I have a mark on my face.  Pretty much right smack in the middle of my chin.  It looks like this:

At least that's what it used to look like to me.

And so, because people are alternately worried about me or  completely invasive into my personal space, I have gotten a number of questions regarding how I came to get my face torn up.  I mean, it looks tough.  I look tough.  Unfortunately, the true origin story of this battle wound is that it is a stress sore.  Please remember I'm not a medical doctor when I tell you that as best I understand it, every once in awhile when I'm stressed, a patch of my skin starts excreting a clear viscous juice.  Sexy, I know.  And the first day the skin looks totally normal and it just juices and juices like some constantly pus-filled zit.  By the time I go to bed, usually I can see the faint outline of where I will be marked the next day.
Without fail, when I get up and look in the mirror there is a new ripped-up patch of me, like a crimson letter burning up my face-hole.  Back in high school when I got these things I used to make up plausible excuses for the blights.  "I was kicking a soccer ball against the wall and it came back and hit me."  "I knocked my cheek on a door frame when I wasn't paying attention."  All of my concocted reasons were just self-depricaitng enough not to draw suspicion of deception.  I wasn't cool enough in my high school to survive further decreases in peer support.  Only the strong survive and whatnot.

Nowadays, I could give a shit.  I'm not about to waste the energy making up a story when I can semi-shame people for asking such a personal question of a stranger.  "It's a stress sore," I tell them with eye contact, "they pop up on my face when I've been stressed out."  *Continue holding their eye contact*

Then they have to figure out something to say in response.  That's my favorite part.

Today a good friend inquired about my chin, and for whatever reason I decided to go full on lie storm. Here's it is, with vast amounts of apologies to my wife.  Remember, it's made up.

"Oh man . . . so last night I was just like . . . I NEED to go downtown on my wife.  I NEED to!  And so into the bedroom I went, only one thing on my mind.  It was only while beginning the act that I realized that I hadn't shaved in a few days . . . and neither had she.  The effect was like extra-strength velcro, my chin stuck just above her happy place.  But I NEEDED this shit to happen.  And so I persisted, and in my second surge I went and ripped that chin skin right off.  Son of a bitch! Am I right?" 

He laughed really hard.  So did the girl sitting across from me.

"Shit," I lamented, "Now I have to write about it."