You know how in most cafeterias there's a sort of shelf made of three metal rods that you slide your tray along as you go on your choose-your-food adventure? And sometimes the rods just stop at the end of the cafeteria line, with their blunt ends just sticking out there? One time, I was with my temporary boyfriend and distracted, and I turned around and walked straight into the metal rod end. It hit me in the groin, top of my upper thigh. I couldn't even whimper, it hurt so bad. I just doubled over and hung there for a second. (He didn't even notice. That's why he was a temporary BF.)

That was a spectacular bruise. It was four inches in diameter and turned hard in the middle of it. I thought I was gonna die, or lose a leg, or something. Turns out, a really bad hematoma can calcify! But the calcium deposits get reabsorbed, so it's okay. Now u no. It took weeks for that fucker to completely fade away. The boyfriend was gone before the bruise was.

I did not have an easy bake oven, for reasons much like Beverly's, but our actual kitchen had a dishwasher the color of Sue's. I think it is actually called avocado. And yes, it was the 70's.

I had a bruise from running full speed into an auditorium seat arm rest during a rehearsal, which hit me in the upper thigh. It sounds very similar to Zenkitty's incident.

Dealing with cheating at my school (of nursing) is 50% of someone's workload (the instructor files a report for academic dishonesty, and then this faculty member investigates). It is crazy how much cheating goes on in a program for people who will have to use what they learned to take someone's life in their hands!

Are we comparing bruises? My freshman year in college I crashed my bike into the football stadium. No, really. (There is a logical explanation but it's more fun to skip it.) I was on my way to marching band practice and slammed my arm/shoulder into a gate post hard enough that I was afraid at first that I had broken something. I managed to make it to practice and the people marching behind me gave me periodic updates on the color of my arm. There may have been a pool on what color it would be the next day.

Are we comparing bruises?

Batting practice, pitching around an L-screen. Everything was protected but my throwing arm. He smoked a line drive off my upper bicep and every single capillary exploded. From shoulder to elbow it was deep, grape soda purple.

Deep purple there is coming close to placing, but I still think I'm a frontrunner with the calcified groin hematoma. Bring it.

I don't think anyone can beat my friend Traci's butt bruise from, yep, falling down the narrow wood stairs at a friend's party. It was the biggest, blackest, most raised up bruise I've ever seen, and it was still super dark 4 weeks later.

I've got a pretty good bruise on my right wrist and my right upper arm, but they're pretty run of the mill. My butt didn't hurt as much as my hip, so I iced the hip/lower back for a couple of hours Monday night, but not the butt, so I think that may have made a little difference.

I think the one my mother got falling down icy stairs lasted several months.

I got the calcified hematoma, but it was more on my thigh than my groin (kicked by a horse).

I fell on one knee on a wood floor (rollerskating and you would not think wood was that hard) when I was about 14. The bruise wasn't super spectacular in size, even if it turned lovely shades of purple, green, and yellow. What it did do was leave a patch of discolored brown skin on my knee for well over ten years. It disappeared sometime in my 20s, but that thing lingered.

When I was in college I banged my shin on the corner of a metal document box. The bruise was impressive enough, but the dent in my leg lingered for over 10 years.