I’ve often heard the term truth is stranger than fiction and so I put forth several stories of odd injuries two are truth one is fiction, can you tell which one is fictional?
Story One:
Many people dislike mornings and for me those first few groggy moments often lead to small accidents stubbed toes, dropped items and one memorable morning even a broken nose. In my bedroom across from the foot of the bed was the dresser with the alarm clock sitting atop. One morning the sound of the alarm blaring through my sleep addled brain led me to crawl to the end of the bed reach over the distance between bed and dresser while on hands and knees and miss. Having apparently slept on my one arm it was numb and so when I reached out with the other hand leaving my numb arm to take all of my weight it collapsed. The other arm which was reaching for the alarm caught up on the dresser and so with no hands to break my fall I landed on the thin carpet over our cement floors nose first with a distinctive crunch. I’ve snored ever since.
Story Two:
For the last few months of my senior year in high school I also worked as a cook full time. Going to school all day and then to work all evening often meant that by the end of my shift I would do things without thinking about the safe way to do them. One evening I’d been asked to put out some rat traps by the back door before I closed up as something which had so far eluded the smaller mouse traps even stealing the bait off them had been finding its way into the storeroom during the night. So being tired after a long day I set the trap and then, after having set it mind you, attempted to bait it. Now if you’ve ever had a standard mouse trap snap closed on your finger you will know it’s not a pleasant experience. A rat trap is simply a bigger and stronger version which is perfectly capable of snapping a human finger. Which it did to me as it snapped closed on my index finger. The resulting panic to remove the trap also scraped most of the skin of that finger. After weeks in a finger splint it remains crooked to this day and I will never use a rat trap again.
Story Three:
Children don’t always make the best choices when it comes to safety such as walking in a construction site barefoot. A friend and I were walking through the biggest construction site we had ever seen having a grand old time until one miss-step landed my foot on a board which had a nail facing up on it. I suddenly found myself looking down at the tip of a nail coming straight through the middle of my foot the shiny and now reddened tip peeking through the top. My instant reaction was to yank my foot upwards and off the nail. The resulting hole began leaking blood although less than one would expect from a through and through hole in the center of their foot. Knowing we had been playing in an area we were not allowed to play in I snuck my way home and to the bathroom where I cleaned off my foot covering the top and bottom of the hole with band aids not telling anyone and hoping it would heal. I’m sure my parents noticed the band aids I wore on my foot for the next few weeks but they never did find out that I’d impaled my foot on a nail and it did heal although a mark remains there to this day.
