When I was a child my mom explained menstruation to me by saying her body was building a nest in her tummy to receive a baby. Since no baby turned up, the nest would come undone every month.

It was a fair explanation but she had no idea I would imagine a bird's nest made of twigs. I thought the branches were scratching the woman's insides as the nest was collapsing and that was what was causing bleeding.

My mom was mortified when, after a couple of months of fear and pondering I asked "But doesn't it hurt?" and she understood that I had taken the word "nest" a bit too literally.

Flatty attempts to get flat.

I had this brilliant idea as a child from watching cartoons. I thought that if I was smashed between too hard objects, I would be flat. So, I convinced my two younger siblings to push the bedroom door against the wall as hard as they could while I was between the door and the wall. When this did not flatten me, I had them put the plywood sandbox cover on top of me then jump up and down. All that was flattened was my poor, broken nose. I know my mom called me stupid more than once on that trip to the emergency room.

Holly from Oklahoma submits this tasty bike accident story.

When I was in the fourth grade I went head over handlebars on my bike while taking a pretty fast turn around a corner on a wet street. After being forced into going to the minor emergency by my parents I was told that I would need stitches in my chin.

The doctor who was given the horrible task of taking a needle to my face was trying to lighten the mood to make me stop shaking by making lame jokes. However, as my mother will openly admit, I never was a funny child. His first response to seeing my chin after my hand was pried away from my face was that it looked like hamburger. It took me years (I'm talking eight or nine) to realize that he meant ground beef, and not the hamburger with cheese and lettuce and tomato like my mental image was at the time.

Sam tells us about how he learned about gravity.

When I was five, I watched other, older children sliding down a railing outside of our apartment building. I remember thinking how fun it looked.

After the other kids left, I ran outside and hoisted myself upon the railing. There I sat, not moving an inch. I began pumping my legs and tush to get going, which caused me to lose my balance. I flipped upside down, fell and landed square on my head. What followed was a lot of blood on the pavement, bawling, my mother's terrified screams, and a trip to the ER to get stitches.

The older kids had been sliding down the stairwell railing. I had no concept of gravity, and had chosen a dead level section of the rail to slide on.

Before my inevitable fall, I must have looked like I was humping the damn thing.

Adrian tells the following tale of science gone awry;

I don't know why, but when I was a kid of five or six years old I wanted to find how a burn feels. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a fork, put it on the stove and then on my face.

I now know that mixing hot metal and skin is not a good idea.

Yes I was quite flighty as a youngster. This story takes place again in the 80's. Ahh the memories. Well tanning was new and quite big. I found myself a tanning machine that basically looked like a spot light of sorts, at a garage sale for 50 bucks. Great deal!

I took it home, undressed and sat in front of this thing, and sat and sat. I kept checking myself and I just was not tanning. after two hours I put my face right up against it for a good half hour. Still no tan. I finally gave up and went to nap. I was awaken from my nap in excruciating pain. I could not open my eyes. Something was terribly wrong. I called for my friend who ran into my room and said "Umm. We need to get you to the emergency room. You are redder then a tomato and your eyes look like those of a frog!"

After spending two days in the hospital where they had to surgically cut my jeans off of my because they were sticking to my skin and the second degree burns, I realized tanning is not my thing!

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