"I have a huge favor to ask. You can't tell anyone what this is about."
"Okay! Shoot!"
"Seriously, Choll. You can't tell ANYONE."
"I said 'okay!' What is it?!"
"Okay... I talked to my mom, and she said I need you to pop the thing on my ass."
The voice on the phone was that of my roommate and erstwhile girlfriend, The Bride. Joy is quite insufficient as a word to describe my elation. This wasn't any run-of-the-mill zit or boil. This was a massive, pulsating, blistered ulcer-looking motherfucker that had emerged from the otherwise smooth terrain of my ex-girlfriend's ass like a tumorous submarine breaking the surface of a calm ocean. It even had a faintly death-like smell.
She'd spent days hobbling about the apartment, developing the kind of gingerly prance usually associated with homosexual broadway stage lackeys and professional race-horse jockeys. And through it all I had offered many, many times to "do" something about it. But alas, the fear in her eyes as I brandished manicure scissors and upholstery needles anticipated a definite "NO, NOT ON YOUR FUCKING LIFE."
Hence, that magical day when she finally was unable to sit even long enough to drive the 10 minutes it took her to get to work.
So, an hour after the phone call demanding discretion, I stood at the ready for a spot o'home surgery. The sofa bed was pulled out and covered in a red blanket that would theoretically hide the blood-stains. I had the tools of my trade spread out on the seat of a peeling green wooden chair; sewing needle, tweezers, Swiss army knife, fore-mentioned manicure scissors, fork and a lighter for sanitary purposes were nestled on a beach towell, also for sanitary purposes. For sterilization and pain management I had a quarter of a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka at the ready.
The Bride approached the sofa bed with grim determination, threw off the Harry Potter sleep-pants and "Tuesday!" underwear that stood between me and my meat-work, and with a sigh and a tremble, she lay across the mattress.
It was around this point that I began madly giggling. It was decided that we should all have some vodka.
The outer-most skin was slippery, thin and almost paper-like in its capacity to tear. All I had to do was pop the largest of the puss-pockets clinging to the film of bubbled skin and use the needle and scissors to move the chunkier pieces out of the way. To my surprise, the under-layer was an even more complex network of pockets, bubbles arranged like high-rise slums over a fetid street of Mexico-grade general slime.
I remember the barely-audible ::pop:: that each little pillow of puss made as I squeezed it in the tweezers. The occasional application of vodka to ass and mouth kept things mostly calm during this juncture, which was good because right about then, shit got weird. One of the little pockets of spider-spoo was occupied by what appeared to be a leg or mandible or some other fuckery from the spider itself. With the diligence and care of an archaeologist, I eventually excavated most of an entire mutant insect from the festering confetti of her butt-cheek. It was pretty fucking gnarly.
I was excited by this development. So excited that I may have gouged Em's cheek a bit with the fork. But she was shlitzed by that point, riding on alternating waves of pain, vodka and nausea, so I celebrated my victory on behalf of archnaphobics everywhere in solitude.
Moral of the story? Don't ask someone to dig Noah's Ark out of your ass and keep it a secret. Seriously.
Wacky shit to consider:
George Washington spent about 25% of his annual salary on booze every year he was in the White House. This was on top of an entertaining budget, provided by Congress. In all fairness, if you woke up next to Martha and that insipid little lace doily every morning, you'd need to be shit-faced by noon too.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.
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