Have you ever been playfully 'rough-housing' with a friend or signifcant other and someone truly ends up getting hurt? Let me give a more specific scenario. You begin a friendly session of said rough-housing with your rough-housing partner. Now this is an amusing activity on a few levels especially if your partner is smaller and physically weaker. However, your partner does have dificulty with muscle control of his or her own limbs. For instance, recently your partner may have had some type or arm/hand spasm that caused an abrsion on his/her own face. So there is that factor that can make up for your partners lack of strength. Anyway, your session progresses when your partner again experiences one of these 'episodes'. This time he/she has some sort of head convulsion that causes he/she to smash her chin into your nose, thus causing internal bleeding and subsequent swelling. Has this happened? Any ideas on reaction/retalliation? Thanks.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

Answers

Retaliation will of course come after the nose stops bleeding after a full box of tissues is used. Please help.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

I took karate for a while. So I don't rough-house anymore & I warn my loved ones not to "surprise" me when I'm out and about. Some things are now ingrained responses. I don't want to hospitalize someone I love just because they decided to sneak up on me from behind to tickle me.

I think employing puppy eyes and guilt-tripping will be the most effective retaliation. You may even get some Ben & Jerry's out of it.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

My fiance is considerably bigger than me, and he totally takes advantage of that fact. When he pins me down and tickles me, I am helpless. Except for my lower extremities. If he gets kicked HARD with a flailing leg or an escaped arm, that's his fault for restraining me in the first place. He deserves it for starting with little me.

If your situation really happened, and you are a big tickle/wrassling bully like my Fiance Type Man, then you deserve the blow to your nose.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

I've always been speedy and wiry and that's helped me in rough-housing. I'm usually the one escaping from the pins. :-) My wife tries to sneak attack sometimes, but I can easily deflect anything from any angle and I don't even think about it. This frustrates her and makes her try harder. Ultimately, she ends up with some minor hurt or injury (and blames it fully on me, dontcha know). I don't recall any internal bleeding or swelling, and her retaliations are usually verbal as she tries to make me feel guilty for defending myself. :-)

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

Erika, please don't blame the victim.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

He's doing the puppy eyes thing. I can tell. Lookit. No, look OVER the Kleenex.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

Um... I knocked my sister unconscious once while dramatizing a scene we had just watched on Hong Kong Phooey. She didn't need to retaliate because I felt like shit when the ambulance showed up to take her to the hospital for a few days.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

I won't be looking into those eyes. Victim, my butt. Hah!

Keli's story reminded me... My little sister and I were riding around the backyard in our go cart, and she wanted to get off. I made her jump while it was still moving and I ran over her legs. Oops! We were probably about 13 and 8 at the time. Sorry, Jackie!

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

I just remembered the time my brother and I played WWF wrestling when I was 12 and he was 15. I somehow ended up with a nasty bloody nose, and that was the last time we played that game. I think there is still blood on the concrete stairs in the garage from my spurting nose.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

I did a few really awful things to my kid brother when we were little that I feel bad about, but he retaliated later by chasing me around with things that I have a phobia of, so I think we're pretty even.

And now for a tangent. Tomorrow a play, (Oklahoma) opens in which I'm playing my flute. During one rehersal, one guy (Jud) was 'posed to throw a fake punch, but it landed quite well on the other guy's jaw (Curly). At first, we all thought "wow, that sounded great! What realism." Until Curly started holding his jaw and checking his teeth. It took a couple of days, but he is fine. I think I'm in love with him BTW.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

Who do you love? (I said, WHO do you LOVE?)

Jud or Curly?

Wait, that's a nosy question.

On the other hand, we need to know what names to scratch into bathroom stall walls, park benches and trees on your behalf! ;)

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

My brother and I used to play "wrestling" back in our pre-teen days, too. That was fun. We used to play it on our parents' king size bed, because it was immense from our perspective, and we could throw each other around in relative safety.

And when we weren't doing that or inviting the neighbor kids over to hold our own neighborhood Olympics inside our house, we were flinging garbage can lids at each other, trying to be Captain America (with his mighty shield).

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

When my husband and I were dating he popped out my kneecap. He was tickling me and his knee landed on the back of my knee. It popped out and then popped back in. He didn't know that I was crying from pain because I was crying from laughing. I was on crutches for a week because my knee was all swollen. He felt so bad.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

OW!!!!

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

Usually when my fiance and I roughouse, I wind up accidentally "hurting" him and he gets all mad and that ruins the whole thing. But he's such a wuss. "Hurting" means accidentally pulling some hair, be it on his head or body; or *gasp* touching his glasses, which smudges them a little.

-- Anonymous, March 30, 2001

Oh Milla, I'm in love with Curly. Guess I'll have to start a post.

-- Anonymous, March 30, 2001

I know one of these days my SO is going to end up breaking one of my bones when he wrestles me. Then no one will believe me when I have to tell them some lame story explaining it.

-- Anonymous, April 02, 2001

Sharon, I'll be right there with you. I'll be the one with the bruises from extremely forceful tickling (or "an accident with some gym equipment"). You'd think my sweetheart is trying to pull my innards out of my sides and armpits, the way he digs around.

-- Anonymous, April 02, 2001

Innards! Ha! Funny word! Did any of you ever think that the desire by your partners to make you laiugh through these tickling sessions is due to his/her desire to see you HAPPY??!! Laughing means you are enjoying your time with that person so maybe that's what the tickling is about. On the other hand, uncontrollable body part spasms that cause bloody noses are never a laughing matter!

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2001

I hate hate hate being tickled. It's only fun for the aggressor, and really, what kind of sick person enjoys making another suffer? There are so many other ways to show affection. Yeah, I'm a total wimp. A wimp with bruises all over my pale skin from rough-housing.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

Actually, tylerd, no offense but laughing is just a involuntary reaction. I also will laugh at funerals and any other time that I'm very tense or scared. I don't know if this is the truth, but I read that the reason you can't really tickle yourself is because the "tickle" response only happens if you feel a threat. I'll try to look that article up if anyone wants to read it, but I despise being tickled and I laugh and choke when it happens.

Plus, the added bonus of knowing that if it doesn't stop I'll pee myself really makes it a horrible experience. So I do flail about, trying to make it stop. I've practically scalped someone to make tickling stop. I've broken glasses, caused bruises, and kicked nuts while flailing around uncontrollably because I'm being tickled. And it always ends with Me apologizing to Him because I've hurt him. But to be honest, I never mean the apologies. When I'm screaming "Please stop it", I think that's warning enough.

Sorry to hear about your nose, though. I accidentally punched someone in the nose in bed once. I was trying to throw the covers over him and had bad timing. That apology I truly meant.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2001

You mean I could actually make someone pee? Oh, I'm going have to increase the intensity now!!!

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2001

Then you might check into protective face gear. And a cup.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2001

...and you do realize that YOU will have to clean it up and do any laundry that might be involved.

It is the Law of Pee.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2001

Or you could make her wear a diaper before you start the tickling. You kinky bully.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

Diapers and pee laws!! This topic rules!

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

Well, yeah, but how many of you put one or more siblings in casts, not once but several times?

See, there was this one time I was with 3 of my brothers. We were jumping out of a barn loft into a pile of hay below. Each time us older kids jumped, we kicked away some of the hay so that when it was the youngests turn wepushedoopsImean the jump and there was no padding. Broke his arm. Then, my oldest brother was wrestling with the younger, in the house, while mom was ironing, hit the board and knocked the iron down the youngers leg. Wraps and treatments for the summer with the older one having to carry the younger everywhere. Then there was the broken collar bone while wrestlin', and I better quit before I get in trouble.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001