One time I was at a work buddies place after a party when things were cooling off.

The poor guy was born with spinal bifida, so had ‘seen more operations than you’ve had hot dinners’, sort of thing… He showed me the scars up his back which was from multiple attempts to improve his spinal alignment as he grew, and it was like a whole lot of ladders, cris-crossing up either side of his vertebrae. It was at that point I got really queasy, which may have been brewing for a while?

So he handed me this big glass vase in case I threw and we waited by the bench for a few minutes. I remember tucking it under my chin and holding it in my hand and looking at the floor…

I came to on the floor, surrounded by broken glass with a cut across the bone between my left eye and temple. He saw me when I fainted, falling and had the presence of mind to grab my hand as I fell, so I twisted and dropped it sideways. I still don’t know if that line occurred to him afterwards or not.

I spent the next week or pretending to myself I’d been in a knife fight or something equally lame, but it was all rather fortunate, really (being a 20y/o douchebag and all).

I still wonder how that dudes doing, he was neat…