So I have this birthmark on my arm. It's a bump, roughly the size of a rat, and it's topped off by several dark red spots. It gets noticed on random occasion by someone, and inevitably I end up answering the same questions about it. To save time in the future, allow me to cover them here.
1. What is that on your arm? (Alternatively: What happened to your arm? Oh my God, what did you do to your arm? Ew, what's that?). It's a birthmark. I was born with it. It has always been proportional to my arm, so that when I was a child it was much smaller than it is now.
2. No, I mean the raised part. It looks swollen. It is swollen. There's a boatload of blood vessels gathered around under there making a big bump appear. I can't explain it, except to tell you the medical term I was given long ago: benign hemangioma. Just think of someone like Gorbachev with that port-wine stain on his forehead, only mine's on my arm.
3. Does it hurt? Not usually, except when I use my right hand a lot, like after typing for hours on end. So, actually, yes, usually.
4. What would happen if you got cut there? I suspect I would bleed a considerable amount. It's worth noting that I believe this would be the case no matter where I got cut.
5. Have you ever thought about having it removed? Yes, every so often. However, when I was a child and my mother asked the doctor about that very thing, he said, "He can either have a bump, or a dip. Which would you like?" With this in mind I usually forget about the whole thing before I get too deep into planning.
6. How often to people ask about it? When I wear short sleeves, at least once a day.
7. Are you tired of people asking about it? Not really. It's been a lifelong sociological study for me, seeing how people react and how they go about asking, if they do at all. The first thing that happens is they notice and try to steal glances when I'm not looking. I see them. Some people just ask right away, genuinely concerned that I've hurt myself. Others take their time and try to slip it into the conversation casually, like it's possible to do that with something as odd as this.
8. What do you usually tell people when they ask? Depending on the person, and how long it has taken them to get around to it, and how polite they are when they do, I have a collection of answers I give outside of the regular explanation. Some of those have been: My arm is pregnant, It's my twin that I absorbed in the womb, It's my massive arm wrestling muscle, etc. Once, just to get out of the situation where the person was being especially rude, I looked down, screamed, and ran out of the building holding it like it was broken. But mostly I just say, "Birth."
9. What do you call it? The Rat.
This probably covers everything. I'll amend the list should new questions arise.