Shiner

Suppose you happened to be wearing a strange hat. By strange, I don’t mean a hat that dispenses some beverage or looks like a block of Swiss cheese. I mean strange like a hat that is a block of Swiss cheese and has live rats wearing clown costumes running through it. And it’s on fire. You know that when you meet up with an acquaintance, the conversation hasn’t really started until there’s been a comment or question about the hat.  Having a whopping black eye is kind of like that.

I’m experiencing this first hand at the moment. The reactions range from concern (“Oh my gosh, what happened?”) to bits of humor (“What does the other guy look like?”) and a fair amount of blaming me for getting on Shannon’s bad side. It’s kind of interesting to shake someone’s hand at church and realize that the other person hasn’t really looked you in the eye yet because it’s just not possible to ignore it.

There have, however, been times when I sort of forget that I look like the dog on Gerrit’s journal:

Black Eyes

I start to think, “Wow, I must be particularly handsome today the way I’m turning heads… Lookin’ good… Oh, wait.”

I’d almost say it’s a plus for a generally quiet guy like me to have a conversation piece prominently attached to my face. Maybe I could plan a series of facial contusions to keep that benefit, except that Shannon is a little squeamish and occasionally can’t stand to look at me. That’s a big one for the “minus” column. Maybe if I could just find a flaming sombrero…

P.S. Ethan suggested that I ought to say something about how I got a black eye. I think that might spoil the fun.

11 Replies to “Shiner”

  1. Oh that looks sooooo painful! I can hardly stand to look. This is not an answer to our prayers to keep you safe.

  2. My daughter Taina had constant black eyes from playing soccer and pole vaulting. She LOVED the attention. Looking at your shiner also reminds me of the time my neighbor was pounding a nail in the wall and the hammer bounced back and hit her in the eye! Oops. She didn’t want to fess up to that one. Hope it hurts less than it looks like it does! Take care!

  3. My broken ankle is boring compared to your facial trauma.

    The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club…

  4. You realize by not telling us the story we assume the worst, that you did something really dumb and you are too embarrassed to tell us. My guess is that you were playing that ‘trick’ where you hold the person’s arm back as they try to pull their arm in toward their face and then they let go, and you punched yourself in the face.

    Everyone should put their guesses up for what Eric did. 🙂

  5. That is indeed a nice piece of art! My guess is you took a softball in the eye. You are supposed to catch them!

  6. Yowser! I’ve seen a couple similar looking shiners as a result of various eye surgeries; but I believe you’ve already had lasik surgery and are too young for cataracts. Whatever caused it must have hurt!! If you get tired of the attention, you can cover it up with white shoe polish and then apply makeup foundation in the appropriate skin tone. Of course, that may prompt a barrage of questions also!!

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