- Two separate close calls with paedophiles as a kid. Yes, out alone, I'm genX.
- Fell asleep at the beach once with the waves splashing back and forth over my legs, woke up to find out the tide had come in and I'd been carried out in a rip. Well, fuck.
- Crossed the road while talking on the phone, and a bus zoomed past doing 50, three inches past my nose - real final-destination stuff. If I'd stepped out even half a second earlier, I'd have been a long greasy stain on the asphalt.
- Lying on the grass reading my book; my then-7yo son sprinted up to me with a chunk of concrete as big as my head, and bounced it off the grass right next to my ear. I'm sure it was just a coordination failure, but damn.
- Trying to extract an electrical cord plugged in really awkwardly behind a desk, stretched out on the floor with my arm snaked into the gap, only fingertips able to reach. Got it halfway out, caught myself really trying to wrap my fingers around the pins to get some leverage. Very calmly and carefully extracted my hand, sat up, and went to pieces for a bit.
- Visting my uncle on a tiny flyspeck of an island in the English Channel. Went to check out the pine forest there, spent a while tromping through the blanket of pine needles, lots of fun. Hit a really steep hill, the others took the stairs cut into the hillside, I decided to run down the slope. The hill got a lot steeper than I expected, my feet were barely even keeping up as I hurtled downwards... and through a gap in the trees, I saw I was heading to a cliff edge, with jagged rocks and crawling sea far below. Absolutely no chance of stopping in time, my turning circle was bigger than the remaining distance... only one thing for it. Stuck my arms out wide, veered as hard as I could, and just barely managed to catch a pine tree. Those things are not cuddly; I ended up with full-body carpet elbow, and hurt like hell for the rest of the trip. Beats being seagull food, though.
But if you want stupid ways I've hurt myself that weren't actually life-threatening...
- Walking along the top of a maze (made of treated pine poles) as a teenager; fell off and just clipped an eyebrow on the corner of a pole; another inch and I'd have lost an eye at the very least. I still have a lump on the bone on the corner of my eye socket.
- As a 10yo, moving house and packing stuff into storage; I was carrying a metal pole-on-feet (part of a dressmaker's dummy), so naturally I hefted it like a trident and chased my dad with it. Down a long corridor lined with doorways, at the storage facility. One of the feet caught a doorway, the pole stopped dead, I kept going and smashed my teeth into the end of the pole, breaking three of them.
- Pulling a big saucepan out of the cupboard under the stove, while cooking. The kitchen construction was terrible; the galvanized-iron base of the stove was jammed into a splintery hole in the chipboard counter, making a nasty, jagged narrowing gap. I got my hand caught and obviously badly cut so I carefully pushed up and backwards as I slid my hand out, to avoid ripping hell out of it by jerking it free. Except that no, I'd just brushed my hand against the hot part of the stove, and proceeded to burn it much, much worse by squeezing up against it and dragging slowly backwards.
- Doing the dusting when I was 12, stupidely squirted glass cleaner right onto an (incandescent) light bulb, which promptly shattered. I was very responsible, unplugged the lamp, picked up the glass, vacuumed the floor to get any splinters, then proceeded to attempt to removed the jagged stump of the lightbulb, barehanded. Still got a doozy of a scar.
- When I was a toddler, swinging on the garden gate. Held on too close to the hinge end, mashed the end of my pinky to absolute hamburger. They just kind of tacked it together and wrapped it up, best they could do - amazingly, I only have two hairline scars from it, and the fingerprint even lines up.
- Went jogging on slightly damp concrete, tripped and dislocated my ankle (mildly distressing injury pic)
- In my early 30s, playing 'boo' with a friend's toddler, leaping out of hiding places and snarling hideously. Best game, toddlers love it. Leapt through a doorway that was about a foot lower than I expected, in a concrete wall. Skull made a noise skulls shouldn't ever make, I made a very impressive scream indeed. Toddler was highly entertained, I was out of commission for the rest of the day.
- Taking my then-4yo son to the aquarium, he was almost-but-not-quite too big to carry on my shoulders. Two-stage lift, hoik up to chest height, then hnnngh up to shoulders. Easy. Except that when he was at chest height, his heels were exactly at ball-height, and after swinging him up for the first-stage lift... yeah. The thing about it, though, was that I did the same damn thing TWICE that day, and if you think getting kicked in the balls hurts, wait until you get kicked in already sore and swollen balls. Mother of god.
- Speaking of which, be 14, playing impromptu game of pingpong on a picnic table, with a tennis ball and the flat of our hands as paddles. I have a lazy eye, and no 3d vision, and so missed about 20 return in a row. Being 14 and in the throes of puberty, I proceeded to absolutely fucking lose my shit. At the tennis ball. Decide on the spot to teach the fucking thing a fucking lesson it would never fucking forget. Leap into the air anime style, fucking SLAM the ball down in a serve directly to the god damn moon. As mentioned, I have a lazy eye and no 3d vision, so instead of hitting the tabletop, the ball hit the leading edge of the table. It got me right in the nuts, with all the force a truly enraged 14yo could muster, and my sister stood over me laughing her head off as I lay there curled up in agony.
- And then of course there was my wedding night. We checked into the hotel, went for a walk around the city, then went for a swim in the hotel pool. I was showing off a little bit, swooshing around underwater around my wife like a seal, y'know how it is. Swum down a bit too deep, and stubbed my nose on the bottom of the pool. Fucking meow. Yanked the tip down so hard the skin tore right across the bridge. Blood absolutely fucking everywhere. Got back up to the room, rang room service for bandaids. Same bellhop arrived as checked us into the honeymoon suite, sees us both in towels, me looking like a slasher movie, and my wife on the floor heaving with laughter. He pretty much threw the bandaids at me and fled. I think we traumatised him for life, it was awesome :D
