:47 AM
I've got several scars, but the most recent non-surgical scar is on my lower lip. I got in at cricket practice, but not how you might think (those of who you know anything about cricket). We were practicing with a bowling machine that uses (bouncy) rubber balls. Somebody put massive topspin on the ball, and I blocked it and it spun back into my face, splitting my lip. Took a couple of stiches. I wonder how much of that makes any sense at all to American readers.
Posted by: reason | May 20, 2008 9:48 AM
Minor ocelot mauling scars on upper arm and head and neck from getting too close to the "pet" ocelot the neighbors kept in their backyard. I was 5 or 6 and went to go see the kitty by myself. It was chained in the backyard and I must have looked like lunch because it was on my back chewing on my head in an instant. Makes for a great story - and cool show and tell.
Posted by: rockhead | May 20, 2008 9:56 AM
Well, as a bit of a book worm and a bit of a girl (not girly, I'll get my hands good and dirty) I don't have many scars.
Just a few from my days as a cook and of course a few from my childhood days of carelessly tromping.
Reading PZ's scar story, I do think I share the blood and gore (it isn't really gore) fascination. I have always found the sight of my own blood mesmerizing. I really enjoy thinking about the complex structures and mechanisms that my skin covers. The intricate mix of cells each with their own functions all working together.
The one time I had to go to the doctor's, after falling in the playground and getting a nice deep cut on my knee, I was completely enthralled by the sight of the layers of tissue normally hidden by my skin as they were cleaning it. Not something you get to see very often you know.
I also find needles and injections interesting. Thankfully this has not led to any bad habits. The only time I had any kind of injection, other then a vaccination, was when I had my impacted molars removed and they had to "put me under". That was kinda cool.
I am not really bothered by the sight of other people's blood unless of course they are in mortal danger, that's when things get scary. But I have never been in that kind of circumstance. Closest I can think of was when my little brother was kicked in the face by a horse. That was a horrible day. He is fine now, luckily only got a nasty cut on the lip/cheek. ugh...it stills makes me feel sick and upset. I was the only one near when it happened. We were young too, I was 14ish and he was only 4.
Anyways, I'll save if for the therapist.
~Cheers :)
Posted by: Serena | May 20, 2008 9:57 AM
I've got a five-inch, jagged keloid scar running from my forehead, through my right eye, and down to the corner of mouth. The eyepatch hides most of it, I think. I got it the time I was brutally beaten by Indonesian pirates in the Straits of Malacca when I was trying to smuggle an encrypted computer disk containing the names of all known Soviet agents operating in the South China Sea back to the headquarters of the shadowy government agency I work for. If I hadn't been able to rig up a time-release explosive from some cleaning chemicals and commandeer that helicopter gunship, there's no telling what might have happened.
Oh, and there was the time my cat scratched my hand up pretty good. But you can only see that when my hands are cold.
Other than that, nothing interesting.
Posted by: HP | May 20, 2008 9:58 AM
I have a scar that transects my left eyebrow, a legacy of being hit by a car when I was eight. Also an indentation in the left side of my ribcage that I suspect is from the same incident, although I didn't notice it until a few years later.
Other than that, well, there's a dark grey freckle at the base of my right thumb to mark the spot where I was stabbed with a pencil in third grade.
Posted by: redbeardjim | May 20, 2008 10:01 AM
When I was 4 years old, I was in the garden pretending to be a Rhinocerous. Since Rhinocerouses can clearly demolish walls, I decided to try and test out my abilities by charging head first at one. When I woke up, I was in casualty, and I still have a scar limiting the upward expansion of my eyebrow today...
Posted by: Martin | May 20, 2008 10:02 AM
I have a modified right thumb which was severed by a push lawnmower when I was 3 years old. My dad was pulling the mower back to the garage when I "tried to stop" the rapidly spinning blades. It was a Sunday during WW2 and an OB/GYN, Dr. Parrot, who was waiting for a baby to appear at the hospital, sewed it back on. Sixty-three years later it works fine. The incident started a lifelong happy relationship with dangerous machines, including motorcycles, chain saws, race cars, etc.
Posted by: Gray Lensman | May 20, 2008 10:03 AM
Lots of scars. However, my favourite story: While in college, took up with a lovely and morally loose young woman who moved herself in after the first date without being asked. She steadily escalated on the weird behaviour scale and I finally told her we were breaking it off. Note, I had never really started it, she moved in on me. Well, here is a tip, never tell an unstable person you are breaking up while she is washing dishes, she turned and stabbed a knife directly at my heart. The blade skittered and turned on a rib and instinct took over and I decked her. I called the ambulance for her unconscious form and my bleeding like a stuck pig act. I took her purse to the hospital and looked through it for someone to contact. Found her mother in her phone book and made the call, dreading it. I mean, what DO you say? Well, I fumbled a bit and stammered it out. Mom's reply, 'Oh, she must be off her meds again, they warned us this might happen when she was released the last time. Did she injure you?". Seems she had a history of violence, tried to kill her sister with an iron, and had been institutionalized a couple of times. Ok, I try to be accepting, but some people should be required to hand out cards on a first date on the order of, "Hi, I am prone to violence and often skip my meds, I also tend to obsess on anyone who shows me the slightest interest".
Compared to this experience, my physical scars from wars and wrecks just pale in comparison.
Ciao
Posted by: JeffreyD | May 20, 2008 10:03 AM
We used to have a small metal slide with a jagged broken corner at its bottom end in our backyard. My brother had just gone down it slicing open the bottom of his foot. I of course teased him for being clumsy saying you just had to avoid that part of the slide. Which I immediately demonstrated by going down it and slicing open my foot on the other side leaving me with a nice little scar. I've also got a scar on my middle finger from reaching for a slice of cake before my mum had finished cutting it up.
Posted by: Kate H | May 20, 2008 10:16 AM
I have a scar on my left wrist from a flare that I was lighting at an accident scene. Part of the flare somehow went under my watch band and started burning. I now have a nice potato shape scar.
I also have a scar on the tip of my left middle finger from an incident when I was on active Navy duty. I went to close a watertight door and my finger was where the "dog" locks the door tight. Welp, suffice to say I came close to not being able to tell people that they were number one, but 2/3 with me. The corpsman stiched my finger up and part of it is still numb....14 years later.
Posted by: firemancarl | May 20, 2008 10:17 AM
I've got a pair of scars o my right thumb, bracketing my thumbnail, marking the path of a circular saw blade. Had the guard of the saw wedged open with a pencil while I was making a plunge-cut in a roof, forgot and set the saw down without waiting for the blade to stop spinning. Saw leaped from the roof deck and chewed it's way across my right thumb. (Anthropomorphism comes easily when tools attack...)
Also have one small scar in my hairline, courtesy of my sister. She'd picked up the hatchet we used to split kindling for the wood stove, and she asked me what I would do if she just hit me in the head with the hatchet. It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but she underestimated the weight of the axe, and did a Lizzie Borden on me. Still makes her feel guilty...
Posted by: Greystoke | May 20, 2008 10:18 AM
I have a scar on my knee that stems on "rock running" around the lake when I was a kid. We had a summer cottage on the south edge of a glacial lake, so there are small boulders that line the edge of the lake. We used to run across them as fast as we could go. One day, I misstepped and fell, smacking my knee on the boulder. It was cut all the way to the bone. Mom didn't take me for stitches, but I did get a couple of butterflies and had to keep my leg straight for a week.
Posted by: HereticChick | May 20, 2008 10:21 AM
Let's see... I have two faint (and small) indentations just above my nose, which I am told came from chickenpox when I was six. I have a scar across the base of my right middle finger and a two-part scar along the side of my right wrist, both of which I suspect came from one of our (now late) cats. I have needle-marks which may be semi-permanent in my right inside elbow, from donating plasma and blood over the years.
My biggest remaining physical scar, and the one with the funniest story, is just above my left knee. I was running through the woods I grew up in when I was around fourteen or so (I think), and somehow a branch managed to open a nice big gash on my leg. No stitches, of course, since my parents didn't believe in them, but the scar is still visible to this day.
Posted by: Seamyst | May 20, 2008 10:23 AM
one word for ya, baby:
circumcision!
Posted by: lithopithecus | May 20, 2008 10:31 AM
I have a scar on my left wrist that looks like one of those old round vax scars, but I got it from dropping a soldering iron on myself when I was in college.
Then there was the time I caught a baby squirrel that got into Mom's house through the chimney--humanely leaving its head free so it could chomp down con brio on my finger was a mistake. My blood turned to pure adrenaline, I marched the little bastard to the front porch, and I threw him as far as I could throw... he scampered off, turned around, and looked at me like I was the one who lost my cool.
I, too, fell on the edge of a coffee table, but I was seven and it was because I was trying out a "trampoline" I devised from my little brother's old crib mattress balanced between said table and the couch. Landed straight on the bridge of my nose. Enough blood for a murder scene, the ambulance, ten stitches, and the admiration of the entire rest of the third grade.
Posted by: speedwell | May 20, 2008 10:33 AM
Let's see... There's on on the left side of my forehead from it impacting the front door when I was five, resulting in a handful of stitches.
A rather spectacular purple scar on my right knee from rollerblading down hill that was several blocks long, and finally loosing it on a patch of sand and scraping to a bloody halt. Was 15 at the time.
Got this funny wrinkly patch of skin on the back of my left hand, cause I used to suck that, rather than my thumb when I was a baby. Is that a scar?
Posted by: rowmyboat | May 20, 2008 10:39 AM
I have a lovely matched set of scars. The first is on my chin, where I toddled behind a swing when too young to know better. The twin scar is where the very tip of my tongue used to be.
Oh, and then there's the one where I sunk the axe into my toe. It was the Fourth of July, so there was no way I was going to the emergency room. It stopped oozing after a few days of tight taping and careful limping. I have to look very carefully these days to remember which foot it was.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 20, 2008 10:39 AM
Oh yay, scar story:
Well, I was at a friend's house during the summer after my freshman year of high school. There were about four of us there and we decided to have a watergun fight because we were really 'cool'. Or not. But that's besides the point. We got to the shooting of water, and I decided do wait inside of her door where I could execute some sort of surprise attack. Well it turns out she knew I was there so she went to open the door, I went to stop it and my arm went straight through the window. I cut my arm open by my elbow. It was a beautiful sight, a piece of skin folded under the other skin. I, being a stubborn teenage boy, decided that I didn't need stitches so I just put pressure on my arm with some paper towels an the bleeding just kept going but I was adamant, I was not getting stitches, I would be fine I told my friends who kept insisting I should call up my parents and have them take me to the hospital. Well, eventually the bleeding slowed to a trickle so I figured I'd call my parents and tell them what happened, but y'know, leave out some minor details like the whole "this is a rather deep cut". Well, that night, I ended up going to the ER and getting some stitches and it was fine. Now I have this lovely scar to remind me of some of my best friends while I'm away at college.
The end.
Posted by: Robert Ward | May 20, 2008 10:51 AM
I was playing scar wars with an ex-services friend of mine, and proudly showed him my "surprised-a-parrotfish-under-a-rock" scar, and my "missing-chunk-of-patella-from-dodgy-swing" scar. He trumped with his nail bomb scar from Belfast, his haf-brick scar from a riot, and then showed me half his teeth were missing thanks to a mad lady with some bolt-croppers at Greenham Common.
So I suppose he won that round.
Posted by: Scrofulum | May 20, 2008 10:59 AM
Numerous little boo boos but I have two favorites. A triangular scar at the corner of my eye, happened in a random bed (yes, I have those scars, too) just before a kayak trip. Very dark room, I rolled over and pulled a lamp off an extremely high shelf which came crashing down and cold cocked me (ah, misspent youth).
The biggest is a four inch gash transiting my knee caused by a rather elegant dive into Puget Sound. I apparently came between a mother oyster and her spat; them bitches be mean. Too far away to get to a doctor but elevation and gin and tonics seemed to suffice.
Posted by: Bodach | May 20, 2008 11:04 AM
The scar with the best story I have is a small one I have on my forehead. I was using the men's room at this place I worked in the '90s when the guy in the stall next to me began "servicing" himself. In my haste and disgust while I was leaving I hit my head on the side of the stall and cut it open.
We never figured out who the phantom machine gunner was but I was the high point of the week explaining the accident to my boss.
Posted by: Bob L | May 20, 2008 11:06 AM
Some reader feedback:
Blogger games such as this could reasonably interpreted as a 'link scheme', which violates Google's Quality Guidelines that are designed to prevent manipulation of Page Ranks and general deterioration of web content. See: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356
Indeed, as a reader I find it annoying to see this kind of circle-jerk crap in my browser. It reflects poorly on the bloggers who participate. Links should be treated like proper academic references. This includes links to other blogs.
Mindless expositions on personal minutia, whether it be 'scar stories', 'my biggest turd', or 'a list of my 5th grade best friend', also reflect poorly on the intellect of the blogger. I am likely to stop reading blogs with a plethora of infantile posts.
Not to say that a 'scar story' couldn't be good, and a link to a really great scar story appropriate. But this blog entry, PZ, is not an example of either. You can do better!
Posted by: Dave | May 20, 2008 11:08 AM
Chainsaw scar on my leg when I was felling a tree, just sort of rocked the saw into my leg. That was a dumb one, but was fairly superficial and is hard to see now.
Chainsaw scar on my left thumb, this time not as dumb, unless getting onto a ladder to prune dead branches is dumb (could be, considering...). This time, as I finished a cut, the saw came down on my thumb, probably because of shifting weights and the like. Stitches, but not all that bad, really (the chain was slowing before and as it hit the thumb). It didn't seem the thumb was in danger, unless one knew how trees react to falling limbs, which I didn't in full.
Oh yeah, it's mostly gone now, but a nasty (not to the level of going to the doctor, though) welding scar on my ankle. No one told me of the importance of leather boot laces for welding (art), so molten metal burnt through my nylon laces, opening the boot up so that more molten metal would fall into my boot, which it promptly did. Wow, melted steel is hot, and a nice big glob of it wedged against my left medial malleolus.
Puncture scar from a harrow tine is no longer visible.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 20, 2008 11:09 AM
A 1.5 metre long goana (lizard) bit my middle finger leaving a pretty good scar front and back.
Posted by: Wiggy | May 20, 2008 11:16 AM
I was using the men's room at this place I worked in the '90s when the guy in the stall next to me began "servicing" himself. In my haste and disgust while I was leaving I hit my head on the side of the stall and cut it open.
I have several scars when I saved my sister from ninjas. I was pierced through several times by katanas before I was able to reach a defensible position and lay about with a quadruple barrel nail gun built in shop class.
Oh, the ninjas were riding velociraptors. Mutant velociraptors. And the velociraptors were pirates.
Anyway, I called in some buddies in the Super Secret Service to help, and they brought along a blue wave disruptor gun and mopped up the remaining ninjas.
But your story is good, too. Really.
Posted by: Quiet Desperation | May 20, 2008 11:21 AM
Well, there's a six inch scar on my left knee from getting hit by a car while biking, an eight inch scar on my leg from a tent stake (walking patrol in blackout conditions while with the Marines in the desert), and a whole slew of small ones from being a woodworker and mechanic for so many years.
The bicycle accident one is the most impressive though.
Oh, and I have very distinctive finger prints. I've cut two of my fingers to the bone before.
My suggestion for an answer to "How did you get that scar?" when you don't want to really tell them is to just casually say "Chainsaw." and move on to another topic. It's fun to see people's faces.
Posted by: Dahan | May 20, 2008 11:21 AM
I ran out of room on my INS application when answering the question about 'identifying features'.
A 6 cm scar, vertical, below my left knee (broken bottle in an unused (by kids) and long uncleaned sand pit) that took about six stitches when I was seven.
A 1cm scar across the knuckle of my ring finger - right hand: a large 4x8 slab of chipboard fell on my hand edgeways when I was nine.
then: a 2 cm v-shaped scar on my forehead, just below the hairline; a 0.5 cm vertical scar on my neck just above my collarbone; a 1 cm scar about an inch north of my navel; a 2 cm diagonal scar just over my right kidney; a 2cm scar, parallel to the knuckes, on the back of my right hand about 1cm from my pinky. These all courtesy of a gang fight that I happened to stumble upon (honest!) when I was sixteen.
Nothing more until fairly recent: a 1cm vertical scar through my right eyebrow, courtesy of a doorframe, and night-blinded eyes.
I hope I keep the rest of my cutaneous tissue uncut in future.
Tony
Posted by: tony | May 20, 2008 11:22 AM
@47,
Posted the chainsaw comment before yours was up. Nice!
Posted by: Dahan | May 20, 2008 11:23 AM
A small triangular scar on my right hand from a dog chomp. Vaccination scars on both the left shoulder and hip (oddly, neither resulted in autism. How rare!) Both knees permantly marked from too much baseball as a kid. A couple little dimples on my right knee courtesy of two arthroscopic surgeries (ditto on the baseball). One big-ass, .5 inch wide, 8 inch long scar down the front of my right knee due to an OATS procedure (ditto ditto on the baseball) which blends in and partially covers the big ol' scar previously there from dropping a large sharp chef's knife. Moral of the story? Playing baseball was totally worth it even if my right knee doesn't think so.
Posted by: Bryn | May 20, 2008 11:26 AM
I have a small scar on the bridge of my nose from...preaching!
When I was a toddler in church, I climbed up on a lectern to play preacher. I don't remember if I was full of the Holy Spirit or not. I do vaguely remember what happened next, though. The whole thing became top heavy and fell over on to me --smashing my nose into my skull! My mother fainted.
It turns out that little kids have mostly cartilage in their nose, so once the doctor was able to pop things back out again, I was good to go. It was, however, not a propitious omen for my future as an evangelist.
Posted by: RamblinDude | May 20, 2008 11:30 AM
Oh yeah, forgot one.
Made a "flying fox" from the gum tree out the back to the clothes line when I ws eight. My bottom teeth went through my bottom lip when I landed face first on the dirt. Five stitches. It's my Harrison Ford scar.
Posted by: Wiggy | May 20, 2008 11:31 AM
Wow. Dave, it's called "community building". It's called "sharing". It's called "people like to talk about themselves, and people like to be voyeurs into other people's lives, so everybody has fun with it." Christ, Dave, does everything have to be solely academic research? Biologist's personal blog =/= BIOSIS.
Posted by: Carlie | May 20, 2008 11:32 AM
Dave, I feel bad about this, since I was the one who started it, but it takes an uncommon level of tight-assery to write
Besides, I don't think "one" is equal to "a plethora."
I agree, "this kind of circle-jerk crap" is probably bad for you ... unless it's something shared between friends (and does not actually include a circle jerk).
Well, yeah. Unless you're having fun, sharing things with others. You know, all that silly "community" stuff?
Posted by: Hank Fox | May 20, 2008 11:32 AM
My right hand is the site of two scar stories. First, when I had to fetch an item from the back of the broken drawer of a desk around 1975, I tore a little slit in the back of my hand. Still a scar, but booooring. It's the scar I don't have that annoys me --- I was bitten by a tiger years later. No scar. Damn. Is it fair to trade the stories around? I suppose not. Well, the desk scar is getting lost among the wrinkles anyway.
Posted by: stillwaggon | May 20, 2008 11:33 AM
Dave (#46):
Google doesn't get to tell us what we can and cannot write about. If Google's ranking algorithms can't handle the natural behavior of bloggers in their native environment, then Google needs to put some of those brains it's hired back to work.
Now, run along and familiarize yourself with the concept of a "meme" before somebody interprets your comment as a meta-scar story wherein the damaged items are your frontal lobes. I'm a nice person who never would ever kill the joy of a grumpy killjoy, but some folks in these parts aren't so kind.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | May 20, 2008 11:35 AM
Oh, I wanna play!
Keep in mind this happened in my late 20s. I went to meet my boyfriend at the place he kept his boat and found he'd not waited for me to get started. I quickly became livid and decided to show him! There was a spit of land there where a horse was kept in a smallish barbed-wire pen with a hut to shelter in. I concocted the brilliant plan to ride that crazy mare bareback, wearing my brand new skirt. She didn't cotton to the idea, and bucked me off within about 16 seconds, throwing me onto the barbed wire. I guess Jebus, the Buddha, and Carl Sagan were looking out for me, as I limped away with only a 7 inch gash on the back of my thigh instead of a Darwin Award. It makes a lovely scar!
Posted by: MizBean | May 20, 2008 11:44 AM
Having wrecked my spine in a ship board accident ultimatly resulting in 2 fusions, I'm a walking zipper. I have a third degree burn-scared right arm & skin graphs, and a bullet in my right, lower leg. All of this has to do with military service.
The most interesting story of my scars comes from my childhood; I was, and still am, a dedicated snake hunter/observer, a shade-tree herpetologist. In 1950, I was about 11 and prowling around a fairly large creek not too far from the house when I spotted a very large, southern water snake (Nerodia fasciata). It almost got away from me, but didn't quite, and in the struggle to subdue it, it bit me in the face and chewed furiously. Now trying to get rid on the animal, I stumbled up the bank and then fell back down, driving my right knee into a rock.
I got home, bloodied, snake-less and reeking of Nerodia musk, and Grandma broke out the idodine. The small but very painful injury on my knee didn't seem to want to heal and after some days, began to swell alarmingly and drool a little pus. Grandma to the rescue again with the iodine and a needle, and probing around (talking about something that hurts, that does!), dug out a tiny bit of stone. I still have, after lo, these many years, a fingernail-sized scar where the snake & the stone got the better of me.
[8]
Posted by: Duvenoy | May 20, 2008 11:49 AM
@56, 57, 59 (and probably more to come):
Yea, yea, yea. I know. I knew darn well as I was writing that I was pooping all over a private party, which is never polite in real or electronic life.
I wouldn't have posted just to be a kill-joy. I'm not that sick. I posted what I did as honest feedback for a site I respect. I think PZ (despite an unfortunate habit of puerile language and an occasional vapid 'look what I just came across surfing' post) does wonderful community service as a science educator and advocate for secularity. These are important missions. As a prof myself, with multiple awards for both research and teaching, I nonetheless often envy PZ's eloquence and clarity for describing science. That's why I check in at this site regularly -- for the gems and inspiration sprinkled here.
I wrote what I did because:
1) It annoys me to have to scroll through crap to get to the aforementioned gems. This reduces the value of the site for me. Maybe you think otherwise; maybe it's the community that brings you to this site. Fine. We can differ in what we like about this site, and what we'd like it to be. And PZ can ultimately decide. It's his site. I'm just offering some feedback, which he can note or discard as he wishes.
2) I honestly think PZ would be more effective as an educator and lobbyist for atheism if he laid off the occasional childish antics. Like it or not, effective persuasion and education requires that the subject have some respect for the educator. Learners must trust the authority of the instructor. I think PZ's authority as a spokesperson for biology and atheism are degraded by injudicious posting. I like quality over quantity.
Relevant to my point is a famous saying that I could attribute this to Mark Twain (most do), but it might be more fun to use the Biblical version here: "Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. -- Bible, 'Proverbs' 17:28.
Posted by: Dave | May 20, 2008 11:59 AM
When I was 13 or so, I went out back to feed the horses, and in the feed barrel there was a nice, harmless looking little chipmunk. I tried for a minute to scare him out, but I think he had gorged himself on horsefeed, and so he just ran around in circles, about 2 feet down in the barrel.
So, I decided just to grab him and toss him out. I got hold of him pretty easily, and he immediately chomped down on my thumb, on the proximal phalanx; and he wouldn't let go. After a few seconds I shook him off and he scurried out of the shed.
Anyways, it bled a lot and I have a half-inch crescent-shaped scar right over the extensor longus. I haven't met anyone else yet with a chipmunk scar, so I take pride in it.
Posted by: salkagga | May 20, 2008 12:00 PM
Scars with stories:
Backs of fingers and knuckles on my hands: When you hit people, in the mouth, hard, it can happen. Hit the soft bits. Or at least the non-sharp bits.
Right finger: A pocket knife is NOT a screwdriver.
Left Upper Thorax: A re-inflation of my collapsed left lung.
Abdomen: Checking for ruptured spleen. Doc's says: "This will hurt." No shit, getting cut open with a topical anesthetic for anesthesia is Not Much Fun!!!
Left & Right Wrists: Ha! Not what you're thinking! Gloves rolled up after head-on crash motorcycle vs pick-up on US Highway 20. Dumb-ass teenager cut the corner leaving me no road. Multiple dime-sized road rash scars.
Left Elbow: Same as wrist, but this was the sleeve from my leather jacket. This one's about 1.5 x .75 inch oblong.
Right Abdomen: A scar about the same size as left elbow when the jacket rolled up there. All-in-all not too bad for hitting the truck, flying over it, then bouncing along the road, and eventually into the cliff face (obliquely), at 50MPH.
Right leg: Two-inch scar on inner thigh. Cut by wire when dismounting horse. Idiot cousin reattached stirrup with a cut piece of baling wire. Sharpe as a razor blade. Didn't notice it until my grandmother fainted from the blood running down my leg.
Right and Left legs: At least a half-dozen bite scars (dime sized or better) from dogs. Attacked by a pit-bull and three poodles (who didn't leave scars, just minor lacerations) that got out of a neighbors back-yard as I was walking home from the bus stop in 1st grade. Up until that point in time I was a dog lover. This, and two more, incidents... Not so much.
Right Ankle: Dog attack. A different one. Bit through my boot while I was riding my 10-speed when I was 12.
Both feet: Multiple small scars caused by stepping on nails. Some of the scars are on top as some of the nails went all the way through.
Scars I don't remember where I got them:
Chin: About 1" long, no stitches. My daughter has a matching one, I got her stitches because I'm a much better parent than mine were for me...
Neck: I have 3 scars on the back, small & round. Don't remember what they're from. Might be chicken pox.
Back: Some narrow, long scars. Might be from barbwire. Could be from the time I fell into the blackberry bush from the tree. Could be from something else.
Right heel: Lost a goodly chunk of this once in 5th grade. Still have the scar, but I'll be damned if I can remember why.
Ironically, I've been vaccinated for small pox at least four times. I don't get a blister or scar so they kept thinking they failed to inoculate me. The last time they gave me a different vaccination instead of the traditional two-prong prick vaccination.
Now, when do we get to broken bones, teeth and torn cartilage? Because I have a huge list of those, too. :)
Posted by: Moses | May 20, 2008 12:00 PM
I am willing to accept a new scar from anyone who objects to this light hearted exercise in community building. The scar I am willing to accept is on my left buttock from the teeth of the objector. Or am I being too subtle?
Ciao
Posted by: JeffreyD | May 20, 2008 12:01 PM
I'm pretty boring. One small scar on my ankle where I fought a cab and lost. All the others came from encounters with surgeons.
A more exciting story that is not my own*...Person in question was opening boxes with a Swiss army knife. She put the knife down on the sofa, where it proceeded to slip in between the cushions. Sharp end up. She forgot it was there. Some time later she sat down...
*No, really, it's not.
Posted by: Dianne | May 20, 2008 12:13 PM
Sorry, my best scars ARE surgical. I had a club foot that got fixed with surgery, so there's a foot-long scar down the front of my shin where they sawed it in half, and one across the top of my foot where they sawed THAT in half. There's also the exit scar down between two toes, where one of the pins they used to reassemble my foot bones slid down and popped out.
My best non-surgical scar is the one on two fingers, where I slipped with a chef's knife. Watching the tendons move when I wiggled the finger was really distracting, but I finally regained my senses enough to stop the bleeding, clean it out and butterfly-bandage it.
Posted by: mjfgates | May 20, 2008 12:22 PM
My favourite scar is self-inflicted. What can I say? I was young, and my friends and I were stupid. As a show of best-frienditude, we all scarred ourselves with ice cubes and salt.
Posted by: ampersand | May 20, 2008 12:22 PM
Ooh, ooh! I got a doozie! The scar itself is uninteresting, but the story behind it says a lot about me.
At the age of 12, I was hiking in the woods in BC with my folks collecting pretty rocks for an outside garden when I slipped and banged my arm against a log. Besides a few scrapes and a small cut on my left forearm about five cm from my elbow, I was unhurt. A few days later, the cut got infected. My dad, being the wannabe amateur surgeon that he was, decided to do a little exploratory with a sewing needle and some H2O2. Three days later, the cut had reddened and swelled up and was oozing unpleasant things, so my mom stepped in and took me to the hospital.
The surgery ward was relatively quiet, and I only had to wait a few minutes before a young, beautiful, and oh-so-earnest surgery resident came in with the attending physician. After giving me multiple (and unnecessary) assurances that it was only minor surgery under local anesthetic and I wouldn't feel a thing except for the needle and did I want something to squeeze (I was 12; did I ever!), I figured it was time to put a stop to this before she bedside-mannered me to death. So I waited until she'd made the first incision, and then in my most frail and piteous scared-child voice, I said:
"Doctor? Can I ask a question?"
She put down her scalpel, "Of course, ask anything, anything."
"After the surgery, will I be able to play the piano?"
Well, you know what came next. The poor resident, so anxious to reassure me, played right into the joke, and the grizzled old attending had to turn away so as not to laugh out loud. When he finally composed himself, he gave the resident his best this-will-be-on-the-test look, and reprimanded her with what I still consider to be one of the best compliments I ever received: "Doctor, you just got taken in by a 12-year-old with a Henny Youngman line."
Now the scar looks like an innoculation site, and whenever someone asks me about it, I deadpan, "Bullet wound. 'Nam."
Oh FSM: the cheese, I love it so.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | May 20, 2008 12:25 PM
salkagga: I, too, have been a victim of the savage chipmunk. I once tried to rescue one of the wee brutal beasties from a dog, and it turned and bit all the way through my left pinkie -- I felt its incisors meet in the middle. It was all futile, anyway, since the dog had already broken the ungrateful rodent's back.
It bled horribly. The scar is pretty much undetectable now, though.
Posted by: PZ Myers | May 20, 2008 12:27 PM
This is a topic that I could babble on all day about! Keeping the graphic stuff out, I've got a permanent scar on the top of my left hand from needing three stitches after catching a piece of a mortar round that ricocheted (you see the kind of luck we were dealing with??) into the bunker we were sitting in and stuck right in my hand. We were all sitting in there waiting for the last one to hit, and this damn thing just decides to waltz into my safe area, bounce off a wall, and come to rest partially in my hand. The nerve of some metals...
Posted by: brokenSoldier | May 20, 2008 12:30 PM
I have a puncture wound in my left biceps caused by a bale hook, accidentally self-inflicted. I was baling hay when the wire broke and the point slammed into my arm, hitting my humerus hard enough for me to feel it reverberate.
After the ER doc put a drain in the wound, I got a shot of penicillin so potent I could smell it on my breath within a couple minutes. When I went to the pharmacy with a prescription for 500 mg Ampicillin, the lady at the counter took one look at the dosage and backed away from me in fear.
I also have a circular scar around my left index finger tip. Yes, it goes all the way around. I closed a knife one-handed and took the tip off. I held it in place and managed to tape it down and contain the blood. It healed, although the nerves are still a little goofy, and I didn't quite get the fingerprint parts to line up exactly.
Posted by: Ken Shabby | May 20, 2008 12:34 PM
Oh, I'll bite. How exactly is someone's authority damaged by the occasional personal story? Does a person need to be a stone statue, bereft of humor, personality, and human foibles, in order to be seen as an authority figure?
And more deeply, is there a n