Everyone gets hurt, and scars are how we remember the pain. But some scar stories are so strange and unexpected that they're practically unbelievable.
U/Fragrant-Prompt1826 recently asked the people of Reddit, "What is the dumbest way you've gotten a scar?" The answers are a fascinating trip down memory lane — and maybe they'll change your own perception of the past, too:
1. "I tripped over my kitten and busted my head open on my sofa."
2. "Permanent burn scars on my leg from toasting a wild berry Pop-Tart. I was young and dumb. When I pulled it out, the frosting was so hot that it was literally bubbling. I dropped it because it was burning my fingertips — right onto my leg, frosting side down. I went to wipe it away, and my skin wiped away with it. It almost gave me third degree burns. I had to go straight to the hospital. I still have the scars 20 years later."
3. "I have one on the back of my hand from rubbing the skin off with a pencil eraser longer than the other kid did — just to prove I was 'tough.'"
—u/peeseawhy
4. "I used a pressure washer on my foot."
—u/opawzty123
5. "I twisted the head off of my little sister's baby doll. She hit me in the head with a garden hoe. Eleven stitches."
6. "My brother, sister, and I all have the same kind of scar on our left eyebrow, and we got them at the same age. My brother opened an empty dresser drawer and smacked himself in the face, my sister ran into a brick wall, and I fell off the couch onto a coffee table."
7. "An old roommate and I got drunk and had a snowball fight, only with beer bottles."
—u/imadaggycunt
8. "For my 8th birthday, a classmate got me a 'grow your own stalagmite' kit you could buy at educational stores. You added water to some powder and used a funnel to drip and create your own cave features. I kept it in a cardboard box in my room, and at some point, moisture got into the box, and the plastic containing the powder began expanding. The 'stalagmite' material oozed its way out through the narrow slits in its box and hardened into razor sharp edges. I found this out quite bloodily when I put my hand into the box to grab another toy and pulled it out with permanently altered fingerprints on my thumb, index, and middle fingers."
9. "I got a glass bowl full of ice cream, stumbled, and didn't let go of the bowl — so it cut open my hand. It's a common reflex for small children, because ice cream is 'precious.' I had to wear a bandage for two weeks."
10. "I have a scar on my forearm from a weaponized paper airplane that I taped razor blades to and launched with a rubber band. This happened when I was 22, in the Air Force, and it sliced my forearm open on launch. I enlisted the help of another member of our shop to help me destroy the evidence and drive me to the base hospital to get stitches."
—u/aRTeeGee
11. "In high school, I ended up at a house party at Miss Teen New Jersey’s house. We didn't know Miss Teen New Jersey, but she did say we could help ourselves to a fridge beer. I opened the fridge, and there was one beer left in the vegetable drawer. I grabbed it and caught the back of my hand on something sharp on the underside of the shelf. It shot blood EVERYWHERE — on the fridge, the food, and the floor. I was desperately trying to clean it up when my buddy came in looking like he’d seen a ghost, and he pulled me into the bathroom, where he’d taken a huge dump that clogged the toilet. He then saw the bloody rag on my hand and immediately puked in the sink, which also clogged. I still have the scar on my hand."
12. "In high school, a friend of mine would scar my skin with a pencil, so now, every time I get a tan, there's just a scar of a star, a smiley face, and a cat head that shows up. It's so stupid."
—u/Zythe_0
13. "I was sitting on the back two legs of my chair, I lost balance, fell backwards, and went through a window. Shards of glass rained on me, and one sliced my eyebrow in half."
—u/SluggishPrey
14. "When I was 4, I got too excited to go outside and ran through a storm door. I ripped my arm up good and required a bunch of stitches. Two days later, I was helping my mom make cookies. I tripped and ripped it up all over again. More than 30 years later, I now have a scar on my left arm that looks like a bite mark."
—u/2PhatCC
15. "I used a knife as a flathead screwdriver."
—u/ApolloMotoAZ
16. "My parents warned me not to tip my chair at the dinner table when I was a kid, and I said, 'It's okay as long as I don't tip it too far' — then I immediately tipped it too far and split my head open on the corner of the stove. Got a lightning bolt scar to the right of my eye and became Diet Harry Potter overnight."
17. "I blew a raspberry on my cat's belly, and she scratched a three-inch scar into my eyebrow."
18. "My sister and I were getting ready to go vote for the first time and deposit my check. She was downstairs in the bathroom getting ready, and I was upstairs in my room. The bathroom door was right next to the stairs. As I was coming down the stairs, I jumped down the last few steps, ducking my head under the door frame at the bottom of the stairs, landing in front of her to scare her — but I didn't duck nearly enough. I hit my head on the top edge of the door frame. I spun around and landed on my stomach and arm. My sister came out of the bathroom and asked what happened. I told her I fell, and I thought my arm was broken. She asked to see it, and as I got up, I realized I was now laying in a pool of blood. I ran into the bathroom and put my head under the bath tub faucet while my sister went and called our parents. I went to the hospital, had a concussion, got 12 stitches, and now have a 4"-long scar on top of my head."
—u/LAMBKING
19. "I got into my bed (don't ask why there was a pair of scissors in there) and leaned very hard on a pair of scissors with my knee. I don't even know how I cut myself with closed scissors."
And finally...
20. "From testing the sharpness of a knife."
—u/LimpyDan