Battle Wounds - BLACK EYED STEEZ

8/3 - For most girls a black eye is a devastating, can’t-leave-the-house-until-its-gone, social hindrance. It is a battle wound that cannot be hidden easily or discreetly covered (unless you are a pirate or sunglass model.) In most towns, most girls would just wait until the discolored, swollen eye was back to normal before venturing out into society again. This is not the case in a ski town.

Recently I discovered first hand that a black eye gets you more attention than landing a switch 7 in the middle of Main Park on a spring day. I received my “shiner”—contrary to what most males believe—by falling on a rail. Now, I am not going to bore you with the actual details of my face injury, just know that it was not pretty.

Being the tough girl that I am, I decided that I was not going to let a silly bruise ruin the possibility of fun. So I headed to the Laka Nuki anyway, sporting a HUGE pair of Jackie-O’s to cover my wound. I thought that the sunglasses might make me less approachable to the weekend sharks looking for a good time. Unfortunately I was wrong. I spent too much time pretending not to hear all the stupid drunk pick-up lines that referred to my sunglasses. Finally I decided that I should just ditch the shades and deal with everyone and their brother asking me what happened. It was an immediate flood of testosterone, all with one thing on the brain – CHICK FIGHT. Whatever. I will say that once the local snowboarding/skiing boys found out that I ate it on a rail they were pretty impressed.

Been hurt worse than her? Got the photo to prove it? Send BATTLE WOUNDS to tess@snowboardermag.com.