My poor left leg has suffered so much.

I don’t know why it seemed to always be the target of some disaster or another.

Happily, by the time I hit my 30s the trauma abated, but before that …

When we moved to Bangor Township, I was able to walk to school – one day, I decided to skip rope to school – because that’s the kind of darling child I was.

Edison School consisted of two buildings – the new school, in the back.  A one-story fairly modern school; housing the lower grades, the gym/cafeteria; and the old school, in the front, built God-only-knows when; a block cement structure, with a basement (it’s where the band lessons were held, and my Girl Scout Troop met).  The front door of the old school was not used (no, I don’t know why) – you entered at the side door, and either went up the stairs to the classrooms or down the stairs to the basement.

There was a sidewalk that ran from the front of the “old” school out to Midland Road.

What I didn’t know was that next to that sidewalk, hidden by the grass, was a deep hole.

I’m skipping along, my left leg goes into said hole with the cement of the sidewalk scraping away a copious amount of skin.

FUCK.

I turn around, limp home, leaving a trail of blood.

My mom is just getting ready to leave for work.

I show her the damage and she gives me two choices.

She’ll bandage it up and I go back to school; or we go to the doctor and he will give me a tetanus shot.

Back to school I went.

Next up.

I’m at my Dad’s cottage on Long Lake – the original one.

We need some hamburger and I volunteer to walk over to the little store, even though I’m in my bathing suit and not wearing any shoes.

Between me and the store is a large gravel parking lot.

I decide I’m not going to try to walk across that gravel lot with bare feet and walk along the grassy edge to get to the store.

Unknown to me, hiding in the shade of the loading area is a big-ass, mean dog.

Dog sees me.  And it turns out his chain is just long enough to let him reach me and tear the fuck out of my – you guessed it – left leg.

FUCK.

I go into the store, get the hamburger, and go back to the cottage, leaving a trail of blood.

Nobody noticed my wounds until I asked for a Kleenex to sop up the blood.

This time, nobody offered to take me to the doctor, but my step-mom did a great job bandaging me up, and my Dad went over to the store to raise some hell.

Next.

Kenny and his mom’s station wagon, which I’ve already blogged about.

Short version, me and Peggy Pack are sitting on the back of Kenny’s mom’s station wagon, which has the kind of door that opens and shuts like a regular car door, Kenny hits some ice, backs into a church, the door is forced closed on my (left) leg which did not make it back into the car.

FUCK.

The two remaining left leg adventures, stem from the last one, and me getting way too much sun.  Once in Florida and once in Los Angeles, and both times, my leg swelled up like a fucking balloon.  Clearly, the result of my own stupidity.

So, I’m hoping that God (who I don’t believe in) is done fucking with my poor left leg.

(And, no, God that I don’t believe in, that is not an invite to start in on another limb.)

Enough is enough.

(Still with me after all these years of abuse!)