As often as I have come across Ockhams famous razor in my travels, it has rarely cut me, though I’ve seen it wound others.

Me, I collect my share of scars through real life; my fingerprints have changed on all ten fingers in some way or another (not much, there is just a new scar on every fingertip)

My hands are covered wiht scars, but most of them are small enough that they aren’t too noticeable. The big ones are a scar on the left of my right middle finger, which came from a slip of a razor knife while cutting runners off a plastic model when I was ten. The divot on my right ring finger that corresponds to a table saw blade. The right thumbnail that never grows straight anymore.

Look a little closer, though, and you start to see that the skin is as much scar as it is skin. Some areas of the back of my hands don’t even sweat anymore. There are little scars, burn marks, slices over the whole surfaces of both hands, I imagine it’s hard to find a square inch that doesn’t have a small scar of one kind or another. The sheet metal of old vehicles, the sharp edges of machines, all have taken their toll on my hands and forearms. There are breaks too, the left middle finger and pinky have been smashed and broken several times, the foam-and-aluminum splints still in ther dresser drawer against the next inevitable injury.

My forearms have taken a beating the same way, but they also bear scratches from knife wielding drunks, a few hard burns from welding overhead, and a dimple by my left elbow where a crossbow quarrel stuck several inches into the meat of my left arm. I think there’s a couple pellets of lead in there too, the result of a dispute over the ownership of produce.

Life leaves its marks on you, if you leave the house once in a while, and sometimes those marks aren’t pretty. One of the reasons I never got a tat was the fact that I already have plenty of marks on me. I also haven’t found any images that I like adequately to look at forever, though someday I might get a muzzle print of a double rifle on my left shoulder with the legend “Molon Labe”

My toughest scars are on my right knuckle, now so toughened with callous that they are nearly invisible; the result of violent contact with a wicked set of front teeth many years ago. I have been a brawler, and there was a time I spoke first with my knuckles, and I was never too discriminate about what my knuckles said, or to whom. The scars on my knuckles remind me, and I try not to need my knuckles anymore. I also have a scar in my right calf where the ex whipped a cast iron stove grate at me like a ninja star, and it stuck. Won’t forget that any time soon.

What scars cost you most? Which ones bring back the most memories?