I got tired of listening to two punks at one of our local guitar stores swap tattoo stories. Are you kidding me? A friggin' tattoo story?
I want to hear fat, juicy stories with some meat on them. I want to hear some good scar stories. And I bet TFPers have the best scar stories around (skimpy details will NOT suffice - I want to hear a story). I've definitely got a few scars of my own, so I'll start off with this simple one:
One of our cats went berserk two years ago and tore up my hand. We took Baxter out in the front yard with us (my wife always brandishes a beating-type weapon in order to brain any dogs that attempt to investigate the yard while we're out there with Baxter). He had a great time out there. A little wild bunny that lives in our yard hopped nearby and started feeding while Baxter watched. Then, it became time to take him inside. At this point, I should explain that he is the only one of our cats that we used to let outside in the yard (too many tragic stories) and we only did so on a harness. He wore a cute little green kitty harness and matching leash. Since he wore it every single time he went outside, he got used to it immediately and didn't think anything about it. When we opened the drawer to get out the harness, he came running from wherever he was in the house and started climbing on us to force us into hurrying up. He really loved the thing and loved going outside. He is also without question the sweetest, most lovable cat of all four. They're all sweet in their own way, but he's our little BooBoo.
So anyway, I scooped him up and took him back inside the front door like I always do. I set him down on the entryway rug and reached underneath him to unbuckle the harness. Absolutely totally without warning, he suddenly flipped over while still in the harness and grabbed my left hand with his front claws. His back feet then instantly began kicking the back of my hand while I tried to yank away. I might as well have been stuck in a bear-trap because he was severly dug into the back of my hand and was kicking the ever-loving shit out of it. I yelled a monstrous string of profanities while trying to yank my hand away (our window was open, too). I tried to yank him off me with my right hand and that's when he finally let go. He took off running through the house, trailing his leash behind him, and I went back to the front door to get my wife (who was still out in the yard, but could easily hear my screamed curses). I asked her to come in and see if Baxter was all right because he'd just torn my hand up. I looked down and there was blood all over the rug and floor, and I knew this wasn't going to end well.
First of all Baxter was ok - it took my wife less than a minute to calm him down and remove his harness. I was not so lucky. After washing, alcoholizing, anti-bacterializing, and bandaging, I counted that I had five severely deep wounds on the back of my left hand and 17 smaller wounds spread out over both hands. Later that same night, the entire back of my left hand started feeling like someone had pounded my knuckles with a hammer (his back feet) and my hand swelled up. I'd had a recent tetanus shot, so that wasn't the concern. What I believe happened is that the poor little guy actually broke my hand. I've had my right hand broken before and this felt and looked exactly the same.
The little wounds eventually healed, but the five really deep gashes on my left hand are still there. This photo I just took shows one of the scars that is near my wristwatch.
