close to the bone

6.8.98

Viv has the week off from work. This is good because one of my ribs may come poking through my side at any minute, I'll just turn the wrong way and sploink, out she'll come, a little bloody bone with a piece of lung hanging off of it, and I'll probably need the wife to fasten my driver's side shoulder belt before I motor over to the ER.

Or maybe not. We just don't know. We don't know because I'm a guy. I'm doing that tough-guy routine and eschewing medical attention for the time being. Since incurring the injury day before yesterday, I have grown a full beard, sired three male children, and felled a Sequoia.

I lift up my shirt and look in the mirror to check for swelling, but none is visible beneath the rippling muscle.

"Yeah, it hurts, baby, but I've got work to do."

I don't own any bullets, but if I did I'd be biting one. A big one.

"Yeah, Sarge, I know I've just been strafed by a 50 cal., but I've gotta make it over that ridge and toss a coupla grenades into that nest."

I twist to the right and my jaw muscles tighten in a Chuck Heston wince.

"Yeah, babe, that's bone coming through the sweatshirt, but it's just a rib. I gotta bunch more. Look, I made a quiche."

I'm sensitive and macho simultaneously. It's beautiful, man.

It happened playing soccer, arena soccer, where it's asphalt covered with artificial turf, and the walls are plexiglas. I took some hard hits, and along with the rib rearrangement I got some souvenirs on my right shoulder, knee, and hand. The pains have been getting worse instead of better, so maybe I'll see a doctor sometime soon and have it checked out.

Or maybe not. Viv has her mind set on wallpapering the main bathroom this week, so I might have to be there for her. You know how needy chicks can get when they redecorate.

I'll go another night. If I wake up bleeding from the armpit I'll just put on a robe and head over to the hospital.

And I won't ask for directions along the way.

Today's Music:

"It's Not My Time To Go" -- Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks -- Last Train To Hicksville

Wisdom of the Day:

"I'm sixty-five and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics, but if there were fifteen months in every year, I'd only be forty-eight."

-- James Thurber