Wanna Know How I Got This Scar?

*The above photo is a visual stand-in for the offending coffee table* Viewer discretion is advised.

Circa black Friday weekend of a year long since past, a heinous crime occurred. I, innocent child that I was, sat upon my paternal grandparents' piano bench, was grievously injured by the joint efforts of gravity and a coffee table.

How? You ask? You dare to even ponder it?

I'll tell you.

But first, let me set the scene. I assure you it's very important.

From my earliest memories until my grandparents eventually sold their house when I was a teenager, we would make a trip each holiday season to see them. You see, we lived quite far apart, and so we only made the long drive to their house a couple times a year. Fairly early on, my parents decided to split Thanksgiving and Christmas between my father and mother's side. We would celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with my father's family at the same time in November, thus Thanks Givmas was born.

Thanks Givmas was usually your standard family gathering: lots of food, sugary drinks, relatives you can't remember all the names of, etc. Some years it snowed early and we'd build snowmen, other years we would sit inside and play Chicken Foot with our grandmother. And so, I have many fond memories of these holiday get togethers.

But we aren't here to talk about the warm fuzzies, are we, you sadists? We're here to spectate on my trauma, like retroactive rubber neckers at a car crash.

Now imagine for me if you will, the room.

In one corner, a dark rough stone fireplace--unlit, because it was midmorning--the mantle endowed with various festive and aesthetic knick-knacks. To the left, a massive window facing the water of a sparkling lake is obscured by a tall, fluffy, and impressively adorned glittering Christmas tree. To the right, a long soft brown sofa beneath a hanging tapestry of a wolf. In the center of this carpeted room is a seating area, and in between one set of floral-patterned sofas and chairs and the other sofa is IT. It is a glass coffee table with golden twisting metal legs. It too, was quite sparkly to the eyes of a child. On this gilded suburban beast was a docile fishbowl full of leaves and pinecones as well as wooden coasters I often stacked and unstacked for amusement.

Across this sprawling room which connected into a small informal dining area on its far left and also to the entrance of the house opposite the massive window, nestled sweetly at the top of the stairs was a classic black baby grand piano. It was on the bench of this very piano that I met my fate. Of course, it wasn't the fate I thought it was; you see, I believed with the wholehearted purity of a child that I could be the next genius composer. So despite the fact that not all my fingers could reach the keys I sat there and played the same three note song over and over and over. In fact, I played it to the point that one deconstructs the meaning of a word by repeating it, I played them until the notes themselves were so meaningless that it became a meditative masterpiece. And then I got bored.

Such tends to happen when your efforts go unappreciated.

Regardless, I did that thing which all precocious children are want to do on benches and chairs: I began to rock it. I quickly traded my dream of being a pianist out for a promising career as the woman that balances on things at a circus. I did that which must never be done. Dared to do the most forbidden act. I manipulated the bench so only two of its feet touched the ground while I was still sitting on it. Truly, the world has never seen a braver girl since. However, like a man that thinks he can tame bears inevitably gets eaten by them, my hubris too would foil me.

You see, I did not account for that silent force which a wise person would never forget: gravity. The laws of physics sought to humble me and punish my transgressions upon the ways of furniture. So, as I rocked back and forth, I built up the karma of motion: momentum. Soon enough the forces acting upon my body were stronger than my meager mortal form. It was then that I attained flight; momentary and ungraceful, like a frozen turkey blasted into a cement wall by a canon. Except, I was the turkey, the bench was the canon, and the wall was the rounded edge of a glass coffee table.

Fortunately, skulls are quite thick, even the skulls of children.

So despite smacking into that table with a force I have not the means to quantify, I only ended up with an inch long gash in my head and not a concussion or worse. Naturally, I cried. A lot. Bleeding the Nile River from your head is quite scary for a child.

Now, you may wonder, "Who is watching this wayward fool?" Well, it was none other than my grandmother. She used to be a nurse, so she was rather conveniently equipped to make sure I wouldn't die. But, this isn't where the story ends. You see, I also have a grandfather who was a doctor.

He enters the scene at the call of my grandmother. Meanwhile, I have been moved to bleed out on a highchair in the kitchen corner. Well, he was a doctor, so naturally the first question he asks after my grandmother told him what happened was, "Is the table okay?" His youngest granddaughter is seeping in the kitchen and the table is his priority? Grandma couldn't believe it either. Still, they managed to patch me up in the end.

Cleaning the wound was its own production, one in which I played the Thanksgiving meal, seeing as how I was laid out across the counter with my head over the sink. Thankfully, they didn't have to shave my entire head to stop the bleeding or to close me up. They didn't even use proper stiches because I was so against it. So, I suppose it worked out in the end.

Sometime during this ordeal, they called my parents back from their shopping trip to come comfort their brutalized child. And of course, my parents cheered me up by telling me they got me a juicer! I may have just unwillingly donated blood, but at least now I could also make my own orange juice.

Thus concludes my tale of this scar and my somewhat traumatic holiday season gathering. I hope you're satisfied.