Stitches

  When I was a kid, I had a large mole on my upper thigh.  The thing was about the size of a dime, and it had a bump on top of it.  It wasn't really sore to the touch, but it was somewhat worrisome to my parents.  At first, they thought it was a birthmark, but the thing grew a little over time.  They decided that I needed to have surgery to have it removed.  It could be cancerous.  The surgery was pretty painful, but the tests showed it was benign.  I got stitches and was told to be careful.

 Of course, the word "careful" is not in a kid's vocabulary, especially in the summertime.  You hear it all the time from your parents.  But, a kid wants to have fun.  Whether one is careful or not.  

 The stitches hurt when I walked.  The sharp edge of one end would stab me in my thigh.  Thankfully, they told me that they wouldn't be in me for very long.  Maybe a couple of weeks.  I could deal with that.  Some friends asked if I wanted to go to the roller-skating rink, which was about a mile from my house.  I asked my mother, and she said I could go, but I would have to be careful.  I could watch others skate, but I couldn't skate myself.  After all, she wanted me to be careful.

 When we got to the rink, I sat down to watch the others skate.  My friends didn't know about my recent operation.  They saw me just watching them and asked me to come out on the floor and skate with them.  I had skated before.  I had a problem in stopping.  I knew that you were supposed to point your toe toward the floor to let that rubber thing slow you down, but that was just hard for me.  Thanks to peer pressure, I started skating slowly.  I was being careful.  I felt the stitches rubbing against my thigh, so I decided to quit.  Trying to stop, I saw a metal pole near the side of the rink and tried to grab hold of it.  The pole hit my stitches, and they broke.

 I started feeling blood on my leg.  I knew I was in trouble.  I left and got back home.  My mother saw the blood on my pants and then saw my underwear soaked in blood.  She gave me a chewing out about not being careful, and then my parents took me to the hospital to get stitched up again.  Another two weeks with stitches.  I didn't go anywhere until the stitches came out.  I have a small scar from that surgery, which my parents hoped would remind me of being careful.  It never did,