I broke my third bone two weeks after having my cast removed for my right wrist (My Broken Bones Trilogy. Part 2: Octopus boy). Do you believe in jinxes?

The day I got my cast removed, my Dad laughed ‘hey, wouldn’t it be really funny if you broke your middle finger and had to walk around with a cast on?’ He then gestured by walking around with his middle finger proudly stuck up.

Fast forward two weeks later…

I was around 9 years old and had just recovered from breaking my wrist. Both my parents worked in the city, so after school finished I would walk over to my assembly hall where after school day care was held.

I’m not entirely sure how the following events unravelled, but I was outside my assembly hall with my friend and one (or two?) older boys. When I say older, I mean they were a year above me academically—year 7’s. This boy was the older brother of one of the kids in my after school day care. He was taller than me, wore a loose t-shirt and had brown hair that sat approximately around his shoulders (or so my memory tells me).

At this time in my life, I was completely immersed and obsessed with the TV show Dragonball Z, so I often ‘play fought’ with my peers. Well, the ones that were interested; I DEFINTELY did not go around punching other kids! At least, not without their consent.

It was a bright, warmish day, so I took off my hoodie. It was very uncool to tie it around your waist, so I just chucked it on the floor like a total badass. I *think* we were playing an adapted form of tag which incorporated some play fighting.

We running, no—I was chasing him—and as I grabbed onto his t-shirt he pulled away and I felt my middle finger on my left hand go *pop*.

It hurt, but it really wasn’t intense at all. The pain did not resemble the times I had broken my wrists. Now, because of my nature (and because of the influence of Dragonball Z) I was like ‘Bah, I don’t feel pain, I don’t even know what that is’, so I carried on and chased the boys around the school—play fighting. To prove to myself that my finger wasn’t injured, I attempted to hold my hoodie with only my injured middle finger. However, the weight of my hoodie was too much and my finger would give way, causing the hoodie to flop onto the floor. Yes, I tried to this multiple times because I was (and still to this day) that stubborn.

When my parents came to pick me up from after school day care, I told them about my finger and off to the emergency room we went. The X-ray showed that there was a small break, they placed a splint under my middle finger and tapped it together with my ring finger.

That break caused my finger to be wonky once it healed. Upon reflection, this may or may not be due to the fact that in the weeks following the break, I was like’ bro, it doesn’t hurt’ and continued to climb poles and trees to prove it.