I used to have one in my knee. No recollection of exactly how it got there, and haven’t been able to see it for a while now.
Yep, and I got mine about 30 years ago. I was climbing to the top of a vertical fuel tank (a 30 foot tall tower) because I need to measure how much fuel was in there. I had a pencil in my front pocket and somehow jabbed myself in the forearm.
I have one little graphite dot on my left pointer finger, sort of offset from the tip. I got it in 9th grade when I was trying to un-jam a mechanical pencil.
7th grade. I had just sharpened the pencil, and was returning to my seat. As I slid into the desk, the eraser end caught the underside of the desk, and the angle was absolutely perfect (it was a one-in-a-million shot) to penetrate my lower thigh/knee area. It went in pretty deep, and the pencil had a lot of graphite powder on it from being freshly sharpened, so 16 years later, the mark is still pretty clear.
My right knee. Got it kneeling on a pencil in my older brother’s room. I’m guessing I was around 8 or 9. Broke the entire tip off in there, which my mother dug out with tweezers. Twenty years later I still have a little dark grey mark there. It’s definitely faded over the years so maybe someday it’ll be gone.
Right knee here. I was about 10 (circa 1969) when I stuck myself in the knee accidentally with my pencil. It’s still visible today.
I have one in the exact same place, only it’s on my left hand instead of my right! (Or maybe close to the same place – palmar surface or dorsal?)
How did you come by yours? Me, it was maybe seven or eight years ago. I had a Pringles can (sadly empty) and a freshly sharpened pencil. I was bored. I decided it would be good fun to hold the can and try to stab it with the pencil. I missed. :o
I had one in the middle of my thigh for years and years, but I can’t see it any more.
This is an impressive roll call.
Mine is right palm one centimeter north west of dead center.
Seventh grade and had a freshly sharpened pencil. I don’t remember the specific sequence of events but I bent down to pick soemthing up from the floor, maybe with pencil in hand, and I managed to push the point–drawing blood no less- hard into my palm.
Now since we all know that the pencil point is made from lead, I seriously thought having a bit of one now inside me, I would expire miserably from lead poisoning. After a few days and many attempts to dig the point out, I moved on to other pursuits.
Left thigh. Done by another kid when I was something like 8 or 9.
Could see it well into my teens.
Base of the middle finger on my left hand. In seventh or eighth grade I was holding up a piece of paper and my friend was poking holes in it with her pencil. She missed.
Yes, right under my left collarbone. I was in third grade and running with a pencil. I tripped. I came to class in fits of panic with a pencil sticking out of my chest and my teacher pulled it out and told me to stop goofing around.
I got sent to the nurse when she saw the blood coming through my blouse.
Left thigh. I stabbed myself during Home Ec much like Gene Wilder did in Young Frankenstein. That was 7th or 8th grade and it’s still visible now that I’m 39 years old.
Right index finger, top knuckle. I’m ~.000001% inorganic material. I’m a cyborg!
Shin right below the knee. A boy stabbed me in the leg when I was in the 6th grade. It’s been 20 years now and it’s still there.
Why are so many of these from 7th grade? Mine happened then, too. I was one of 4 from my school competing against other schools in a nerd bowl of some sort. The kind where you build structures out of newspapers and toothpicks and work on various kinds of puzzles and logic exercises. The tables we used had a groove down the middle where they folded in half to be stored away when not in use. We still had some of the materials on hand from some previous exercises. Rick and I got the bright idea to launch pencils across the gym. He laid the pencil in the groove and pulled it back against a rubber band. I held the empty paper towel tube in the groove at an angle, halfway across the table. He released it and the pencil would launch an impressive distance. Then one time the pencil somehow came out of its path and stuck me in my left pinky. That was 1987 and it’s still visible.
Middle of my right palm, not visible anymore (but was for about 20 years).
Honestly, I don’t recall. I’m pretty sure it was third or fourth grade, which was over 30 years ago. I’d be willing to bet that “fooling around with a freshly-sharpened pencil” would be the gist of it.
I’m happy this poll validates not my insanity, but my theory that everybody* has a piece of graphite in their skin somewhere. So many of the stories are the same, it’s eerie.
It just goes to show kids lack foresight, are clumsy, and can heal.
*: for varying values of “everybody”
This is kind of eerie. I had no idea how many people had a little piece of graphite permanently embedded (and thought it was lead and they were gonna die).
Grades 3-4 and 7 seem to be especially prominent. Hmmm.