Okay, so I went to a boarding school...
I was twelve, getting out of the bath in the boarding house, after about six other people had used the bathroom, and promptly slid along the lino'd floor (which was half an inch deep in water).

I slid along with one foot stretched out in front of me, and that foot slid gracefully into the 1/2 inch gap under the door. Unfortunately my big toenail didn't.

My screams brought half the house (luckily only the female half) rushing to see what was wrong, and of course their first impulse was to shove the door open really hard. I think that was the point I passed out.

Two years later I was moving some furniture around the dormitory and dropped a heavy chest of drawers on the same toe. Off came the toenail again...

When I was 17, I lost the same toenail for a third time. Apparently I was used to the idea by then, because I can't for the life of me remember how I did it. I *do* know that there was no alcohol involved, because I didn't start drinking till later that year.

For some reason, even now, as a supposedly mature and sensible person of 30, I am still continually walking into things, and I regularly have cut or bruised toes.

Also, when I was 15, I tried to do that cool thing where you stand on a chair and tip it oover backwards.... of course, in hindsight, I shouldn't have tried it on a chair with no seat and wicked sharp metal edges. I shouldn't have chickened out half way through and tried to jump off. And I certainly shouldn't have listened to Matron, who said of the subsequent bleeding gash (in my leg, that is) "leave it dry in the air; it'll heal on its own."... Two weeks later, I was told by an A&E doctor that the reason it was green and not healing up was that it should have had stitches in the first place, and I was now in severe danger of becoming infected. I still have a large dent in my leg now. Cheers Matron, you gin-addled, child-hating old bitch!

You know, it occurs to me that I shouldn't really have been issued with legs in the first place...
( b3th Not shit. Not mod., Tue 7 Sep 2004, 15:41, Reply)