It was a Christmas Eve to remember — in his fifteen years practicing as a licensed doctor, the surgeon had never seen a case quite like this.

It had been late last night, almost past the stroke of midnight, when the peace and quiet of a relatively uneventful Silent Night was disrupted by the wailing sirens of an ambulance and shortly afterwards, the screams of agony from a patient rushedly carted in, straight to the operating theatre.

After fully sedating the unrestful patient, the doctor took account of the bevy of injuries that decorated this man’s body, tattooed all over in colourful yet grotesque ways. There were literal pins and needles stuck in his arms, sticky honey in his hair and what looked like tiny indents of Lego bricks all over his hands and feet.

Then the doctor unwrapped the bandages on the patient’s head, and got a glimpse at a horrific sight — all of the skin on this man’s face had been burned off completely, replaced with blisters and boils that were dotted plentifully among the pink, raw flesh that had been exposed. Though curious and highly perplexed at how this could have happened, the doctor knew that saving this man’s life was more important. Four gruelling hours of facial reconstruction surgery later, he was in the clear.

As the sun of Christmas Day rose and the effects of the sedative wore off, the patient awoke in his hospital bed, dazed and confused about his surroundings.

“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.

“Like shit,” the patient responded, wheezing for breath while struggling to get each word out of his mouth.

“So, I have to ask…” said the doctor. “What exactly happened?”

Then his jaw dropped and eyes opened wide as the patient recalled a fantastical tale of how he ended up with his disfigured face.

It turned out that the man was a professional burglar, targeting and looting wealthy homes in the area when their residents were off vacationing over the Christmas holidays. However, on this particular instance, the house that he had selected to rob was not vacated as expected; the family had somehow abandoned their young child at home, who not only had been undaunted by an adult intruder, but also devised a series of inhumane tricks and traps to fend off the invader. While the fight had gone through the front door to the bedroom and all over the house, it had ended in the kitchen when a triggered wire led to large bags of boiling chicken grease tearing open, erupting straight into the burglar’s face and searing the skin right off.

“So… you’re telling me that an 8-year-old kid, at home alone, did this to you?”

The bandit nodded. The doctor could only gawk, rendered speechless.

“Now, I’ve got a question for you, doc…” said the burglar. “I know that I had surgery on my face, but why does my ass hurt as well?”