The Strange Case of the Dented Forehead

So, over the holidays, I'm sitting with my wife's family in Oklahoma. Around the dinner table where all the best conversations take place.

This wasn't one of them...

We're talking about our various scars and childhood mishaps.

My wife asks where I got the scar on my forehead.

"What?" I protest. "I don't have a scar on my forehead!"

"Yes, you do," she insists.

Everyone's now studying my forehead as I bubble into a red ball of scrutiny. "Um, no I don't. Man, it sure is cold outside, isn't--"

"Then what caused that dent in your forehead?"

Again all eyes turn to me. "Oh for... I don't have a dent in my forehead!"

"It's there...right in the middle." She taps her forehead. The ball has been lobbed back to me. As in a tennis match, the rest of the family members swing their heads back and forth, anticipating the outcome. Probably won't be a score of "love."

"No it's not! I don't have a--"

"Then why is your forehead dented? I thought you told me you had a childhood accident."

Flustered, I start babbling. "Okay, I did have a couple childhood accidents. One on my knee, another on my chin. But I don't have a dented forehead. I don't have, nor have I ever had a scar on my forehead. And there wasn't some traumatic childhood accident that my parents covered up in a conspiracy to keep me from turning into a serial killer or anything like--"

"There it is!" My wife leans across the table, squinting now. "If you didn't have an accident, what's that dent from?"

"I don't know," I scream, hands up. "Intensity, I guess!"

And I think it's dinners like this that put the dent in my forehead (which I still don't believe I have). 

For even more intensity (the non-denting kind, natch), check out my suspense thriller, Dread and Breakfast.