Chicks Dig Scars!
They Also Inflict Them...
I was reading Gramaugus's blog last week, and he had a tale of head wounds that was all too familiar.
In my case, I've got a divot in the middle of my forehead that annoys me to no end, both for aesthetic reasons, and because it was acquired through no fault of my own. It was the result of an unnecessary interaction between my head and a wire coat hanger back when I was in elementary school. It didn't hurt all that much, but I bled like a clumsy hemophiliac at a cactus grower's exhibition.
The perpetrator of the deed was one of the numerous Mertz kids. They had so many kids, I'm hesitant to say if it was the youngest girl that did it, but the little bint did a masterful job.
During my family's 3 year sojourn into the Frozen Wasteland north of the Mason-Dixon line, both of my parents were working, and needed to be at work long before my school day began. This was when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, and Mom had not quite gotten to the point where she would let me stay home alone. So, my sister and I were packed off to the Mertz house each morning to wait 45 minutes to an hour before I could walk over to the elementary school. My sister hung out there all day.
The Mertz family was supremely weird. The kids had toys no one else had, like a weird go-cart you steered with your feet and propelled with a hand-driven lever arrangement. Also, each kid had a pair of the spring-loaded overshoes that let you hop around like a spaceman. These were always scattered all over their yard. The kid nearest my age, Jonathan, had a huge collection of Tintin comics, the reading of which was the one good thing I got out of the experience.
The house itself was a dead ringer for the house in the Amityville Horror, which was pretty creepy. They had the biggest sandbox I've ever seen in the backyard, but it was always full of cat turds, so you had to be careful digging in it. The patriarch was rarely seen, but their mom was always there, and made plenty of cash by kidsitting for the entire neighborhood. They pulled some shit that would get them in serious trouble these days. For example, one summer, they ran a "summer fun camp" in their spacious yard, with plenty of activities. Once the parents left, though, out came the bibles, and we were subjected to hours of prayer and pleas to accept Jesus. If there's one starting point to my eternal disdain for evangelists, that would be it. Their flavor of Christianity was a LOT different from my family's.
One snowy morning, my sister and I arrived as usual, and were hustled into the kitchen. Most of the Mertz kids were eating breakfast, so I was shooed down into the 'playroom', a dingy room in the basement cluttered with the assorted crap of 7 or 8 kids, and lit by what could have been no more than a 40 watt bulb. Sooner or later some of the kids drifted down, and somehow I got into an argument with one of them over something insignificant. Probably which bike was cooler, Huffy or Schwinn.
I remember turning away to look at something, then turning back to the center of the room, just in time to catch the blur of a spinning coathanger winging my direction in the dim light. SMACK! Caught me dead center in the forehead. The thrower, a 5 or 6 year old girl, giggled and dashed up the stairs. I feel the trickle of blood, and got seriously pissed off. After all, I can pound the shit out of Jonathan or my own sister for that, but not Little Miss Bint.
So, I can't see anything handy to catch the blood, so I just let it drip down my face into my hand, and head upstairs. The first one to catch sight of me was the high-school age daughter, who made gagging sounds and rushed out of the room. How was I to know she had a blood phobia? For my part, screwed-up sinuses and recurring nosebleeds cured me of any fear of blood long before.
So, I'm asking for a band-aid, and Mrs. Mertz is bitching me out for making the older girl nauseous. Yeah, right, lady. Let's talk about how hard you're gonna spank the coathanger flinger. Naturally, it all ended up being my fault. Funny how that worked out. Still, the very next week I became a 'latchkey' kid, and my sister started going to our church's day care. We never much spoke to the Mertz family after that.
So, 26 years later, and I've still got the scar. It's given my emerging forehead wrinkles an anchor point to start from, which pleases me to no end. I've always denounced violence towards women, but if I ever saw that minx again, I'd have a hard time not carving a deep X into her forehead...
I was reading Gramaugus's blog last week, and he had a tale of head wounds that was all too familiar.
In my case, I've got a divot in the middle of my forehead that annoys me to no end, both for aesthetic reasons, and because it was acquired through no fault of my own. It was the result of an unnecessary interaction between my head and a wire coat hanger back when I was in elementary school. It didn't hurt all that much, but I bled like a clumsy hemophiliac at a cactus grower's exhibition.
The perpetrator of the deed was one of the numerous Mertz kids. They had so many kids, I'm hesitant to say if it was the youngest girl that did it, but the little bint did a masterful job.
During my family's 3 year sojourn into the Frozen Wasteland north of the Mason-Dixon line, both of my parents were working, and needed to be at work long before my school day began. This was when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, and Mom had not quite gotten to the point where she would let me stay home alone. So, my sister and I were packed off to the Mertz house each morning to wait 45 minutes to an hour before I could walk over to the elementary school. My sister hung out there all day.
The Mertz family was supremely weird. The kids had toys no one else had, like a weird go-cart you steered with your feet and propelled with a hand-driven lever arrangement. Also, each kid had a pair of the spring-loaded overshoes that let you hop around like a spaceman. These were always scattered all over their yard. The kid nearest my age, Jonathan, had a huge collection of Tintin comics, the reading of which was the one good thing I got out of the experience.
The house itself was a dead ringer for the house in the Amityville Horror, which was pretty creepy. They had the biggest sandbox I've ever seen in the backyard, but it was always full of cat turds, so you had to be careful digging in it. The patriarch was rarely seen, but their mom was always there, and made plenty of cash by kidsitting for the entire neighborhood. They pulled some shit that would get them in serious trouble these days. For example, one summer, they ran a "summer fun camp" in their spacious yard, with plenty of activities. Once the parents left, though, out came the bibles, and we were subjected to hours of prayer and pleas to accept Jesus. If there's one starting point to my eternal disdain for evangelists, that would be it. Their flavor of Christianity was a LOT different from my family's.
One snowy morning, my sister and I arrived as usual, and were hustled into the kitchen. Most of the Mertz kids were eating breakfast, so I was shooed down into the 'playroom', a dingy room in the basement cluttered with the assorted crap of 7 or 8 kids, and lit by what could have been no more than a 40 watt bulb. Sooner or later some of the kids drifted down, and somehow I got into an argument with one of them over something insignificant. Probably which bike was cooler, Huffy or Schwinn.
I remember turning away to look at something, then turning back to the center of the room, just in time to catch the blur of a spinning coathanger winging my direction in the dim light. SMACK! Caught me dead center in the forehead. The thrower, a 5 or 6 year old girl, giggled and dashed up the stairs. I feel the trickle of blood, and got seriously pissed off. After all, I can pound the shit out of Jonathan or my own sister for that, but not Little Miss Bint.
So, I can't see anything handy to catch the blood, so I just let it drip down my face into my hand, and head upstairs. The first one to catch sight of me was the high-school age daughter, who made gagging sounds and rushed out of the room. How was I to know she had a blood phobia? For my part, screwed-up sinuses and recurring nosebleeds cured me of any fear of blood long before.
So, I'm asking for a band-aid, and Mrs. Mertz is bitching me out for making the older girl nauseous. Yeah, right, lady. Let's talk about how hard you're gonna spank the coathanger flinger. Naturally, it all ended up being my fault. Funny how that worked out. Still, the very next week I became a 'latchkey' kid, and my sister started going to our church's day care. We never much spoke to the Mertz family after that.
So, 26 years later, and I've still got the scar. It's given my emerging forehead wrinkles an anchor point to start from, which pleases me to no end. I've always denounced violence towards women, but if I ever saw that minx again, I'd have a hard time not carving a deep X into her forehead...
posted by El Capitan | 4:56 PM
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