Scarred For Life

This is me.

The bottom scar is from 1992, colon cancer. The top scar is more recent, a triple bypass in 2011 .

While there are people that go to great lengths to hide scars, I own mine.

I’m happily married, but if the situation was different, these things could be a chick magnet.

“Hey, dah’lin, it’s Tibby time! Wanna see my scars?” (She certainly would.) And the show would begin.

“Now, this one here I got when...”

But I’d have better stories for them than cancer and heart surgery. Something manly and exciting.

Years ago, I showed up one morning for my radio show with a really nasty cut under my eye. As my two show partners inquired about what had happened, a plan was already in progress.

That gash on my face was about to become a big deal.

“I’ll tell you guys what happened, but it’s a bit embarrassing, so I’m only gonna tell the story one time. I’ll tell you at 7:50 this morning.”

As mentions of the injury continued, I stuck to that ruse of “you’ll only get this story one time - at 7:50 this morning, then we’re dropping it.”

It’s how you suck the audience in. Hopefully they’ll be interested enough that they’ll stick around or come back to the radio to hear it for themselves.

At the appointed time, the story unfolded. While I elaborated in great detail, here’s the gist.

I saw some clown manhandling a woman in the grocery store parking lot. It seemed to be escalating to the point I needed to step in between them. The dude jumped on me, threw me down and kicked me in the face with his pointy-toe boot.

It was a good story, and my partners were amazed.

They were also lied to.

Here’s what really happened:

I had hit my golf ball into the woods and was trying to play it out. The ball slammed into a tree directly in front of me and ricocheted right back into my face. It hurt like crazy.

But that’s just a story of bad golf and who cares.

So, the scars on my chest and tummy need better stories too.

I do have some fun with them. Anytime my shirt comes off for a medical professional, I ask if they know of a diagnosis that would require an operation that might connect the two scars.

They usually just smile politely and we move on.

I got a different answer recently. Taking my shirt off at the direction of a young nurse, she actually had an idea about connecting the scars.

“A good stab wound might do the trick.”

Brillliant.

Thinking I might get liquored up and head on downtown tonight, y’all.

Stay tuned.

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