This is a recent story, happening not long after I married Natalie. There are two angles to this story: what actually happened, and what people (with very little prompting and too much imagination) guessed had happened. I will start with the ending and work my way back.

The ending is that one day, Natalie and I walked into church, and I wore a nice scab on my forehead. Of course, people wanted to know what I had done to achieve this.

“Carpet burn,” I said, and then watched with amusement as the various cogs turned and the people reached their conclusion.

“I don’t want to know any more!” was a common answer. But I told them anyway…

Natalie and I were in bed (insert extra protests from audience here) when I, in a cheeky mood, decided to scratch Natalie on the knee with my two-day growth. This, I discovered, was very fun and Natalie may have even found it fun too – I’m not sure. It was an interesting challenge that involved much thrashing around as I tried to keep my chin in contact with her knee, and she tried to prevent the same.

Eventually Natalie jumped out of bed in her desire to escape. I, in stupid blind enthusiasm, followed. Totally failing to keep in mind gravity and momentum, I ended my descent to Natalie’s level with a crash-landing on the carpet. I’m not sure where my hands were, but it was my forehead that took the impact. Hence, carpet burn right on my forehead for all to see.

And that is the story. I must also mention: the guys at work spent a lot of time theorising over the method of my injury, supplemented with diagrams on the white-board. I never did tell them.