Update: Norm Macdonald, My Brother, and My Broken Face

I previously told you a story about what happened when my middle brother and I were watching a Norm Macdonald weekend update episode in November 1997. My dad and my 7 (!) year-old youngest brother walked in the room just as Norm was making a wildly transgressive joke about Mary Kay Letourneau, the kind of joke Norm Macdonald specialized in and that made you squirm.

An Update From The Brother in Question:

Well, my brother (now a grown man and father of 4 little kids) just texted me to say he didn’t remember the incident at all—he said he was probably just saying something he knew would get a rise out of his older brothers. It makes me laugh now, but at the time I was MORTIFIED when it happened—right in front of my dad!—and am so glad to hear we didn’t mess up the little fella too much (at least that time). I guess the lesson is to be careful about what media the little ones in your house have access to! As my mom likes to say, “Little pitchers have big ears.”

Broken Face Story

Some of you have asked about the mention in the postscript about me breaking my face. (Others of you have heard the story previously.)

Here’s what happened:

The week after the incident above, I was playing soccer with a travel team when a boy from the other team came up behind me while I was on the ground and punched me with his full weight behind his fist—he hit me under my right eye socket. I didn’t see what happened but thought that someone had kicked me in the head. It really hurt. (I didn’t do anything to provoke it; it was an ill-tempered game and I just happened to be in the middle of it.)

So, my nose was broken and bleeding and I had a superficial cut under my eye, but it didn’t seem that serious. My mom was there and said, “We need to stitch that up.” So, I went to the hospital, but when there, they found my entire eye orbital was crushed like an eggshell, and I had to have immediate surgery. I woke up next day with a titanium mesh plate under the skin on the right side of my face.

After the surgery, I looked like a zombie—my face was green with bruises and my eye was swollen shut for the next week. Everyone at church and all the girls at school gave me lots of attention!

If you’ve ever thought about me, “No one looks that good naturally”, you are right—I had a lot of work done 24 years ago.

In the dental X-ray above you can see part of the 3D titanium mesh insert that’s holding up my eye.

You never know what the future holds, right?