My Childhood Injury.....

I shamelessly stole the idea for tonight's blog topic from my blogger friend Maggie. She and HER friend Hecate are using writing prompts from this book for their blogs. They are sending each other their writings each week and then posting their favorites, along with a link to each other's blogs. I did get permission from Maggie to use this idea, and she said she would send me the topics each week.

I have so many childhood (and adult) injuries that it was difficult to pick just one. Many of them were caused by my own stupidity. In a few months when I'm pretty sure everyone has forgotten that I've already used this topic, maybe I'll write about another one. It's my blog, I can do what I want to.

When I was about four years old, my eldest brother had a chemistry set that he would use to heat up glass rods and bend them. Why anyone gave him anything that involved fire and/or chemicals is a mystery to me. But I was unaware that this was anything scientific. I only knew that the glass rods fascinated me after they were bent into little half-moon shapes.

Aside: Several people have asked me how I can remember intricate details from very early in my life. I have a very simple answer: I don't know. But those details are stuck in there, and no amount of defragging the hard drive will get rid of them so I can make room for information I can really use. Like where I put that USB cord I was supposed to send with one of my eBay sales items.

One day I was taking a bath, and I spotted one of Bo's bent glass rods on a shelf or something. I don't consciously remember making the decision to try that myself, and I don't know how I knew where his stuff was. But I climbed from the bathtub and went and got one of those glass rods. I have a distinct memory of climbing back into the tub and seeing my little wet footprints all over the hardwood floor. I was thinking to myself, "That is probably going to get my ass beat." Only I didn't say "ass" back then, not even to myself.

Another aside: Where was whoever was supposed to be watching me in the tub? I was the youngest of five children; surely SOMEONE had been charged with the duty of making sure I didn't drown. Or try to bend a glass rod over my knee.

It just seemed the most logical way to accomplish that magical feat. Of course it wasn't, and I have the scar to prove it. I'm sure whoever was supposed to be watching me came pretty quickly when I started screaming. And when he/she saw the wet footprints and the bloody bathwater (wasn't that considerate of me to bleed in the bathtub?), I'm sure he/she thought, "This is probably going to get my ass beat."

You can read about Maggie's injury here.