The night my brother stabbed me.

I have been holding back a primo story.

You see, I have this bump, a scar, from a brother... I bet there's a lot of girls out there that do.

It's about an inch above my eyebrow. Right there next to the aging spot. No, no, a few inches from my roots, over by that grey hair

OMG, are you BLIND?
That's what happens when you take a photo, while driving, left handed at f2 (which is very shallow depth of field)


Here's a "better photo" and I say that with great sarcasm.

See that bump?
Yeah, That's it.

So let me tell you a story about a boy.
My brother.

Yes, I'm one of those darn lucky few that got to have an older brother. No, not one of those older brothers that protected you from bullies (ok, maybe a couple times he did), but mainly an older brother, that ganged up with the older sister and tortured me while my mom was at work ... on a regular basis.

His name is Curtis and he's a couple years older than me. Yes folks, there are people out there that are indeed older than I. Shocking isn't it?

I was the middle child, and had the typical middle child syndrome. The source of entertainment, the person that sees both sides to every situation. But before I was the middle child, I was the baby, for 11 long years. Trust me, I'll have plenty to tell my therapist about that.

Being the baby, I got lots of extra torture from my brother and sister. They would spend hours forcing me onto a bicycle trying to get me to ride. To this day, I still have scars on my knees in the process, and at nine, I thought I was the oldest person in the world to ever be unable to ride a bike. Then I remembered my grandma, who never did learn how to ride a bike and all was right with the world.

Mom would come home from work, I'd rat them out, they'd get yelled at, and I got to go back to being the baby for a while. But I was marked until 8 a.m. the next morning when she went back to work, and the cycle would begin again. BTW, never leave the 13 year old in charge of the other kids. There is much torture going on behind your back.

So anyway, when I was in the 6th grade, we had moved into the country in the house my parents build. It had a semi-finished basement with a pool table, a hideabed and a TV. It was our own personal little rec room paradise.

I was sitting on the couch, doing my homework (math to be exact, I know this because I happened to be using a pencil), like the perfect precious child I was. ;) Curtis was sitting in the much more comfortable chair and made the HUGE tactical error of getting up to go to the bathroom.

SCORE!

I got up, and jumped into his chair, math homework in my lap. For some reason, I guess I thought this would actually pan out in my favor. {Oh, Lana, you percocious little thing, you.} So when he gets back, he of course, tells me to get out of his chair. I refuse. He starts to pull on me, I refuse. If I remember correctly, somewhere in there I swore at him.

Maybe.
I was perfect so I doubt I swore.

*bats eyelashes*

Then it happened. Looking back it was like slow motion. It's true when tramatic things happen and you look back, ever millisecond seems like a minute. Curtis picked up a pillow (and not one of those wimpy foam pillows either, this was a heavy duty feather pillow - because that's all they made).

He went to hit me over the head with it, and I used my left hand to protect my forehead.

There was a pencil in my hand.
I had just sharpened it at school hours before.

{I know you can see where this is going.}

The pillow made contact with my hand, holding the pencil. It went IN to my forehead right at the hairline, and traveled under my skin next to my skull, and came OUT right above my eyebrow.

Curtis looked at me and turned white as a sheet.
I felt my forehead and screamed bloody murder.
Mom or dad yelled downstairs for us to shut the hell up.
Curtis turned and ran upstairs as fast as he could go.
I sat there screaming and did something you'r not supposed to do, but my gut reaction took over.
*I pulled it out of my head*

Let me repeat that last part...
*I PULLED IT OUT OF MY HEAD*

Mom comes running down the stairs and this is when I PROVE I'M A GOOD SISTER.

The first thing that ran through my head, was that my brother was going to get the crap beat out of him. Cuz you know, it was the 70's. Sometimes our parent's kicked the crap out of us when we did stupid things. (They did better when they knew better).

So here I sit, on the chair, with blood running down my face, my mom and brother look white, I'm wondering if I'm going to die or at the very least, pass out, and the FIRST thing that came out of my mouth was... "HE DIDN'T MEAN TO DO IT, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!!"

Mom rushed me to the ER and I got stitches which I milked for all it was worth for over a week to stay out of PE. I'm pretty sure my brother did NOT get the crap knocked out of him, and I had a great story I was able to tell all the kids in my class for years to come.

I'm still disappointed I didn't actually get to SEE the pencil sticking out of my forehead.

A few months later, I accidentally dropped a pair of scissors on that big purple vein on top of the foot. Blood shot everywhere (gosh, I'm so lady-like aren't I?). First thing I said was "don't tell mom!" because I didn't want to get yelled at for a second trip to the ER. LOL.


BTW, someday I'll tell you the story of when Mom turned the table on my brother and shot him with a BB Gun.

I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations is up on that one.