[Redliner]

Most of mine are stupid things that led to injuries.

Junior High home ec class, I had this stubby little pencil about 2 1/2" long that I would twirl between my fingers and for some inexplicable reason I kept the thing ground to a razor sharp point. One of my friends was bugging me writing some stuff on a piece of paper so I reached over - with the hand the pencil was in - and grabbed the paper and crumpled it up. Friend starts freaking out trying to get it back, starts kind of smacking me and I start to get pissed off. No idea where the teacher was during all this. Anyway I'm not thinking and I slammed my partially closed hand (with the crumpled paper) down on the top of the table out of frustration. Felt something weird like a little tug at my hand, but thought nothing of it until I opened my hand to move it off the table and saw out of the corner of my eye the piece of paper went with it. I look down and the pencil has impaled the web of my hand between the thumb and the first finger - like right clean through. Amazingly it didn't hurt yet, and I just held it up in front of my face and stared at it for a minute. Now the friend is really losing it, and like an idiot I grabbed it and pulled it out. There was blood everywhere. I'm remembering first aid training and trying to stanch the bleeding by applying direct pressure, but I can't really squeeze both sides of my hand effectively and our table now looks like a prop from a slasher flick. Eventually the teacher comes back, doesn't even bat an eye, sends me to the office for attention. (we didn't have a school nurse or anything) I ended up needing stitches and still have the scars today from where the pencil went right through.