Every scar tells a story

I wish I looked as good as this guy, though I could do without the foot-long leg scar.

You might have read today's headline and assumed I was referring to emotional scars. While it's true those types of non-visible scars always have a story, today I'm talking about actual physical scars.

I have four of them on my body, and on those rare occasions when I notice and think about them, they take me back to different times of my life.

There is, for example, the gash on the side of my right leg I got when I was 10 and we were jumping over the bushes at Mike Ostack's house.

As I leapt over those bushes and landed, I grazed against the jagged edge of a rusty old metal garbage can on the other side. It was enough to tear my jeans and the skin underneath, resulting in my first set of stitches (five of them). I think there was also a tetanus shot involved, or at least I hope there was.

Mike was one of my best friends in the world, but within a year he and his family would pack up and move to Stone Mountain, Georgia. I've seen him only a few times since. Nowadays our only communication comes in the form of LinkedIn messages exchanged once a year on his birthday in February.

Life goes on. We all have people who come in and out of our little spheres.

There's also the cut on my chin I got playing football.

Well, to be honest, I wasn't "playing" football. It was during pregame warm-ups my junior year. I was on the scout defensive team as a cornerback. On one play, Dave Engeman, a strong, talented senior guard, pulled around my side and gave me a stiff forearm to the chin strap.

I walked back to the sideline, unbuckled my helmet and felt my chin, only to pull back my hand and see it was covered in blood.

That was a four-stitch cut sewed up by our team doctor in the locker room. He used a topical anesthetic that lasted for maybe two of the four stitches.

I'm not going to lie: It hurt. And later the cut got infected and smelled funky for days.

On the top of my left foot is a gnarly scar I picked up in my friend Matt's basement, sometime between the garbage can and football cuts. We were playing hide and seek in the pitch dark, as we often did, and I somehow managed to rake that bare foot across the sharp metal corner of a dehumidifier unit.

You have to understand, kids: In the 60s, 70s and 80s, consumer products were often made with only functionality in mind and not necessarily safety.

My mom took me to the hospital, and amazingly the staff there decided not to stitch the cut but instead just bandaged it. It eventually healed after several weeks, but I always thought that was the wrong call.

Anyway, the only other prominent physical scar I have is actually two scars, and I don't remember a thing about how I got them.

They were the result of a hernia surgery I underwent at 18 months of age. I've heard stories of how I would cry and cry at night, and no matter what my mom or sisters tried, they couldn't comfort me.

Turns out I had a bilateral hernia. One day they dropped me off at the hospital for the surgery and I had to stay there overnight. My sister Debbie always says it was the saddest thing to see me in a crib in my little cowboy-themed hospital gown as they waved goodbye and left me alone.

All's well that ends well, though, and I'm happy to report I've had no issues since.

I was thinking of leading today's post with a photo of one of my scars. I didn't ultimately do that, but rest assured that if I had, it wouldn't have been the hernia scars...

Please wish my friend Mike happy birthday, and read about the time I tried to steal vampire blood while he was with me

Today is my friend Mike Ostack's 51st birthday. I have not seen Mike in person in something like 30 years, but the magic of social media has allowed us to reconnect to a degree. At least virtually.

Mike was my best friend in the world from the ages of 8 through 10. He lived down the street and we hung out together a lot. Then he and his family moved to Georgia. He would occasionally come back to Cleveland to visit after that, but eventually we lost touch. It happens.

I found him on LinkedIn a few years ago, which allowed us to catch up. It's not the same as seeing someone in person, of course, but it's better than nothing.

So then, two things:

(1) Happy birthday to Mike. There's something special about an elementary school best friend, and he deserves to have a great birthday.

(2) If you're so inclined, please read this blog post from five years ago in which I describe my attempt to steal vampire blood from the drug store while Mike was with me. Four decades later, it's still a funny story.

One time I tried to steal fake vampire blood from Medic

You know what I like best about the title of this post? The fact that I felt compelled to call it "fake" vampire blood. As if, you know, there's REAL vampire blood that you can buy online or something, but I found it important to clarify that what I tried to steal was the fake stuff.

Anyway, yeah, I don't know why I'm thinking about this right now, but one time I tried to steal a tube of FAKE vampire blood from Medic, which for those who aren't familiar is/was a chain of drug stores. Or pharmacies, if you prefer. Or chemists, if you're British. You get the idea.

My friend Mike Ostack and I walked into Medic one day, and I guess it must have been around Halloween because they had vampire blood there. Not an item you're likely to find on sale in, say, April.

I had no money with me because I must have been, I don't know, nine years old at the time? It was before Mike moved away to Georgia, so maybe he'll know. We were very young, in any case.

I saw that vampire blood and I wanted it, but I didn't have a cent to my name. So, in a moment of true genius, it occurred to me that I could just TAKE it. That way I could have it but not pay for it. Problem solved!

I was wearing a sweatshirt, and I believe the high-level expert thievery technique I opted to use was to take the vampire blood – which I think was in a cardboard package – and stuff it under my sweatshirt. And then I attempted to walk out of the store. Quickly. With this huge bulge in what before had been a relatively flat abdominal area.

Amazingly, this display of stealth did not fool the Medic cashier, who saw me as I approached the door and said (very sternly), "Young man! Come here! Come here right now!" Or some such thing. I couldn't believe she had foiled my plan.

With knees trembling and a bladder threatening to expel its contents (I was not a kid who got into trouble often...I wasn't sure how to handle this), I walked over to the cashier and produced the vampire blood from under my sweatshirt. She told me to wait there while she walked to the back of the store to get the manager.

That was bad enough. But things got exponentially worse when one of the customers who was waiting to check out – an older gentleman, as I recall – looked at me and said, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" I was mortified. I will never forget those words or how he said them.

At that moment, I pretty much panicked. There was no way I was waiting for the cashier to return with the store manager, so I made a run for it. I just dashed out the door and ran all the way to Drenik Drive and hid behind some bushes.

Now, you'll recall that I wasn't alone. Mike was with me. I hadn't clued in Mike on my escape plan, and I guess I just assumed that he would take off with me. But only when I jumped behind the bushes did I realize he wasn't there. And that my situation had probably just gone from bad to worse.

I waited a few minutes and then saw Mike coming down the street. I jumped out and asked him what happened. In a trembling voice, he told me he had to give the store manager my name and phone number, Which I totally get. I know he felt bad, but we were nine. What was Mike going to do? You're not smart enough at that age, in that situation, to come up with any sort of elaborate lie.

So that was it. My fate was sealed. I was pretty much dead. No doubt, by the time I got home, the Medic people would have called my mom to tell her what I had done. I honestly don't remember if I went straight home to get it over with or whether I stalled or what.

But I do remember eventually walking in through the back door and seeing my mom sitting at her sewing machine in the living room. And Mom lifting her head and looking at me for a moment. Oh man. That look. It wasn't so much anger as extreme disappointment. That's way, way worse than anger. That's the you-let-me-down-I-thought-you-knew-better face. Agony.

I immediately burst into tears. Mom scolded me for a few minutes. She didn't yell, just...scolded. It was terrible. And then I asked her not to tell my dad, and to my amazement, she said she wouldn't. As far as I know, she may never have told him. I could have hugged her on the spot. And I should have.

Anyway, there is no point to this story other than that I can tell you I never remember trying to steal anything again. The thought of standing there in Medic waiting for the store manager to come, and feeling ashamed just like that old man said, was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow.

And to this day, I've never actually had a tube of vampire blood. I should go out and BUY some, just for the satisfaction of knowing I finally got it the right way.