Ever do one of those things that, if your brain had been in gear, you would never have done? I seem to have a history of instances of my brain turning off just long enough for me to do something dumb. Often some degree of pain is involved.

We have 3 ½ goats. Since the three big goats range from 185-250 pounds, the 55 pound Nigerian Dwarf only rates as a half goat. (Please don’t tell her, we don’t want to hurt her feelings). These goats are pretty happy and, at times, energetic and demonstrative. Each has a particular personality. One of their happiest and most energetic times is feeding time. Because the big goats outweigh me, the way to control their physical enthusiasm is to keep a barrier between us. But on one Saturday morning my brain was turned off. I entered their stall through the outside stall door carrying a bucket of very yummy (or so I am told) goat feed. And the three previously- mentioned large goats could not contain their enthusiasm. They came galloping into the stall behind me, knocking me over in their eagerness to get to the feed bucket. The bucket catapulted through the air, feed flying in all directions, as I collapsed onto a standing board that separated the bedding area from the rest of the stall. And my loving goats trampled me in their joy to find pieces feed scattered everywhere. I became nothing more than a small obstacle for them.

My initial reaction was just being surprised to find myself on the floor. This was different and not in my plan. My husband, who should be used to my shenanigans by now, simply looked stunned. My next reaction was to note that there was a quantity of blood coming from the area of my ear. I was not particularly concerned…head wounds bleed. But we could not see the wound well enough to judge if it would require stitches. The best practice would be to get a professional opinion. We headed to the UT Urgent Care in Halls and arrived to find that they did not open on Saturday until 9:00 am. We did not want to sit in the parking lot and wait. We had passed an Urgent Care in Maynardville, so we headed back there. They don’t do stitches, they glue. Which would be OK with me, but they don’t glue scalps. And there were 5 people in front of me if I just wanted to get an opinion about whether I needed a stitch or two. Or three.

Back to UT Urgent care at 9:30 am and they were still not open. Apparently, this new facility was not fully operational just yet. Drove south on Maynardville Hwy to the next Urgent Care (I had no idea we had so many). The Physician’s Assistant was able to see me rather quickly. The scalp wound was superficial – no stitches needed. The ear, however, had been scalped. The top layer of skin cells had been scraped off the top and back of my ear. There was no way of bandaging this oddly shaped wound and the only plan we could come up with was to try to prevent infection and return to him in 4 days so he could assess whether it was starting to heal or getting infected.

My favorite part of this event was how colorful it was the next day. The ear, the scalp, the whole side of the neck all the way down to the chest were glorious shades of blue, black and yellow. I wore these colors proudly. It looked much worse than it was.

Lesson learned. I close the exterior stall door. Enter the stall from the interior stall door. Place the feed on the tray. Close the interior stall door. Open the exterior stall door and get the heck out of the way of the stampeding goats. A mistake is a learning tool. As long as you learn from it.