Please Don't Take Me At Face Value...

...Because My Face Value is Pretty Low

When you are sitting shotgun in your training partner's Prius, pressing gauze into a gaping hole in your face, the logical reaction is to question your life. But you are not logical. You, my friend, are a Bruise Brother, and your spurious internal debates take a different track than civilians' do.

Fights were on the horizon. Maestro Cummings assaulted us with fourteen-or-so mitt rounds and then politely requested that we engage in some furious clinching. Steve, Ashley and I worked in a round-robin style, grabbing for the plum position. Whoever lost dominant position, sat out until the next turn. This went on without incident until I squared up and I tried to throw young Steven through the gym wall in the style of John Cena.

As it turns out, Steve's melon is slightly harder than rocks. He steered hard and the flesh of my sweet, soft Lizard face smacked into his dome with a crack akin to a tree splitting in half.

"Are you okay?" Steven was concerned for my noggin.

"No hurt," I said, still reaching for the clinch. I looked at Tony. Tony looked at me. It was at this moment that blood began to spurt from my face like a small geyser. "Oh," I said. I was a volcanic example of just how clinching should not be done.

Tony ran for his secret stash of cut supplies, because this is a scenario that he is prepared to deal with. When he returned, he surveyed the damage. "Yeah," Tony said, staring into what I could only assume to be my actual brain. "You got insurance?"

The fates took pity on me for once, because my Ghostly training partner leads a double life as a nurse, or as I understand it, some sort of Florence Nightengalian Trauma Ninja. We determined that Ashley could not simply sew my head shut with dental floss, though I was certainly open to the idea, but she could take me to her workplace and have a licensed medical professional reattach my face to my head.

"Come along, Lizard," she said. I followed her out of the gym. "Hold this on your head."  She held out a length of gauze which I accepted gratefully. As we rolled through the mystical landscape of Lafayette, Colorado, I stared out the window and sighed.

 "Look at you," my conscience said. "Look at your choices. You look like you had a chance encounter with the Bath Salts guy."  

"No, I don't," I thought back. "This is my war wound." I prodded the flappy mess beneath the gauze. "I'm a warrior..."  I proceeded to text "war wound selfies" to any and all people who I thought might be vaguely interested and post Instagram photos with the hashtag "#warwoundselfie." What can I say. I am basically a selfie Ronin.

#SELFIERONIN

We arrived at the hospital and I was directed toward the front desk to fill out excessive amounts of paperwork. The woman seated at the computer looked concerned. 

"What happened to you?" She looked at my soft, squishy face. She looked at Ashley, who stood silently beside me. "Blink twice if you need help."  

We were eventually sent back to an examination room. Apparently, Tuesday nights are always poppin' off in Lafayette because the doctors were all swamped. I took this opportunity to call Tina and Brad, because at this moment in my life I lived in their office with all of my belongings in a pile around me and needed them to take care of me like the giant adult baby that I am.  

What happened next is probably best explained with the following series of images, which were taken gleefully by Tina:  

Ashley disapproves of my soft face.

An improvement on my appearance!

Tina tested the stitches with her elbow.

Not dead...yet

  In summation, dear readers, I advise you heartily to protect your faces. My hideous eyebrow has earned me the nickname "Quasimodo" in many circles. I had to give up my apartment and move inton a bell tower. Now, my only friends are gargoyles. The moral of the story: if you let someone cut your eyebrow, your only friends will be gargoyles.