FoxCraft

"And This One Is From the Time I . . . "

One of the side effects of growing older is that you have more and more scars, but fewer and fewer people who know about all of them.

Balanced against other weighty concerns, this may not be very important. It does matter, though. Our scars are evidence, not just of physical wounds, but of events we have lived through and maybe even learned from. The answer to the question, "How did you get that scar?" is a piece of our personal history.

In the following stories, the scars don't all belong to the same person, but all of them are real. The identities of their owners are being withheld in order to protect the unlucky, the careless, and the clumsy.

There's the white line on your chin that's a memento of the time you were helping a friend move and you fell out of the back of the Suburban and landed face-first on the concrete driveway. You remember grazing your cheek on the corner of the trailer as you fell, and you realize how lucky you were not to break your cheekbone, shatter your jaw, or lose a bunch of teeth.

The shallow divot on your wrist comes from the family bike ride when your daughter had a wreck in front of you and you fell over her. You landed on your face—getting an impressive shiner in spite of your helmet—scraped your wrist, and tore a ligament in your elbow. Until then, you thought seeing stars happened only in the comics.

The triangle on your knee is a souvenir of the time a steering cable broke on the boat and it veered abruptly to starboard—or was it port? Everything and everyone in it slid sideways. The cut on your leg was minor; what you remember most is that one of the kids almost went over the side.

The gouge in your knuckle came from nearly cutting off your finger during your college summer job. It was a good incentive to finish your education and learn how to find oil instead of drilling for it.

The mark across your thigh is a reminder that it's a good idea to stop the chain saw after it goes through the log and before it reaches your leg.

The line on your ankle marks the place where the orthopedic surgeon put in a screw—probably the most expensive hardware item you'll ever buy. That was the time you learned that it isn't a good idea to jump on the trampoline with your sandals on.

Scars are more than just marks on our bodies. They can be mementos of poor decisions, bad luck, or narrow escapes. They can serve as receipts, showing the tuition we've paid for educational experiences. They are part of our personal history and sometimes our family history as well. They may even remind us we were lucky to survive to talk about them.

We're lucky, too, if we have plenty of people around who know and care about our stories, including our scars. After all, some of our most interesting scars are in places we can't show to just anybody.

Keeping the Wolf From the Door

It was late for dinner—which was beside the point, since it hadn't been invited in the first place.

We spent a beautiful late-summer evening sitting out on the deck with several guests, enjoying good food and better conversation. It was well after dark before anyone got up to leave.

As we were standing in the doorway under the porch light, saying goodbye to the last two guests, I happened to glance down at the doorsill. There, just coming in past the open screen door, was the largest spider I have ever seen. Well, actually, I have seen a couple of larger ones in the tarantula exhibit at Reptile Gardens, but they were safely behind thick glass. This one was a good three inches long and at least two inches wide, counting all eight of its long, thick legs—and it was crawling into my house.

I'm not particularly afraid of spiders. I don't consider myself a screamer. There are times, however, when extraordinary measures are called for. I screeched and pointed.

Alarmed but determined, the spider scuttled past our feet and into the entryway. The departing couple came back in to see what the commotion was about. Despite, or maybe because of, our efforts to stop it, the spider slipped under the door into the coat closet.

My partner slid open the closet door and started tossing out winter boots, backpacks, and stray coat hangars. Our guests joined the pursuit. The spider took a defensive position on the back wall of the closet.

The husband said, "That looks like a wolf spider. Get the Raid! Get the Raid!" (This man, a paleontologist, once told us a memorable story of waking up in the Brazilian rain forest to find that he couldn't open one eye. He had to peel off a tarantula that had planted itself on his face. Perhaps he had arachnid issues.)

Issues or not, I thought his suggestion about the Raid was a great idea. But as I headed downstairs to get it, his wife, a biologist, asked me for a container with a lid. By the time I came back, armed and ready to do battle, she was maneuvering the spider into a plastic bowl that had once held macaroni salad.

She popped the lid onto the container and headed outside. Okay, if she wanted to take this lethal-looking critter off to show to her students, that was fine by me. Instead, she carried the spider halfway across our yard and let it loose. Ordinarily I find compassion to be a virtue. In this case, I would have been willing to make an exception.

A couple of weeks later, we again had guests for dinner. Again, we were saying goodbye at the door under the porch light. Again, I glanced down—and there was the spider, or its identical twin, reaching its first long gray leg over the doorsill.

I didn't scream this time, just pointed and made inarticulate noises. My partner was fast enough on his feet to deflect the critter before it got inside. He herded it away from the door, down the steps, and off into the grass.

That's it. Two instances of misplaced compassion are enough. Any time now that we have evening guests, we're saying our goodbyes in the living room and hustling them out without turning on the porch light. In case that doesn't work, the Raid is close at hand beside the front door. If that critter sets so much as one arachnid toe across the sill again, it's toast.

You Might Be an Optimist If . . .

Optimistake: (noun) A serious error in judgment based on an unrealistic belief that the world has a higher regard for you than is actually the case. Contributing factors often are alcohol or other optimism-fueling substances.

Example: (This is a true story, as reported in our newspaper on September 10.) A burglar in Ohio, along with two companions, broke into a house while its occupants were at home. They stole some stuff and left. The optimistake occurred when one of the thieves went back to the house two hours later to ask one of the women who lived there for a date.

Not apparently being the forgiving type, she not only declined, but had someone call 911. The cops arrested the romantic robber in front of the house. Given his optimistic view of life, no doubt he will expect to be released on parole when he explains to the judge that he did it all for love.

There's got to be a plot for a romance novel in here somewhere, or at least a song.

"All I stole was her plasma TV, but she got away with my heart."

"Say you love me, baby, and I'll bring back the cash I stole."

"It was only a simple felony until I fell for you."

It's hard to be a romantic in this cold, cruel world.

Be a Kid Again? You've Got to be Kidding.

One of the many humorous/inspiring/possibly fake/probably plagiarized emails that periodically circulates around the Internet is about "resigning from adulthood." It talks about turning in your driver's license and becoming a kid again.

Are you kidding? Who would ever want to be a kid again? True, adults have more responsibility in the gainful employment and buying your own groceries departments. I'll accept that responsibility any day in return for all the benefits of being an adult, like no algebra homework, no school lunches, and choosing your own bedtime.

Here is my Top Ten list of the reasons it's better to be an adult than a kid:

10. You get to plan your own menus.

9. In the car, you almost always get to sit in the front by a window.

8. You can paint your room whatever color you wish.

7. You can eat watermelon just before bedtime if you want to.

6. You can decide for yourself whether you're cold and should put on a sweater.

5. Nobody says you can only read one more chapter before you go to bed.

4. You can do anything your older siblings get to do.

3. If you want a puppy or a kitten, you don't have to settle for a goldfish.

2. Two words: driver's license.

And the top reason it's better to be an adult than a kid?

1. Grandchildren.