True Story:  When I was little, I desperately wanted crutches, braces, and eye-glasses, in that order.

Be careful what you wish for.

Crutches: Wow! I had 11 casts on my left ankle and 8 on my right by the time I was at least 21, and several ankle braces since then. I’m not that accident prone. I was a gymnast and athlete for some time, so they tell me.

Once you roll that ankle your are screwed! Just writing that word makes me flinch. There is something called muscle memory, I believe. I am no expert, but I can tell you thinking about hurting my ankle makes it hurt. It’s like nails on a chalk board. I am a believer in the amputee’s phantom arm.

True Story:  In my life I have also broken ribs, my nose, most fingers and toes & my tailbone twice.

I am extremely lucky that I have not broken my neck, which ironically, is the area of this ol’ bag of bones, that requires the most pain management today. (Hence the need for the pill swapping party). I sometimes wonder what the hell it will feel like to be 80, God willing. (We do have some good stock in my family if you don’t party too hard).

True Story:  I use to jump off the roof of our carport as a kid to try to “score” some crutches.

Glasses:  This great desire of mine faded along with the sexy librarian fantasy.

And now we come to BRACES. 3 times baby. Awesome!

True Story:  Apparently, I have a jacked up mouth. Things could be worse.

1st time:  For crooked teeth. What else?

2nd time:  I don’t really know. Something about a small mouth, messed up jaw, blah blah blah… If they didn’t cost so much I would think my Mom just did it for torture.

True Story:  After having them tightened and in dire need of Advil I would tell mom my mouth hurt.

Mom:  Your fine. You have a low pain tolerance.

3rd time:  This time there was an apparatus involved. That’s what it’s called, “an apparatus”. It was a piece of metal that spread across the roof of my mouth. And you have to find a Sadist to stick a key in it and turn it. WTF? How is this not child abuse. It was to widen my jaw. I still don’t know why?

The good news about all of this is that I was about 12. Which means I was at the height of my “really good-looking” phase.

Let me paint this picture for you. I’ll start from the top.

As my aunt would say, I had a puff-ball on my head. This was the mid-late eighties and teasing of the bangs was cool. I had greasy, teenage skin and my lovely, natural nose (a bit wide at the bridge). I was probably wearing some hideous sweater. My Mom liked to buy the discount clothes and this was before Wal-Mart had Hannah Montana lines. And of course, it being 1987, I had on probably 4 different pairs of socks in multiple colors in order to appear fashionable. My feet wouldn’t fit in my shoes but I looked Great!

Now, this apparatus-torture-thingy caused my front two teeth to move apart from each other. Are you getting it folks?

A really sweet fellow from school nicknamed me “5 Quarters”. Naturally, because you could fit 5 quarters between my 2 front teeth.

Love me some middle school.

True Story: I drew the line at jaw surgery.

When I had my wisdom teeth out and was passed out on gas/general anesthesia, the surgeon called my mom back to the operating room to point and laugh at me I guess, and showed her how when totally relaxed, and he put my jaw together, it was still all jacked up.

I woke up in restraints with them telling me they were going to wire my jaw shut for 6 months. I ran screaming! I was about to be a freshman in college. How was I going to go to keggers?

True Story:  That’s the way I remember it.