This sprain couldn't have come at a worse time. I have no understudy in this show, and they needed me to do the Monks shows because of the sketches we are running. I had to do all of the shows this week, even when I was hopping onto the stage.

Have you ever injured yourself at a time where it was the least opportune time? I had tonsilitis on opening night of a show once. I've heard of people performing through stomach flu. Another time I had a migrane headache. Once I got an asthma attack onstage.

Ever break your ring finger on the eve of your wedding? Sprain your ankle before a dance competition? Get a zit before your senior pictures?

What does your body do to ruin your important events?

-- Anonymous, September 13, 1999

Answers

Two days before my senior pictures I had just come home from coaching special Olympics and I was napping on my mothers couch (S.O. is alot of fun but sooo draining.) I woke up around 9:30 at night and reached up to turn on the my mothers METAL sewing lamp when it came crashing down on my forehead. It hurt quite a bit so I decided to get ice for my head and since we had none I went next door to our nieghbours house to get some when she starts freaking out about the blood running down my face (I had not even noticed that). Well she called my mother at work saying that I needed to go to the hospital blah blah blah. Needless to say I ended up with 5 stiches in the middle of my forehead and a rescheduled photo shoot. But when I did get the photos they did come out very nice.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 1999

This one might be a little outside the scope of the question, because it wasn't anything athletic and it was deliberately self-inflicted. Also, my body gave me a mysterious reprieve.

In my stupid college years I pretty much did anything anyone ever dared me to do. One day in the cafeteria someone dared me to snort Tobasco sauce. So I filled the lid, put it up to my nostril, rocked my head back, and snorted. Every mucus membrane in my head instantly caught fire, and in an effort to salve the pain, I grabbed the first cool liquid within reach, which turned out to be a Coke. Best Coke I ever snorted.

The assault to my sinuses induced cold symptoms -- runny nose, fever, and a voice about a fifth lower than usual. I had it for an entire week, and was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to sing for the upcoming recording session my band had scheduled. But the day of the recording, my voice was fine. The day after that, it dropped again and stayed that way for another week.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 1999

In a show, once...And it was hell on sets and stuff. We had to do all the moving of, well, everything ourselves. Anyhow. Opening night, act one, moving a desk with a pencil and a few books on it. In costume. (Which was really just lots of makeup, a skirt, blouse, and socks. The socks are important.) Started to move the table in the dark. The pencil fell off and go stuck in my sock. Then one of the books fell onto the pencil, effectivly sending the tip of it plunging into my skin and then snapping off the rest of the pencil. (Except, of course, for the first half inch of it, which was embedded in my ankle.) Finished the act with a LOT of bandaids and blood, then performed minor surgery on myself with a pocket knife to get it out. (ouch.) Figured okay, two more acts, and then I'm gone. Whatever. Act two. Moving a bed. (There were only about ten people in the cast, so we were all moving everything. Due to the fact that I was one of the stronger people, I got to move all the heavy stuff.) The bed is near the edge of the stage. Picked up my side of the bed. (The side CLOSER to the edge, I should point out.) Started to move. And walked over the side of the stage, practically falling, but instead, coming down at a very uncomfortable angle on the ankle that was, by this point, about to bleed all over the stage from the damn pencil. Okay. Fine. Go off stage trying not to cry. Wrap ankle in an ace wrap. Thank the costume gods for deciding that I got to wear socks. This was one of those plays that just shouldn't have been allowed to happen because EVERYTHING went wrong. But that's another story.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 1999

Oh, my. Last week I was shooting a t.v. movie, wardrobe gave me a sweat-suit type of thing to wear, then our hair and makeup was done.Well once we started shooting, it was in this very small, very hot, hell hole of a room. So being in a sweat-suit I naturally started to sweat(gallons)This was not good because I was in all of the closeup shots. And the makeup they had put on me was making me break out horribly, and since it was so hot and humid, my long curly hair went absolutley NUTS. So they kept having to stop filming just to fix my hair and makeup. At one point the makeup lady came over, looked at me and said,"I give up!" in front of everbody.Very embarrasing!

-- Anonymous, September 13, 1999

Halfway through a Kenyan safari, I climbed a wooden fence to get a photograph of some hippoes. Fell off the fence and sliced my calf open, deeply, on a VERY RUSTY nail. We had no bandages or disinfectant (bad planning!) and none were available at the lodge we were staying at. Ended up cleaning it as well as possible with the Kenyan tapwater and trying not to think about lockjaw... I had not had a tetanus shot since I was nine years old. Turned out fine, but could have been the worst-timed injury EVER.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 1999

Let's not talk about getting zits right before auditions, okay. I just had a talk with the directors of an independant film I'm in about my skin. They said they'd pay for me to go to a dermatologist and get a chemical peel. Okay, so it's not perfect, but it's not THAT bad. It's cleared up alot, as one of my fellow troupe members tactfully imformed me. A chemical peel? Do I look like Michael Jackson to you? Besides, I've got an appointment with a dermatologist in 2 weeks (I made it in August, after waiting a month to get a referral from my "primary care physician") because I am aware of the problem. Anyway, the worst part was that they made me stay after rehearsals to give me the speech. I felt like a bad student- "Yes sir, sorry about the blemishes. I'll try and do better" Oh, and the last night that I was a student in college I got drunk and jumped off of a haystack, straining my ankle. It was swollen and it wouldn't move, so I went to the university health center the next day, only to find out that since I wasn't technically a student I had to go to a regular Dr. with no insurance.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 1999

I'm warning you, this is gross.

Seriously.

OK, I warned you. When I was a freshman in high school, I was the lead flutist in the school band. It was about a week before state concert band finals, and I had a bunch of solos and stuff. Well, that week it was rainy, and I had a broken umbrella.

The damn thing refused to collapse, and I always had trouble with it, and it was really really frustrating. So on this particular day, one week before state finals, I picked up the umbrella by the top and SLAMMED it down on the concrete floor, to get it to close.

Unfortunately, I slammed it so hard that one of the spokes broke free and rammed up into my hand. Yes, I stabbed through my right hand with an umbrella spoke.

Luckily, the injury had healed enough by the next weekend that I was able to play my flute, but man, it was really scary and gross and embarrassing, to boot. (I mean, who stabs themself with their umbrella?)

-- Anonymous, September 14, 1999

ouch. umbrella spokes? my badly timed injury happened my senior year in high school, when, as a cross country captain, i tripped and hurt my knee the day before our first meet. ooops. i ran in the race, placed badly, found out a week later i had to have half of my meniscus removed and i was going to be out for the entire season. that really sucked.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 1999

After my freshman year of college I spent a summer in France. Knowing that the beaches there are all topless, I thought I'd be prepared by pre-bronzing my breasts so I wouldn't look like I had headlights. (Hey, maybe that way people wouldn't know I was American.) So I spent an afternoon in late May lounging topless by my parents' pool.

My breasts had not previously seen the light of day and were burned Enchilada Chili Pepper Red. I could wear NOTHING over them for an entire day, and then only a very old, very soft T-shirt for three days afterward. They blistered horribly, then peeled quite dramatically like...birch bark. By the time I hit the beaches in Nice they had healed to a leprous, splotchy patchwork of pink and white. Yeah, nice. Bet nobody knew I was an American....

-- Anonymous, September 14, 1999

In baseball (sports in general), there is no such thing as a timely injury, unfortunately. I got appendicitus right before starting Indian league (the one following Little League). I missed the whole season.

I fractured my pinky finger just before starting a data entry job once. That was wonderful.

I once had to work 12 hours at Wal-mart with a raging fever and the flu the night before inventory. No one could go home that day.

-- Anonymous, September 15, 1999

I just remembered this today. In college I worked as a bagel baker for a short while. This meant I had to be there at 4:30am. Unfortunately this was my first year of college, so I was out drinking every night until at least 2. Needless to say I was a great friend of naps.

Anyway, one night I came back to the dorm ready to pass out and found a guy from down the hall sitting in my room. He had been drinking too, and just wanted to hang out. I didn't, so I threw him out of my room. As I started to close the door he got his body in the way. I then began to slam the door on him, and it was a pretty heavy door. When he moved, the door slammed shut, but with my hand still curled around it.

Warning: the next part is kind of gross

I had evidently hit it hard enough to split the skin. Blood had shot across the hall and hit the wall, causing all of my dorm-mates to think I had chopped off my finger. In reality, it was just a deep cut, but I had passed out without doing anything to it other than wrapping it in a paper towel. I woke up with blood all over my sheets and myself, but was able to get it together for work and put a bandaid over the cut.

I forgot about the salt. See, we would put salt on some of the bagels. We also put garlic bits, sesame, poppy seeds, onion-- but I think it was the salt that hurt the worst.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 1999