So how'd you get that cool scar?

[victoriaaa]

Let's swap battle wound stories!

I have a pretty great one in my chin from where a girl accidentally stepped on the back of my shoe while we were playing tag in first or second grade. I went face first into the gravel, broke a few teeth, got stones in my elbows and knees. I was taken to the doctor's office right across the road from my school, and apparently, my mom was at a friend's house having lunch, so the first emergency contact to pick up was my grandfather who drove from the other side of the city to see me. Then, as it turned out, he had such a gentle heart that he couldn't bear to give the doctor permission to stitch up my torn open chin, so they had to wait for my mom to get there so she could sign off on it (they picked the gravel out in the meantime.) That man was so sweet, but I'm not sure if I went through more or less pain having to wait until my mom finally got there.

I've also got a pretty nice one in the side of my wrist from where I scraped it taking down a box of stacked cups while working at Tim Hortons. That story's not quite as good as the first, though.

[kurfew007]

Fourth grade. Young and stupid. Loved climbing trees. Fell out of a tree into a barbwire fence. 100 stitches and a six inch scar across my shin. Good times. 

[OptimiscallyAnxious]

When I was a child (7 or 8) I was playing while my mother was ironing. I accidentally knocked over the iron and tried to catch it before it hit the ground. I ended up with a partial iron burn imprint on my left forearm.

[dr. t]

I fell off my bike. Yeah, for all 8 of them. No, not all at once - these two are still healing!

Edited February 28, 2017 by telkanuru

[Gadgette]

In a college physics lab one of the other students got annoyed that his group members asked him a question. He threw one of those nice, metal, mechanical pencils as hard as he could. I was maybe ten feet from the guy and caught it with my face. Faces bleed a lot. And now it permanently looks like I have make up smudged under my eye.

[ellieotter]

When I was about 7-8, I was holding a kitten. My 4 year old sister decided it would be funny to scare me (and kitten in the process) so it sunk its claws into my right cheek.. and to top it off I got cat scratch fever from the wound and almost died. The doctors could not believe I actually caught it, apparently its semi rare?

So ever since, my "cat scratch fever scar" has been one of my friends/SO's (like all of them weirdly enough) favorite "features" of mine and one of their favorite conversation starters

[Sigaba]

An Americanist specializing in colonial British America/the American revolution went out of her way to mock me for studying naval history even though her spouse built boats for the Blue Sword (that is, submarines for the U.S. Navy). She gave me a special "fuck you" by not bringing to my attention a couple of obscure but important essays in the William and Mary Quarterly. I found the essays years later...and it feels better when a professor just forks over the reference.

On a much grander scale, I found out the hard way that I had changed programs to work with a specific historian who not only didn't give a hoot about his graduate students, the scholar suggested books for qualifying exams because he was already familiar with them, not because they were of the "one ignores at one's peril" variety. Moreover, this individual is a practitioner of the dynamic of eternal opposition. To paraphrase the department chairman, this person will set up a meeting at a baseball field, show up with a football, and then ask about your putting. All of these traits (and others) were widely known within the department however the ethics of the profession required students to figure it out on their own.

More recently, a nurse from Virginia ripped out my living heart, gave me a "watch this" smile as she started eating...

No, wait, this thread is about physical scars? Sorry.

I have a small scar on my upper lip from playing basketball. I was playing very well (a rarity) so rather than going to student health, I spent the next hour or so swallowing blood. The cut wouldn't stop bleeding so I ended up at a hospital. The doctor asked me to "hop" on the exam table (I am short) and when I did, he said "Atta boy." He looked at me carefully and started to stammer an apology for calling me "boy" (this was in Texas). I laughed, he laughed, then he stitched me up.

 

[wordworld]

I was about 7 and reaching under my bed.  I did not know that my mother had "stored" a barely broken full length mirror there (who does that?).  It slashed a flap from my right middle finger at the back near the upper knuckle (visualize this).  It is shaped like a C and still visible many years later.  When asked in a group about scars, for years I innocently showed mine by turning the back of my hand to them and raising the finger.   I figured out that was a BAD idea when I was about 15.  

True story, I still have the scar but I no longer show it that way.

And Sigaba, you cracked me up!

[corascreen]

I stepped on a nail once. The scar isn't that big, just a little dot but I still find it cool.