AG MOBILE
FREE E-MAIL NEWSLETTER
Log In
My wife made me get a…thing…cut off my wrist. It was just a little bump, shaped kind of like Australia, but she thought it was getting bigger and changing color. I didn’t really think so, but off to the doctor I went.
He took a look at the lump and wasn’t too impressed. Still, you don’t want your doctor saying after a year, “Boy, was I ever wrong about that!” So, just to be sure, he whacked it off and sent it in to be analyzed.
A week later I got the report that identified what it was – a long name that basically meant “Wrist bump that looks like Australia. Nothing to worry about.”
I knew that wouldn’t be enough information to satisfy my wife, so I typed the long name into my computer and found out that another name for my little bump was “barnacles of old age.”
Yet another thing I didn’t want to know about my body.
And I’m not the only one. When I told my son about it he said, “I don’t want to call and hear, ‘Dad can’t come to the phone, he’s in dry dock getting his barnacles scraped.’”
Nobody wants to hear that.
I think there should be more thought put into medical type terms. I mean, “barnacles of old age.”
Really?
I already have enough self-esteem problems.
Some people might say that it’s my own fault. After all, I didn’t need to know what my wrist lump was called. If people asked me what caused the hole in my wrist, I could have just looked down, shrugged and said, “Oh, a mild case of Seborrheic Keratosis.” Then I could have looked brave and noble, as if it were something serious and I didn’t want to share the burden.
That’s what I could have done.
But now that I know I’m covered with old age barnacles, like some abandoned ore freighter stashed, half sunk, around the corner of the docks where the lights are burned out, I don’t dare mention the medical term, in case someone knows what they really are.
I can see it now. “It’s Seborrheic Keratosis” I would say, and some soon-to-be-ex-friend at the coffee shop would yell, “Hey, did you hear that Brent’s got old age barnacles?”
Here’s the thing. I’m not really all that old. I still have all my original parts and most of them still work. Very few are made of metal or plastic and if I never take my hat off, it’s almost impossible to tell that I’m bald. I watch TV – I know what getting old is supposed to be like. We’re supposed to go dancing, talk about bran with our neighbors and apparently my wife and I are supposed to sit in bathtubs and watch the sun set over the ocean.
I’ve always thought that seemed a little odd – I generally do my bathing in private and usually I just take a shower. Maybe there’s something about the commercial I’m not getting.
Anyway, the point is, I just don’t think I’m ready for barnacles. I mean, once you have barnacles, the next thing is dry rot. And after that you get towed out to sea, sunk, and used as an artificial reef.
I dunno; I was hoping for more.
Copyright 2011 Brent Olson
