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Strawberry Flanks Forever

At a softball game last weekend (which miraculously wasn’t rained out), I slid into third base on a close throw from the outfield.

(I wasn’t expecting the throw to come to third, so I hadn’t prepared to slide as I lumbered toward the base. So it’s probably less accurate to say ‘I slid into third base’ than to say ‘I awkwardly fell to the ground at full sprint and rode on an asscheek boat into third base’. Just in case you’re scoring at home.)

I was rewarded for my troubles with a long, bright red ‘strawberry’ on my right undercarriage, just above where the legs of my shorts reach the thigh. In the days since I left bits of my ass on the infield, I’ve become reacquainted with the various painful stages of stupidity-induced backside abrasions. Which I’ve now decided to share with you. Don’t try and stop me; my mind’s made up.

Stage I: All the World’s an Ouchie

For the first three days post-skinning, there is no activity you can possibly perform involving your ass that won’t hurt.

(I’d like to retract that statement immediately, before the inevitable flood of smartass emails listing activities in which you could conceivably enroll your ouchied ass without discomfort. Because while such things might not cause your rear end any pain, they’re guaranteed to keep me awake at night. And not in a good way.)

Let me say this instead: for three days after an ill-advised slide, activities such as lying on your back, reaching for your wallet, running into furniture, or sitting will be very uncomfortable. If you’re considering doing ‘The Bump’ at this stage, you’d better have a high tolerance for pain or an assful of novocaine. And both wouldn’t hurt.

“If you’re considering doing ‘The Bump’ at this stage, you’d better have a high tolerance for pain or an assful of novocaine. And both wouldn’t hurt.”

The worst part about Stage I is that you know something like, say, sitting in a desk chair is going to hurt. But what choice do you have? None, that’s what choice. You’ve got work to do, and the work’s at the desk, so that’s where your ass has to park, butt boo-boo or no butt boo-boo. You just have to suck it up, sit gingerly, and think fluffy thoughts until you reach…

Stage II: You Again!

After a few days, you forget that you’ve scraped your sitter, and you may neglect to ‘turn the other cheek’. This is Nature’s way of letting you know that you’re a plodding slow dumbass, and should have stopped at second base.

(Note: Depending on how you developed your strawberry, Nature may be telling you something slightly different. Like, ‘Slip ‘n’ Slides need water to actually work, jackass‘ or ‘Maybe halfpipe skateboarding’s really not your bag, sport‘. Nature works in mysterious ways; your message may vary.)

This is the ‘gotcha!‘ stage, when your bum bum only hurts when you forget that it’s sore in the first place. So maybe you’re grocery shopping, pulling rock-hard burritos out of the frozen food aisle, and absent-mindedly *bump* the freezer door shut — sending a wave of skinless rump pain shooting through your nervous system and a package of skinless chicken breasts spilling out of your shopping cart.

(I’m not saying that happened to me, mind you. But I wouldn’t eat the cacciatore at our house for a couple of weeks, if you know what I mean.)

This ‘stealth stinger’ phase lasts for a few more days, until most of the posterior pain has subsided for good. This lands you in the even more insidious…

Stage III: What’re You Lookin’ At?

It’s a well-known fact that mostly-healed abrasion wounds tend to itch. Scraped knees, skinned elbows, you name it — there’s something about scabby skin that makes you want to scritch it.

If said wound is located on one’s hiney, then one finds one’s self in an unfortunate predicament. Spend the day with an itchy ass? Or scratch that moneymaker out in public where all can see and gawk?

Personally, I chose the latter. My moneymaker’s never earned me much cash, so I figured I had nothing to lose. Three days of scritching later, it still hasn’t generated any dough. But at least I’m walking without a hitch in my step any more. Which means I’ve careened right into…

Stage IV: History Repeating

If you’re like me, you never learn. Not from your mistakes, not from others’ mistakes, and not from those scary educational films they showed you in high school. So as soon as your injury heals enough to bother you no more, you’re going to go out and do it again.

My rear end’s feeling pretty good again these days. No pain, and I haven’t felt so much as a tickle back there since the weekend. And I’ve got another softball game on Thursday. Assuming the game’s not called on account of tornadoes or plagues of locusts, I’ll be back out there again, running willy-nilly around the bases and sliding like a crack-addled ostrich with a bad case of vertigo. I’m virtually guaranteed to come out of it with another boo-boo. Maybe this time I’ll take pictures. Multimedia is all the rage these days, right?