Sinister: accident and emergency, or arts and entertainment?

[marisa stroud]

About two summers ago, my Scottish (now-ex, but in a
friendly way) boyfriend Andrew came out to visit. He'd
been in the country a bit less than a week, and I
think we'd just arrived home from a weekend out at a
mutual friend's cottage. It was late evening and we'd
had a long drive, so I gave myself a nice big stretch
whilst walking up the driveway to the front door, and
on a romantic whim twirled around to give Andrew a
nice big hug.

Did I mention that I still had the car keys in my
hand?

Did I mention that Andrew wasn't expecting me to turn
around?

Instead of charmingly throwing my arms around his
neck, I thrust the big fat ignition key up his
nostril.

Blood EVERYWHERE!!

marisa in TEARS!!

Andrew in HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER!!

AT ME!!!

In floods of tears, and with my hands all bloody, I
ran to the front door and fumbled with the lock. As
soon as I opened the door I called and called for my
parents to come and help. Walking down the front
hallway to investigate the commotion, they see me,
bawling and blood-covered, and Andrew in the
background with his hands stained red, covering his
face.

Andrew is still laughing, by the way.

I fly to the laundry room to get an old towel to mop
up the mess. My parents are left with Andrew to listen
to him tell the story through his hands, palms cupped
to catch the blood.

By the time I got back with the towel, all three of
them were laughing at me.

I was still crying.

They still laugh when we retell the story.

And, okay, NOW I'm laughing, but at the time I was
really upset. I mean, fuck! Noses are very bloody
things! They bleed a lot!! And that makes it look very
serious, indeed.

And that cartilege, man...I can still feel it give.

Anyway, he bled for another few minutes and then it
was all over. No disfigurment, no permanent brain
damage etc etc. I think my most traumatic/disfiguring
accident was the huge cut I got on my right big toe
from a zebra mussel when I was about fifteen. I still
have the scar, it looks like a fossil. It's on the bit
that would be just above the knuckle (if feet have
knuckles) on the topside of my toe, so it's not even
like I had trouble walking afterwards. I just had to
swim back to shore with my foot held in the air out of
the water to stop it from stinging so much. I remember
my aunt thinking it was pretty gross, tho.

Anyway, I don't remember if I put on any music to make
myself stop crying after I keyed Andrew's nose, but if
I was making a movie in which that happened and I
wanted to cheer my marisa character up, I would play
The Pines' cover version of "Ask" by The Smiths cause
it has just the right combination of lovely harmony
and underlying melancholy.

If she'd managed NOT to key Andrew in the nose and was
perhaps going to a party or something afterwards,
she'd have to play "Legal Man", just because Stevie
makes her smile so, even at the risk of being lumped
in with the thoughless seventeen year old emo geeks
who only started liking b&s when they sold out etc
etc.

Otherwise, she would probably play some Of Montreal.
"Tim I Wish You Were Born A Girl" makes her happy that
people fall in love and tell the world to go hang.

marisa

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