Okay, this is *seriously* funny stuff. (And much more enjoyable than swapping "worst pain EVAR" stories.) I actually had to look up the Kellogg's website for something work-related (loooong story), and they have a section that's all about the mascot characters, including Snap, Crackle, Pop, and the Keebler Elves, with character profiles for each. And the profiles (especially of the elves) are *really* funny. Go here: [link] and click on either "Kellogg's characters" or "Keebler Elves."

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Popcorn hulls jamming into your gums.

Yeah, that hurts.

And you gotta worry about trailing hems getting caught in the escalator and pulling you into the grainding sharp teeth of the escalator.

Or maybe that's just in my head.

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I've scraped my shin on the nasty escalator treads.

Popcorn hulls jamming into your gums.

But neither of those things hurts like what you people are talking about!!

And you gotta worry about trailing hems getting caught in the escalator and pulling you into the grainding sharp teeth of the escalator.

Crap. Escalator out. OK.

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just about every injury I've had has seen me thinking to myself "If it was really broken (or whatever) it would hurt more".

In first aid, they teach you that a symptom of a broken bone is "obvious injury without significant pain." I know it didn't seem to hurt all that much when I broke my hand.

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This thread is starting to read like a Lemony Snickett story.

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When my rugger roommate broke her arm, we had to convince her to go to the doctor before the game was over -- the bones in her forearm were visibly not in the right place (the skin wasn't broken, though), but she felt like a couple of beers would be enough to feel fine.

Edit: Which is why I never played rugby.

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Per the data I was able to find, Maine is also at 5%.

Yeah, for general taxes, you're right Plei, from what I can find, too [link] And I can't find my 8% figure on any item. It used to be 6% and was lowered to 5, over a period of years. For a Mass. Resident though, a lot of times there's little sense buying clothes in the Maine outlets, because we have no sales tax on non-luxury item clothing in Mass.

Huh. In Maine, alcoholic drinks used to be 10%, but now the food/drink tax has been lowered to 7%.

Frank, it looks like Maine sales tax decreased over time, and was at one point 5.something. Goofy Mainers.

I still maintain that food poisoning/stomach flu are worse than L&D, because it's all bad, and the recovery feels longer. I think only about a half-hour to an hour of L&D was unbearable agony, whereas I had almost a full day of it with the stomach thing last time. Also, while I was tired after L&D, it was more in the way of acute workout exhaustion, and stomach thing was more in the way of death warmed over exhaustion.

I'd rather give birth than have a stomach flu or food poisoning, although I have quick deliveries. My recoveries sucked, though. By far, the recovery period was worse for me, than any other stage of pregnancy/delivery. I was barely recovered by my six week check up, after the birth of each of my children.

Worst pain ever: ruptured ovarian cyst. Ever since then, I've pretty much been able to say, "That was bad, but not as bad as a ruptured ovarian cyst."

I had an extraordinarily painful bout with an ovarian cyst when I was about 16. My mother was out of the country, and my aunt had to take me to the doctor and hospital (they thought it was appendix and didn't have or weren't routinely doing ultrasounds back then). My doctor had to give me a rectal exam, because I was still a virgin and he said an internal would have been too much for me, given the pain I was already in. I had to have blood tests which ruled out appendix because my white count wasn't high enough (I think that's what it was) to be appendix, and this all them to the ovarian cyst diagnosis.

Worst pain ever: throwing up from dehydration with a broken face.

Oh sweet girl, you win. Ooof. Oof oof oof!

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I had a couch accident the other day, but it didn't hurt much.

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I walked past the Davis escalator one morning to find it stopped, with half a sneaker sticking out of the top of it. I am very careful about escalators.

My most debilitating pain evar was the only headache I can truly classify as a migraine, which I had after a final exam period (a day or two later), and which had me lying flat in bed crying because I couldn't move my head. Later, there was Percocet.

Unfortunately, that was also the day I found out that one of the rarer side effects of Percocet is violent nausea.

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In first aid, they teach you that a symptom of a broken bone is "obvious injury without significant pain." I know it didn't seem to hurt all that much when I broke my hand.

When I went over the handlebar of my bike, Doogie Hauser at the ER took one look at my very, very, purple wrist and declared "Dude! That wrist is broken," despite the fact that I could wriggle my fingers and such without any pain. Three courses of x-rays later he admitted it was only a sprain.

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