Of scars honorably won

This morning, Paul (age seven) managed to get a cut on his chin. The bleeding stopped quickly, and we were late getting out to the bus, so I sent him off without too much investigation.

Mary, a nurse, would never do that. She would have to do an assessment on the injury, treat it with peroxide, and maybe bandage it. I would have stuck a band-aid on it if I knew where they were. The kids like to play with them. If we have any at all, it's because Mary has hidden them.

But we didn't have time to do a search. We have to walk a quarter of a mile to the bus stop. If we walk out of the house at 7:30, we have to hustle.

So, maybe ten minutes after Mary came back from work (she works the night shift at Mercy Hospital), we got a call. It sounded like she was talking to someone we know well. She said that she would be over in ten minutes.

The long and the short of it is that Paul has quite a gash in his chin. They said it would be OK, but we might want to get it stitched to avoid scarring. So off she went, without even spending quality time with her horse.

Of course, boys see scars differently from girls. To a girl, a scar is an imperfection -- something to be avoided, or at least covered up with half an inch of make-up.

Boys, on the other hand, get to say things like "You should have seen the other guy!" They can tell stories of how they fought off a dozen armed bandits with only his trust scout knife and a stick that he picked up. A visible scar can be a conversation starter. It can be used to meet girls.

He doesn't need to mention that he got it by falling and hitting his face on the toilet while getting out of the bath tub.