I remember being 13 years old and receiving my first real lesson on how God doesn't like ugly and also a lesson on southern remedies. I used to live on 118th & 7th Ave in Harlem. There was a building directly across the street from us that had a play area for residents only. I snuck into the area so I could play with the other kids that lived in the building. There was a jungle gym that had a 6-foot high plank. Some of us kids would jump from the plank and grab onto the bottom row of a fire escape ladder to swing and then jump off. Well, there was a mean old lady who lived right next to the fire escape and she would complain every time we played in that area.

This one particular day I was so fed up with her complaints that I walked to the end of the plank, turned around, dropped my pants and told her to kiss my ass. All the kids started to laugh. Once again I thought I was cool. I was so caught up with them laughing that I didn't realize that she had opened her window and started to swing her broomstick at me. Both of my feet slipped off of the plank and I fell onto my testicles and then to the ground from 6-feet high. Ouch!

Aside from the obvious pain, I also scraped off the top layer of skin from my calf. I limped home in severe pain to clean the wounded area. I asked my aunt for bandage to cover the area and she sat me down and told me about a southern remedy that would help the wound heal faster. She told me to go in the corner and grab some spider webs and place them over the scar. I looked at her like she was crazy but somehow she convinced me that this would work. I thought everything would be just fine until a few weeks later when my wound turned green! It's seems my aunt's southern remedy caused my calf to be infected with gangrene.

I ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks. There was a 95% chance that they would have to amputate my leg. Luckily for me, the infection did not spread to the bone. That was the last time I was ever mean to an old lady and the last time I ever listened to my crazy ass aunt!

-dj