Scars of Pain

A couple of weeks ago the wife and I made the trek out into the Atlantic Ocean to spend a few days in Bermuda. As many of you know, I don’t mess around with injuries when I’m on vacation, I like to knock them out on day one or two, so that they have the best chance at ruining the rest of my trip. In this particular instance day one was the winner.

After a morning of snorkeling in the warm, crystal clear blue-green waters, I came home to take a quick shower before heading into town. With a face full of soap I reached down to grab the bottle of shampoo and whickety-whack it felt like I took a Mike Tyson round house to my right eye. I touched my hand to my forehead hoping for the best but expecting the worst, and there it was a nice handful of blood. Apparently, the hot water knob on the shower wall didn’t like the cut of my jib, so it decided to open me up. I started screaming for Amy and she pulled back the curtain to a scene from Psycho. I was sitting naked on the floor of the shower, soaking wet with blood running all over my face. Go ahead and take a moment to soak in that visual. So sexy!

She handed me a towel and I held it to my face with one hand while drying off enough to get dressed with the other. At this point I look at the cut in the mirror and I am thinking stitches all the way. I had an injury in Aruba several years ago, and the doctor made me pay $300 cash on the spot, so I wasn’t looking forward to another tropical island hospital visit. After getting the cut to stop bleeding and letting a few people look at it, the decision was made to wait and see how it looked the next morning.

The next day I got up and it seemed pretty good. It officially put an end to my snorkeling expeditions, but at least I was still able to swim in the ocean and the pool for the last few days. Yet another vacation scar for the collection. Between my knee, my hernia surgeries and now my eye, I have a sweet Frankenstein look going. A few more trips abroad and I’ll be the only guy still alive who is guaranteed a closed-casket ceremony.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to work on a better story than smashing my face on a shower knob. Maybe something along the lines of a knife fight with a surly lesbian over a bullshit Scrabble word or head-butting a tiger shark who had his jaws embedded in a Bermudian princess’s torso.