Scars, Part Deux

Andrew brought up another one of my less humorous scar stories in one of my last posts, here. Less humorous for me, that is…probably more entertaining for you.

In any case, I was in a pretty terrible relationship back in the day, and the girl I was with had a little brown dachshund. It wasn’t even that good looking - I mean, some dachshunds can be cute - but not this bugger. We were just hanging out one day when she asked me to pick the stupid thing up, which I did (keep in mind that I love animals), and put him on the bed. Completely unprovoked, the little mongrel jumped out of my hands mid air and decided it would be fun to latch onto my face. Let’s think about that for a moment. Latch on. TO MY FACE. Not fun. At all.

It hurt like hell, and I’ve never bled so much from my nose in my entire life. I was shaking my head around like one of those bad movies - with the dog still attatched to my face, clawing wildly at anything it could get its paws on. I finally managed to get the thing off and launched it into the wall, pretty much dispatching it while my then-girlfriend stood shocked, not comprehending what was happening. That was when I really started bleeding, and I had to go to the emergency room to get all put back together.

There where two really bad parts to this whole mishap (you know, besides the fact you could peel my nostril away from my face). The first was that this happened in January, in the middle of my swim season, so I was out of practice and competition for about two weeks until my goofy looking nose healed. Second, the girl’s parents were convinced that I somehow provoked the stupid animal. I didn’t. I’m not a six year old - I can hold a human child, and I’m positive I can hold a freakin dog. Thanks for the vote of confidence, jackasses…

To this day, one of my biggest regrets in life is not having that dog put down. That canine was downright nasty, and I’d challenge any animal rights activist to tell me otherwise.

So, thanks Andrew, for reminding me of the worst day of my life and the hairline scar that still appears on the right side of my nose. Jerk.