canonicity: scars.

Most people I know have scars. Who hasn't gotten a little overzealous while opening a package with a knife that is clearly too big and sharp for the job? Or burnt themselves on something coming out of the oven that they really shouldn't have been touching? It's happened to the best of us. I should know, because I'm the best of us.

What's a little harder to find than scars are cool scar stories. Nobody wants to hear about you jumping a fence when you were younger and cutting your leg. That's a boring story. Really, I yawned just writing that. Where's the action? Intrigue? Romance? How can James Cameron turn that into a movie?

I've got some pretty awesome scar stories.

First off, let me introduce you to the scar. The camera on my phone is pretty bad, so here's an illustrated representation:

I'd say this picture is like, 99% accurate, so you're not missing anything by not seeing it first-hand.

Now, let me take you back to 1993. I was eleven years old, and ninjas were everywhere. You couldn't turn around without seeing a ninja somewhere, which I guess makes them crappy ninjas, but whatever. Surf Ninjas had just been released that year, 3 Ninjas and Sidekicks the year before that, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the year before that. Children everywhere harbored dreams of being taken under the wing of an unassuming Japanese janitor and trained in the ways of ninjitsu. Everyone was wearing those black ninja pajamas that Wikipedia tells me are called shinobi shōzoku and jumping from rooftop to rooftop in the middle of the night. Kids would practice their roundhouse kicks and ninja flips during recess, and a popular prank became placing caltrops on the seats of teachers when they weren't looking, and then laughing ominously and vanishing in a puff of smoke when the unfortunate teacher sat down. Ninja Fever, for better or worse, had taken hold of America.

I was doing a little training at the town's local Karate dojo myself. Being the oldest kid in the children's white belt class by a few years was hard for my ego, but I trained hard and persevered, until I was finally ready to obtain my yellow belt. It was the night before I was to go in and perform my yellow belt form in front of a panel of ninja judges. I had just finished some super-intense training and was getting ready for bed when I heard a loud crash. Utilizing my highly attuned ninja senses, I worked out that the crash had emanated from my little brother's room. I pulled out the nunchaku that I usually had tucked into my pants and kicked down the door to my brother's room, completely ready to fight a squad of ninja assassins.

Going on sound alone until my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I sensed that the room was empty. After a minute, I glanced around the room, seeing that the window was broken and my brother was missing. There was a throwing star stuck to the wall, and attached to that was a note, scrawled in Japanese kanji. Pensively, I grabbed the note and read it. A mega-serious look crossed my face as I looked up to where I assumed a camera would be had this been a movie.

A rival ninja clan had taken my brother hostage.

I really didn't even know that we had a rival ninja clan up until that point. I mean, I was eleven and I lived in a small suburban town in Michigan. That doesn't even really make sense. But that's what the note said, and after reading it, I knew I wouldn't be getting any sleep that night. Shit was about to get real.

I knew that time was a huge factor, so I immediately started getting ready to go out and rescue him. I spent probably about 45 minutes or so flipping through my parents' tapes, looking for the perfect song to get me pumped up and ready to kick some ass. I finally settled on "You're The Best Around" by Joe Esposito, and took to making my preparations. I took my shirt off and greased up my pecs and abs, thinking that would intimidate the other ninjas. I sharpened my katana, loaded my belt with ninja stars and various magic potions, and put a knife in a holster around my ankle. I was about as ready as I was going to be.

Walking to the front door of my house, the weight and seriousness of the situation hit me all at once. Things were about to get really dangerous. Shouldn't I call the police? Isn't that what people do when their loved ones get kidnapped? They don't get decked out like Michael Dudikoff and go out looking for revenge, especially not if they're eleven years old and only a white belt in karate. I'll be honest, I was scared. More scared than I had ever been in my entire life. But I had to push all of those feelings aside to do what was right. They wanted me, and they would kill him if the police showed up in my stead. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I took to the streets with a renewed sense of purpose...

...only, I don't know how I did it, I must have caught my hand at a weird angle on the screen door or something, but I felt a slight sting on my wrist and looked down to see a small trickle of blood. It wasn't too bad, looking back on it now, but to an eleven year old, it was a mortal wound. I cried and ran inside, waking my parents up to help me put a band-aid and some Neosporin on it.

I think we ended up calling the police anyway, and they totally didn't kill my brother or anything. That was just some childish melodramatic thinking. So yeah, he was fine, but my wrist... oh, my wrist.

That's a scar that never healed.