Christopher Moore is hilarious. I had this book on my iPod during the first tax season that I worked. I'd just started at the company and didn't want to look ridiculous, but I was having the hardest time not continually laughing out loud at my desk. Since that book, I've also read Bloodsucking Fiends, Lamb, Fluke, and You Suck by the same author. A Dirty Job is by far and away my favorite, though. The story and concept are clever and it's impossible not to laugh.

So, some years ago, I tore a ligament in my knee in a tragic jumping on the bed accident. However, as much as I’m sure you’d all love to hear about my secret shame, that is not what this post is about.

Shortly after my 21st birthday, I was just recently out of the ankle-to-thigh knee immobilizer - not that I had any sort of clearance to not be wearing it anymore, but have YOU ever worn one of those things? I ended up back in it twice over the ensuing years and cried every time they told me I’d have to wear it. It’s seriously so agonizingly difficult to do ANYTHING that - wait, what?

Oh right. So I’d recently started walking without the gigantic blue brace and I was doing all right with it. I was living in my college apartment (ground floor, thank Pete) and it was winter break, I believe. My roommate was in her bedroom hiding, as a mouse had moved in to the apartment while we were home for Christmas and while neither of us was particularly scared of the mouse (ok, I was), she didn’t want to be around when it finally got caught in a trap (which it did, and it was gross).

So I’m sitting in the living room and decide I’m going to make myself some lunch. It was winter and my roommate liked to keep the apartment at approximately hell degrees, so I was wearing shorts and one of those Old Navy tank tops with the built in shelf bra that was really doing its valiant best to keep everything where it belonged.

I got up from the couch where I was probably watching a Law & Order marathon and cooked myself a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner - chicken and rice, my particular favorite. When it was done cooking, I went back to the couch - we never ate at the table, usually just on the couch in front of the TV. There was a low coffee table right in front of the couch, but it wasn’t at a good angle for eating, I’m a pro at spilling food all over myself, but the dish itself was way too hot to hold. So I grabbed the couch cushion next to me, the one I wasn’t sitting on, and put it across my lap. There. Lap insulated, and food close enough to minimize the time it has to spill all over everything on its path from plate to my mouth.

So, tra la la, I’m watching Law and Order, waiting for the food to cool just a little bit before I ate it, when all of a sudden, my injured knee decided to choose that moment to have a huge spasm/jerk. It did that a lot, and actually continues to today, which is really so not funny at all when I’m driving. But anyway, so my right leg jerks really hard and upends the entire couch cushion, my lunch included.

And dumps almost the entire thing right down the front of my tank top, where it is conveniently captured by that previously near-useless shelf bra.

So I jumped off the couch, shrieking, digging my hands into the front of my shirt, burning my fingers and flinging chicken and rice ALL OVER the apartment. I did the first thing I could think of, ran to the sink, grabbed the hose and started shooting cold water down the front of my shirt, soaking the entire kitchen.

About 10 minutes later (apparently not urgently disturbed by the screaming at all), my roommate came out of her room and saw the mess, and me laying on the floor in the middle of it all and said, “DID YOU SEE THE MOUSE?!!?”

Anyway. I ended up with a second degree burn in my cleavage. And that’s how I got that scar that you’ll never see.

The end.