» Injured Siblings

Injurious produce
When my husband was 12, he got into a shouting match with his older brother in the kitchen. Husband began to reach for a knife, thought better of it, and picked up a banana. He chucked it at his brother as hard as he could, ran upstairs and slammed his bedroom door. A few minutes later, their other brother knocked and said, "What the hell did you do?" Turns out older brother was bleeding from a good-sized gash on his arm, caused by the banana's pointier-than-average stem.
(Sat 20th Aug 2005, 22:08, More)

» Pure Ignorance

And another thing...
I teach a class of autistic children. One day, the mother of one of my students was telling me about the progress her son was making in private therapy:

Mom: Well, his therapist is working on teaching him to discriminate between colors. She says a color, and he's picking up the corresponding card about 50% of the time.

Me: Really? That's great! Ah...how many cards is he choosing from?

Mom: Two.

Me: (biting lip to keep from laughing in her face) Yeah, that's pretty good...
(Sat 8th Jan 2005, 5:21, More)

» Urban Legends

But snopes never lies!
For about five years, I really believed the legend on Snopes that Mr. Ed (the horse on the American programme of the same name) was actually a zebra. I swore that stripes couldn't be captured by black and white television cameras, zebras are easier to train, and that the producers simply painted over his stripes when the show went to colour. No reasonable argument could shake my faith in the gospel that is snopes. That is, until I revisited the page several years later, clicked the "more information" link, and found the page saying I'd been had.
(Sun 8th Jan 2006, 2:27, More)

» Stupid Tourists

I guess everyone loves a bargain...
I live in Florida, and I live a few miles down the road from Sawgrass Mills, a very large discount shopping mall that inexplicably draws thousands of international tourists every year who make a special trip from Orlando or Miami. Yes, it's very large, and yes, the dollar is weak. But do dozens of tourists need to stop in the middle of the walkways to videotape their family members buying discounted Levi's and knockoff Burberry bags? One can hardly walk through the crowds without jostling a tourist from Europe, North or South America, or Asia with his camcorder, trying to make sure he gets a good shot of the missus buying a cheap GAP t-shirt.
(Mon 11th Jul 2005, 7:14, More)

» Scars with history

And as for my family...
Me: I have a scar vaguely shaped like the number 4 on the third toe of my right foot. I was running late for school when I dropped a rather large drawer full of socks on my foot. I grabbed a pair, dashed off, and bled all over my shoe. It's still raised and pink 12 years later. I also have a big one on each of my knees. I was 12, and I thought it would be really fun to run as fast as I could on my aunt's treadmill and then jump off. Needless to say, after having had pus-oozing scabs for two months and having the damn scars for 11 years, I can assure everyone it's really not that entertaining.

My sister: She was 2, and I had taught her to hoist herself up between her bureau and our desk and balance like a gymnast. She swung her feet back and forth, lost her balance, and smacked the bridge of her nose on the rather sharp-edged headboard of her bed. It made a sickening *thunk* and her nose started pouring blood. She still has a little line there; it sort of looks like she had an after-market nose installed.

I am NOT sorry about the length. I am never sorry.
(Sat 5th Feb 2005, 4:58, More)