When I was 10, I lived in a house that had a small backyard that was bordered by a small drainage ditch. On the other side of the ditch was a field that our landlord used for corn, soybeans, and winter wheat on rotation. Beyond the field was woods.

I went out and played in the woods. One day, I got stuck in what was the mud equivalent of quicksand in between the woods and the field, where runoff water had turned the ground into a weird slurry.

I was stuck thigh-deep. It sucked one of my shoes off and I panicked because it was my play shoes which were last year's school shoes and the only others I had were my church shoes and my mom would be furious. Much rooting around, I found the shoe.

I'm now covered in beige-gray mud from basically my my armpits down, plus my arms and some of my hair.

I made it out of the quickmud and hightailed it through the corn to the ditch I had jumped a hundred times before. This time, I jumped, landed wrong (probably because my fake Keds were coated in mud), and fell. On a pile of those cages you put around tomato plants.

One spike entered my left shin about an inch and a half. It really didn't bleed much. And it hurt, but no broken bones and I wasn't throwing up, so nothing to report, right? And my mud covered state was a problem.

So I used the hose pipe to wash off the mud. And I went in, took a shower, threw some mercurachrome and Neosporin and a bandaid on my leg, put my clothes in the washer and they were on the line when Mom got home from work, and my fake Keds were on the back steps drying.

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Four days later, I've got a noticable limp, a fever, swelling, and red lines extending out from the puncture. Tetanus shot and I think a round of antibiotics followed. My leg still has puncture scar that feels oddly empty, it's like a purple divot.

All because I didn't want to tell Mom I got my shoes super coated in mud.