I’m not clumsy.

Even though I am pretty clumsy, I have never broken a bone. (Not that I haven’t tried.) When I was in fourth grade, I was at recess and was playing this game called “Run and slip on the ice”.  (I lived in South Dakota, where ice slipping is considered a sport.) and fell and hurt my wrist. Then a few days later I was waiting for my parents outside and decided to fall on the same wrist and sprained it.

I got to write with my left hand for a while, which was a pain in the wrist, and got to answer the stupid questions from everyone about what I did to my wrist. But I never gained any superpowers.

The other day though, I was having a bitter day as usual. I was angry about this guy, bitter about this girl and just in need of food to be bitter about, so I went to the kitchen. I reached into the fridge to get my lunch. I had to go all way in there, because my lunch got pushed behind everyone else’s. I had to push all theirs out of the way, onto the ground. When I was done punishing everyone else’s lunch, I quickly jerked my head up, and smacked it on the metal edge of the door.

Seeing stars.

All of a sudden, I was seeing stars over my head, just like in the cartoons. I got dizzy, reached for my head with my hand, and looked around for a second to see who was laughing at me. No one was around, so I screamed silently in pain for a second.

Everything seemed normal, so I went back to work.  As I was walking back, I smiled at a few people, said hi, then got back to my desk. I looked at my email, and saw there was like 19 messages. I got to work answering them, and even though I had like three angry ones, I didn’t get frustrated. I took a deep breath answered them calmly and sincerely, and moved on with my day.

My department is known as the drama department throughout the company. With all these creative people, in a company that is filled with mostly analytical people, we have our rifts about projects, etc. There were several arguments going back and forth through the departments, and I usually contribute to them, but today, I just ignored the drama, and did my job.

By the end of the day, I felt very satisfied with my work, and went home. The commute was terrible as usual, but I just dealt with it. I got home and my kids were both bothering me, one completely ignored me, and couldn’t hear what I said because she had her headphones on, and the other kept wanting to spend quality time with me.

I just laughed it off though. Silly kids, I thought.

Silly kids, they aren’t so bad.

Then I went to bed. The next morning I woke up at 5 am as usual. I was bitter and angry and upset that once again, I had to wake up so early and work again. Finally that head injury wore off and I am back to my normal self, I thought.

Have you guys ever had a head injury that caused you to act differently?

ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

Bitter Head Injury Ben