mynutsitch.com

I was just minding my own business the other day when someone posed a very thought-provoking question to me. Being someone who tends to think on occasion, the provocation ended up working and I became somewhat fixated on trying to answer his query.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” is a somewhat complex question to answer.

About 15 minutes into my brainstorming session I had roughly 3 pages of partial answers and I started getting the overwhelming urge to stab myself in the face with a city bus.

Clearly that sort of approach was far too broad, so I decided to take that list and try and strip it down. If I could identify the underlying reasons, surely I could answer that kind stranger’s query.

After toiling for hours, ripping apart my faults, quirks and weaknesses I think I have discovered what the hell is wrong with me.

I think I have brain damage.

Thinking back, I realized I’ve taken several pretty damn good shots to the head over the course of my lifetime. Naturally, this is where I’m going to shamelessly share a few examples.

Monkey Boy

When I was just a wee lad I was a bit of a handful. My mom loves to tell stories about how, right after learning how to crawl, I snuck under a recliner while nobody was paying attention, resulting in a rather frantic and panicked search effort when they realized I was gone.

Apparently, I also was curious about climbing. Not deterred by the lack of a proper indoor rock climbing wall and the appropriate safety equipment, bookshelves were the next logical choice. As people tend to do, my parents elected to place things on these bookshelves. Some of them were even heavy things. Like an antique cast iron pencil sharpener much like the one in this picture.

In case you aren’t aware, cast iron is pretty heavy stuff. I’d say we’re talking about a 5 to 7 pound chunk of metal here.

At this point I’m sure you can see where this is going. No need to get all wordy here. I’ll just bust out MS Paint.

Right in the forehead.

I’m sure there were some other ones when I was younger too (many people have speculated that my mother may have dropped me a time or two) but I sure don’t remember them, so now we’ll move on to when I was a little older.

“I think I’m falling for you”

Ahhh…summer camp. I was at summer camp with my best friend, and our sleeping quarters were little cabin-ish type things that were made to look like covered wagons. How quaint. Hell, it’s Oregon…I guess it comes with the territory.

Inside there were bunk beds lining both sides, and my best friend and I grabbed one set of bunks. I called the top one, so he took the bottom. (Yes, that part is important…stay with me here.)

This was back before everyone was so paranoid about safety. There weren’t any bars on the top bunk.

Yeah, this one is probably pretty easy to guess too. At least the first part.

I know I’m a heavy sleeper, but I know I didn’t sleep through that. I’m pretty sure it knocked me out cold.

Once I figured out I was no longer on the rock hard camp bed and was now on the rock hard wooden floor, I groggily climbed back into bed.

And then I climbed back in the right bed. Sorry about that, Tony.

“Coach, get your balls off my face!”

It was a nice spring day and our little league baseball team was getting ready for a game. I was standing in the outfield and coach was at home plate hitting grounders and fly balls to everyone.

He hit a fly ball my direction. Man, did he hit it. That thing rocketed skyward like it was allergic to gravity.

Right into the sun.

I could still sorta see it. I squinted and used my glove to try and block out the sun, and could still sorta make out the ball enough to get into position. I could see it coming back down, and I reached out with my glove to grab it.

I felt it hit my mitt!

Barely.

Everything was dark and quiet. Slowly, I heard voices start to fade in. They were talking about me. I realized my eyes were shut, so I opened them and saw this:

I heard someone say “Oh my god…look at his forehead”, and they helped me over to the bench.

Within minutes I had a baseball sized lump on my forehead just above my right eye, complete with the indents from the stitches on the ball. My vision was all messed up and my head was killing me.

To this day I still can feel a lump where that thing hit me and my vision in that eye is still not as good as it was. I was pretty lucky though. An inch in almost any direction and I could have had a shattered eye socket, fractured skull, or maybe even have died.

Just for the record, I don’t highly recommend attempting to catch a baseball with your face. Try a mitt. It works a little better.

There are definitely more examples but I think it’s pretty clear that my brain is not operating at full capacity. I think I just heard all of you simultaneously say “Ohhh…well that certainly explains a lot”.

Yeah. Screw you guys.