Not that we're vain and caught up on looks (shut up) here at Buff Boy, but we do enjoy an embarrassing story when it makes a teammate look bad -- physically look bad.
Who's our victim this time? Drew. Oh, Drewsy.
As a pre-teen, Drew was fuelled by a boundless curiosity: why does this do this, why does that do that, what happens if...? It typically played out when some new object or device was introduced in the house. Enter: suction cups.
It happened when the family was decorating the house for Christmas. Lights and decorations were being strung in the windows. Assisting in the holiday magic were little rubber suction cups with plastic hooks to hang objects. Fascinated that a little moisture made them stick to window glass, nine-year-old Drew wondered what else suction cups could attach to.
A table? Check. A wall? Check. A floor? Check. A chair? Not really. A shoe? Not so much. Skin? Not exactly. Tighter skin, say, like, on a forehead? Oh, check-check-check!
Upon discovery, the next experiment was to see how long a suction cup could stick to a forehead. (What could possibly go wrong? Do you see where this is going?)
It started innocently enough: just a quick test to find out. It quickly devolved into a competition against... well, nobody and nothing. Could he outdo his previous time... or something?
The cup could stick for 30 seconds, no problem. A minute, easily. Two minutes, yup. But, how long? What could be Drew's record? He aimed for five minutes.
An early fan of moist suction (oh dear) with rubber (double dear), Drew pressed that innocent-looking piece of rubber against his forehead, and a bond, both physical and perhaps slightly psychological, was formed.
Time, as they say, flies when you're having fun, or when you're stubbornly trying to prove a point about the holding power of a dollar-store suction cup. (Prove to who, exactly? Dunno.)
Drew, lost in the thrill of the experiment, neglected to check the clock. He probably imagined himself as some kind of adhesive superhero, battling the forces of gravity with his mighty forehead suction.
Alas, even superheroes have their limits. Eventually, Drew decided to remove the cup, undoubtedly expecting a triumphant reveal of his suction prowess after what turned out to be over 20 minutes. What he found, however, according to the laughs of his siblings, was far less glorious. Instead of a badge of honor, he bore a large, angry, purple circle right in the middle of his forehead. A mark so profound, so… perfectly round, that it could only be described as a forehead hickey from the depths of playtime hell.
So, you're probably thinking, Surely, it faded quickly. Oh, dear, Buff buddy, if only life were so kind.
This wasn't some fleeting blush of embarrassment. This was a full-blown, committed bruise. A testament to youthful folly and a suction cup's unwavering grip. It was, as one particularly observant colleague put it, "a perfect circle of regret."
Drew, of course, was mortified. He attempted various methods of camouflage. He tried strategic bangs, which only served to draw more attention to the peculiar bump on his forehead. He considered wearing a sweatband, but feared looking like he was about to drop the hottest mixtape of 1987. He even briefly contemplated dipping into his mom's makeup and coating his forehead.
Imagine him, our diligent, coffee-refilling Drew, facing the world with this purplish proclamation of youthful indiscretion emblazoned upon his brow. He bravely endured the stares, the whispers, and the stifled giggles. He answered the inevitable, "What happened to your forehead?" -- all with a mixture of nervous laughter and thinly veiled threats.
The bruise, thankfully, did eventually fade after two days. But the legend of Drew's forehead fiasco lives on. It's a story told any time someone develops a slight bruise... or loudly shared for an embarrassing throwback laugh.