BADGES OF HONOR or VITAMIN D OVERDOSE . . .

I have a few battle scars on my body of which I am bizarrely proud, acquired over the course of my relatively short life. In no particular order, for I love them all equally, the are:

1. The Moped Burn: Senior year in college. Cozumel, Mexico. 2-person moped to tool around the island. My friend LL, the moped driver, revs our engine too hard on loose gravel. Moped slips, my feet fall off the footrest, my calf makes contact with the exhaust pipe. The HOT exhaust pipe. The BURNING HOT exhaust pipe. Gross ugly blister the size of a silver dollar bubbles up. Lasts about a week and a half before I get up the nerve to pop it . . . or rather, ask a friend to pop it. More grossness ensues. Fortunately, no gangrene sets in and no amputation required (the stuff of my wildest nightmares, AND I was watching too much "ER" at the time). Update: faint scar lingers, no hair grows there, sometimes I have no feeling in that silver dollar area. Very interesting. Very exciting. Very traumatic. Very proud that I was even ON the moped. Plus, I looked real cute in the pink helmet.

2. The Appendectomy Scar: Spring, 1989. New York. After a summer bout of mild appendicitis and a lifetime of chronic and mysterious stomach pains, we decide it just needs to get out. 7:00 am, I go under while engaged in a riveting conversation about my favorite kind of kimchi with my surgical team (I also ask them to make sure they cut the right side -- the right side). A few hours later, I wake up craving a cheeseburger; a family friend (also serving as my anesthesiologist) greets me and tells me that no, I can't have a cheeseburger. I fall back asleep against my will -- damn, that stuff is powerful. I wake again in the afternoon, still wanting that cheeseburger and really wanting to go home. They want to keep me for two more days, but I am such a brat, they give me a cheeseburger for dinner, then release my whiny ass the next morning, with extreme cautions against exerting myself or causing the stitches to pop out. Little they know how lazy I can be. Can't bathe for a week -- how disgusting. Update: strange but true fact is that the scar is barely visible now, but it becomes inflamed when I menstruate. What an image -- you're glad I shared.

3. The Scissor to the Knee: Summer after the appendectomy. Living room, watching baseball with my dad, clipping coupons but not paying attention to the coupons . . . or the scissors, apparently. Put my hand down on the floor to watch an important pitch -- unfortunately, my hand holds the scissors blade-side up. Lower my legs Indian-style, and right knee impales itself on the scissor blade. "Don't bleed on the rug!" my dad yells. I'm fascinated at the scissors sticking out of my knee joint, and wonder if I hit anything important in there. Extract the scissors, start bleeding all over the freshly-clipped coupons ($2.65 in savings down the tube), finally start to feel pain, scream for my mom. Update: very cute and tiny scar. I never used those scissors again.

4. The Scissor to the Elbow: Truthfully, I don't know how this happened. I think I was gesticulating wildly, telling some story to my mom -- while holding a pair of sharp scissors, of course -- and just stabbed myself. Update: another very cute and tiny scar. No aversion to any particular scissors, since I can't even remember which ones I used. However, I often wonder why my mom didn't stop me from gesticulating wildly while holding a pair of sharp scissors . . .

5. The Leaded Kneecap: 4th grade, towards the end of the year. Hot as hell, and bored in the back of the classroom. To keep myself from falling asleep, I try to see if I can drop newly-sharpened pencils onto my knees and balance them. I don't even KNOW why I thought this was possible . . . or remotely fun. Right knee, the pencil bounces right off. Left knee, the pencil sticks. Ouch. I stare at myself in disbelief, and hope no one notices the #2 pencil sticking out of my leg. I remove the pencil and see the lead remaining behind. I decide to give it a week to dissolve and distribute itself through my bloodstream. A week later, it's still there. Update: 19 years later, it's still there, in its original form. I don't think I have lead poisoning, but if I do, that would explain a whole lot . . .

6. The Stubborn Vein: Pre-appendectomy blood-drawing. Nurse's office. Incompetent nurse. She sticks me twice in my right arm, but my veins refuse to show themselves. She still manages to draw blood from somewhere but complains that it's the wrong color. She sticks me twice in my left arm -- still no vein. More vials of blood drawn, still the "wrong color." Now she's mad at me -- apparently, it's MY fault SHE can't draw blood. I am now faint; she says there are no cookies or juice for me because she wasn't expecting me to be so "stubborn." Excuse me, NURSE FROM HELL. Finally, she hits a vein in my left arm. She draws another vial of blood. Am I white like a vampire yet? My arm starts to hurt, then turn cold, then turn numb and tingly. The nurse says it's all in my head. Finally, she's done. She pops the needle out, gives me another dirty look, tells me to stay put for a few minutes, then leaves, slamming the door behind her. Uh, can I at least have a Band-Aid, please? Update: there is a nice little dot of a scar underneath the surface of my skin, on my vein. I hope it doesn't dislodge itself, travel through my bloodstream, clog an artery and cause an aneurysm, because then, my survivors would just have to sue someone. It's the American way. Nurse, consider yourself on notice.

And now, a temporary addition to the collection:

7. The Twine Rope Burn and Bruise: I spent all of yesterday outdoors at the annual NHF picnic. Hadn't intended on joining in the games at all (what with the tractor beam and all), but I got bullied into it and my Monica Geller-esque rabid competitive nature reared its ugly head. My team lost, not for lack of lots of trash-talking, but we had the best time. I also ran a three-legged race. It's in the Korean blood -- if you're Korean and you're at a picnic, you run a three-legged race. They tied us with TWINE. (We're a low-budget church.) It was PAINFUL. I didn't feel the pain at the time because I was too busy laughing and thanking God that my tractor beam seemed to be deactivated for the day. Update: mildly impressive twine burn on my right ankle, coupled with a very tender subcutaneous bruise the approximate size of an adult fist. Also, the tractor beam was only idle for the early part of the afternoon -- the system malfunction righted itself at the precise moment I chose to observe the volleyball game. As it should be . . .