Finally, I had a harrowing near death experience. So maybe not near death, but certainly closer to it than usual. It happened last week in Lake Tahoe while riding aboard my snow hog, or snowmobile, if you will. Just prior to my snow mishap, the missionaries were over for dinner and we'd all gone around sharing our scar stories to break the ice. This crafty conversation starter was invented by my college roommates as a boy snagging device back in the old days at byu. (Not that anyone was trying to "snag" a missionary, it was just to pass the time. Really). My roomates and I would go around from dorm to dorm telling boys we were collecting scar stories for a "class project" and since few boys can resist telling eager girls their tales of triumph and glory it provided funny banter and even some dates. (Until eventually the boys got wise). Used in other settings, this trick is at least 10xs more fun than "Tell us your name and something interesting about yourself". Which never fails to erase anything remotely interesting from your mind. Elder Whatshisname and that other guy had lots of crazy stories about driving a four wheeler through a barbed wire fence and bungee jumping off a bridge into shark infested waters through rings of fire and such. Thinking frantically of what scar story I might share, I realized that years as an uber cautious wussy with an aversion to contact sports and danger in general, had yielded me few scars. The only story that came to mind was "So this one time I used a men's razor to shave, and wowzer it looked like a wolverine attacked my ankle...close shave, but NOT WORTH IT." Fortunately the elders and my Dad had enough battle wounds to keep the conversation lively and all were spared hearing my Gillette story. But last Tuesday I finally had my very own catastrophe. On our Lake Tahoe mini trip the family decided to forgo ski/board activities and dabble in the sledding/snowmobiling variety. I clutched the metal handles on the back of my seat while my brother drove. With every bump, I flew about a foot in the air not sure if I would land on or off my seat. On the first big bump of the day, my white knuckled hands flailed and hit the metal handle which hurt like the dickens. I ignored the pain and tried to focus on staying on the vehicle. After a couple of very bouncy nerve wracking spins, I got crazy and decided to try driving myself. When I grabbed the gas clutch my brother yelled "Michelle! Your hand!" There was blood all over my hand and all over his jacket. Drama! I think I freaked out the snowshack rental guys when I held up my bloody hand and asked for a band-aid. For a moment I thought maybe I'd lost a fingernail or torn it, turns out it was a tiny gash that just looked much worse than it really was. Although it's a slightly more exciting story than the man razor incident, this does not fulfill my need for a scar story, and maybe that's a good thing.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Un-scarred Story
Finally, I had a harrowing near death experience. So maybe not near death, but certainly closer to it than usual. It happened last week in Lake Tahoe while riding aboard my snow hog, or snowmobile, if you will. Just prior to my snow mishap, the missionaries were over for dinner and we'd all gone around sharing our scar stories to break the ice. This crafty conversation starter was invented by my college roommates as a boy snagging device back in the old days at byu. (Not that anyone was trying to "snag" a missionary, it was just to pass the time. Really). My roomates and I would go around from dorm to dorm telling boys we were collecting scar stories for a "class project" and since few boys can resist telling eager girls their tales of triumph and glory it provided funny banter and even some dates. (Until eventually the boys got wise). Used in other settings, this trick is at least 10xs more fun than "Tell us your name and something interesting about yourself". Which never fails to erase anything remotely interesting from your mind. Elder Whatshisname and that other guy had lots of crazy stories about driving a four wheeler through a barbed wire fence and bungee jumping off a bridge into shark infested waters through rings of fire and such. Thinking frantically of what scar story I might share, I realized that years as an uber cautious wussy with an aversion to contact sports and danger in general, had yielded me few scars. The only story that came to mind was "So this one time I used a men's razor to shave, and wowzer it looked like a wolverine attacked my ankle...close shave, but NOT WORTH IT." Fortunately the elders and my Dad had enough battle wounds to keep the conversation lively and all were spared hearing my Gillette story. But last Tuesday I finally had my very own catastrophe. On our Lake Tahoe mini trip the family decided to forgo ski/board activities and dabble in the sledding/snowmobiling variety. I clutched the metal handles on the back of my seat while my brother drove. With every bump, I flew about a foot in the air not sure if I would land on or off my seat. On the first big bump of the day, my white knuckled hands flailed and hit the metal handle which hurt like the dickens. I ignored the pain and tried to focus on staying on the vehicle. After a couple of very bouncy nerve wracking spins, I got crazy and decided to try driving myself. When I grabbed the gas clutch my brother yelled "Michelle! Your hand!" There was blood all over my hand and all over his jacket. Drama! I think I freaked out the snowshack rental guys when I held up my bloody hand and asked for a band-aid. For a moment I thought maybe I'd lost a fingernail or torn it, turns out it was a tiny gash that just looked much worse than it really was. Although it's a slightly more exciting story than the man razor incident, this does not fulfill my need for a scar story, and maybe that's a good thing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment