there is a scar- dead in the middle, like the coin slot to the worlds most hideous bank- that I got in Atlanta twenty, maybe twenty five years ago.

I was pulling power to a machine for the IWF at the Georgia World Trade center They had brought a box out to the booth, and i stood in front of it to see where I could best connect it. The box had no front cover, that I could see, but that was the sort of slipshod work I had come to expect from the contractors there.

So I had an upside down bucklet, and with the machine’s power cable in my hand, I bent forward and sat down…
…. and cloned myself right in the forehead with the open door of the cabinet.

See, I had been looking at the door exactly edgwise on, and when i sat down i drove the corner of the sheet metal door right into my forehead. It laid me out. The pain was pretty incredible, and I immediately clapped my hand to my forehead, but itr came back clean, it wasn’t bleeding,. I didn’t get this, but I figured maybe I’d gotten lucky, so I winced with the pain and went back to working.

I had laid the power cables out in a flat quoyle and as I tamped down the coils to make sure they stayed flat (They would be covered with carpet later) I noticed that the quoyle had a bright red target at it’s center. Then the drops of blood started to come off my eyebrows. I put my hand to my forehead again, and it came back red and wet.

I got as much off as I could with a rag and went to the first aid room, people staring at me as I went. They wiped me down a bit further and daubed on some antibiotics, then put on a big band aid. They gave me some extra bandaids and a few packets of antibiotic cream, and I went back to work.

At night, in my room, I noticed the reason people were staring at me: the blood had covered my forehead and stopped at my eyebrows like a rain gutter; it had proceeded to run down my nose and the sides of my face until I looked like I was wearing a red spartan’s helmet.

I used a hotel shower cap to protect the head while I took a shower, then carefully wiped at my forehead (In those days, the scar was slightly above my hairline, now it’s far below it) and I gently tried the wound to see if it was healing, and SLIPPED MY FINGER UNDER MY SKIN AND TOUCHED MY SKULL.

I have been creeped out before and since, but not like that.

You should always try never to touch your skull.

Anyway I kept it bandaged and kept ointment on it so it’s not heavily visible unless I point it out, but it’s one of those scars that I see every day that remind me maybe I should pay closer attention.