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When I lie about the scar on my forehead, I make it heroic. I tell people that it happened when I was a firefighter for US Forest Service. I say that I fell down a mountain - a high mountain - my helmet popped off, and I slammed my head on a rock. Sometimes I even say that with blood gushing down my face, I still rose to the occasion and saved a baby from a burning log cabin.

When I tell the truth about the scar on my forehead, I make it tongue-in-cheek. I actually was a firefighter and the scar did happen while I was dispatched on fire. However, at the time, I was no where near a blaze.

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The day of the World Trade Center attacks, my crew was on a fire in the middle of nowhere Central California. We had been battling the blaze for over 24 hours because it was threatening to burn some summer homes — built for millionaires who wanted to be in nature so they could pretend they still have a soul. Our minds were heavy with exhaustion when the news came over our radios that the Twin Towers and The Pentagon had been attacked.

Over the next few hours scattered reports ranging from the towers had fallen down to Washington DC being under full aerial attack crackled through. We weren't sure what to believe. That, however, didn't stop the group of 20 looped, exhausted guys from make assumptions.

One guy blamed the French. Another said it was an internal conspiracy. Willy, a particularly ignorant and racist fellow, said it was definitely the Mexicans — who were probably working the Black Panthers or the Japanese. Our devout Christian boss, who also literally believed Britney Spears was Satan's whore, proclaimed “it's the beginning of the end.”

Talk of war started. We were sure Bush would bomb whatever country was responsible, maybe even the entire Middle East. “That is, if we're lucky,” Willy piped in.

Full scale war was definitely upon us, we thought. We would be drafted for World War III immediately after we contained the fire. Armageddon was reaching its gnarled claw down. We psyched each other up with thoughts of going down shooting at a faceless someones who didn't speak English - for that is truly the American way.

All this before even seeing the attacks on TV or even having halfway proper information.

To our surprise, when the fire ended there was no large helicopter piloted by Dick Cheney sucking us up with a large vacuum and delivering us straight to the frontlines.

This was truly a cause for celebration then. Especially since the next day, we were sure, we would be drafted. Thusly this would be our last night of freedom together and what better way to spend it than getting completely out-of-our-minds smashed on cheap beer and Jagermeister?

We hit the first civilization we'd seen in weeks or at least what passed for it: Barstow, California. Our hotel was across the street from a hybrid sports bar/karaoke joint and the crew rained down on the place like bodies from the WTC.

I was in my “cowboy phase” at the time and wore jeans so tight that it resembled something between a chubby Garth Brooks and Prince. And when mixed with alcohol, these tight pants caused me to dance . . . dance horribly — like a new-borne giraffe staggering on fresh legs. I began the night by dancing to thick mustached-man's karaoke of “Cat Scratch Fever” and kept that tempo all night. I head-banged through “I Will Always Love You” sung by an overweight cowgirl with Empire State Building bangs.

When I stumbled into the speaker for the 47 th time that night, the bouncer decided it was time for me to leave. I decided it was not time for me to leave and threw a right hook at him as dangerous as a wet noodle. He in turn had no problem catching my fist, twisting it around my back, and leading me to the exit.

Once outside, I pounded on the door and screamed that I was going to sue them. The irony of me threatening a lawsuit in retribution for physical violence when I believed I would soon me going to fight for my country escaped me until the next morning. Something tells me I would not have been very effective stumbling around the craggy mountains of Afghanistan looking for Osama.

Ben, my good friend from the fire crew, was soon led out of the bar in the same manner I had been. Apparently he tried to defend my right to drunkenly bump into speakers and met the same fate I had.

Together we walked back to our hotel and that's the point where everything becomes black for me.

Ben related it to me the next day like this:

“In the hallway I was ahead of you. Then you yelled, 'Look.' I turned around and you were standing if front a fire extinguisher box. It said, 'Break Glass in Case of Emergency,' and you rammed your head right into it. I was laughing until you back away and I saw blood pouring down your face.

I said you should probably go to the hospital, but you said you didn't have health care. So, I went and got Scott to bandage you up.”

Scott was the EMT on our crew. He was an excellent EMT — I had seen him fix a number of sprains, cuts, and minor burns all season. However, Scott had been drinking as much Jagermeister and beer as the rest of us that night. Still he attempted, with one eye closed and Ben's hand on his shoulder to steady him, to butterfly bandage my cut.

The next morning it seemed that Scott had mended it expertly. On closer inspection though, he had pulled one side of the cut higher than the other. This caused the cut to heal oddly and form a distinctive scar above my left eyebrow.

People say it's tough-looking when they hear the heroic lie about how I got it. When they hear the truth — that I lost in a fight with break-away glass — they say something along the lines of, “Wow, that's stupid.”

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