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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

I Will Never Run Out of Things to Write About

The last time I saw T, he was busy showing me his owies.

“This one,” he says, pulling back the lips of a large, garish wound to the palm of his hand, “I got shucking oysters.”

I stare in a mixture of horror and revulsion. The words “Medium-rare, please” spring to mind.

“Stop it! Stop doing that!”

He laughs. This is not his only owie, and he points them out to me, one by one: blisters, cracked heels, cuts, a chemical burn. He also has a cracked tooth that he promises to reveal “at another time”.

The guy knows how to party.

“You have no regard for the flesh,” I say.

“And you, my friend, have no regard for theatre.”

I stare at him.

He smiles. “Open Wound Theatre,” he says, pulling the edges of the wound on his hand back. “It was the best of times,” he quotes, lips pulled tightly in perhaps the worst imitation of a ventriloquist that I’ve ever seen, “it was the worst of times”.

“That’s it,” I say. “Give me your phone.”

He stares at me.

I hold my hand out, open and close it impatiently. “I’m calling your mother.”

He laughs, dances back and away from me.

“Fine,” I grumble. “Then I’m going to write about you and expose your perversities to the world.”

“What, you’re going to write about Open Wound Theatre?” A hiss of air escapes his lips: pffffffft. “Man, you have totally run out of things to write about, haven’t you?”

44 comments:

Anonymous said...

Life imitating art?

Pearl said...

Delores, exactly. :-)

Shelly said...

You could turn this into a SNL sketch- Open Wound Theater!

lisahgolden said...

Making the wound talk. Classic!

jenny_o said...

Sounds like a typical guy :)

What I don't like are the number of bruises and open wounds I get just by getting older and more prone to dry, cracked skin and falling down. However, I'll stick with the getting older when I consider the other choice :)

Simply Suthern said...

Sharing wounds, scars and bruises or passing gas and burping?

Choose your posion.

Leenie said...

And that's what I like about "Pearl-whyyoulittle."

Pearl said...

Shelly, he really is pretty funny...

Lisa, it makes my nose wrinkle up just thinking about it. Why won't he let them heal?!

jenny_o, I'm quite the bruiser myself. It's all the love coming out. :-)

Simply, there are more choices, right? RIGHT?!

Pearl said...

Leenie, aww. (Have just added your name to the people I'd like to buy a drink..)

Sioux Roslawski said...

If you ever decide to winter down in Misery--er, Missouri--you would have many followers who would give you a place to flop down at night.

T is welcome, too, since he brings his traveling show wherever he goes...

Anonymous said...

Open Wound Theater--*groan*

BB said...

Is on a collision course with all kinds of accidents? Men are strange.

Pearl said...

Sioux, hey, you never know when that will come in handy! I'll let T know. :-)

Green Girl, I calls 'em as I sees 'em. :-)

Barb, at any given time I think that guy could show you an injury...

The Jules said...

You're never alone with a talking wound.

Bill Lisleman said...

T could be my uncle. He proudly told recently that he had over 6000 stitches in his 80+ body.
The real crash dummies of the world.

Joanne Noragon said...

Open Wound Theater? He's never read Picasso: Art is a lie that tell us the truth.

Pearl said...

Jules, now that you mention it, he does talk to himself...

Bill, yikes! Now there's a man with health insurance!

Joanne, oh, I love that. I'm going to remember that.

Camille said...

Quietly turning green over here. That T! What a nutboy. If you don't call his mother - I'm going to. Sheeesh.

SparkleFarkel said...

This has been sensational! (EW!, YIKES!, and Egad!) And, there's a possibility that my mother was T's wound-talk-abouty mentor.

Douglas said...

I have scars... those wounds eventually heal no matter how many times you make them "talk"... a lot of scars. Next to the girls and women of my life, that's how I calculate milestones.

Anonymous said...

Which is why smart people wear a glove when shucking oysters. We coastal sorts know that.

Notes From ABroad said...

I just don't know the right people :(
Or is it that I just can't understand anything they are saying ?
besitos. C

Roshni said...

Excuse me while I go to barf in the toilet...

Pearl said...

Camille, I suspect his mother already knows this about her boy!

Sparkle :-) Ka-Pow!

Douglas, like maps, aren't they?

mrwriteon, we gotta cut ol' T some slack. MN man moved to FL -- there are bound to be some learning pains. All we shuck up in MN is corn!

ABroad, I suspect that there's a TON going on around you but it's all in another language!

Sorry, Roshni! :-) I admit to being a little nauseated when he shows me his "owies"!

Sarah said...

Owie! Seeing that made me smile.

Is this a Minnesota thing or nationwide? I feel like it's a Minnesota thing, like hotdish and uff-da.

Unknown said...

I have a purple knee right now from a gainer I took in my kitchen when I tripped over a bag of canned goods I had forgotten to put in the cupboard after grocery shopping. I wish I could peel that purple off and expose a healthy, pink knee!

Pearl said...

Sarah, :-) really? "Owie"s not nationwide? I didn't know that! But "ish". "Ish" or "ishkabibble", now THAT's used everywhere, right?!

Eva, Nooooo! Well that's no good. Take pictures, though. :-) I secretly enjoy good owies!

Kristy @Loveandblasphemy said...

Hey, everything is up for grabs. All life is material!

Pearl said...

Kristy, I agree. Of course, that's how I end up writing about "owies" and people who call me on their cell phones from bathrooms...

Gigi said...

It is obvious what T's issue is....he's never grown up. Little boys just love to show off their owies.

Douglas said...

"Douglas, like maps, aren't they?"

no, those would be the varicose veins I've accumulated.

Elephant's Child said...

One of the things I don't like about entering my decrepitude (if that isn't a word it should be) is acquiring bruises, cuts and scrapes that I know nothing about. As in, 'thats quite a bruise/cut/scrape. Wonder how it happened/when I did it?'

Mrs. Tuna said...

Ewwwwwww, I hate blood and gaps. I need smelling salts now.

♥ Braja said...

Ha!!!

Actually he's right. But kinda also wrong. Never will that day arrive, even if you think it might....:)

Diane Stringam Tolley said...

Owie art. That's right up there with the guys who do art using their privates. I don't know how they do it because I'm too scared to go, but I hear it's . . . well . . . disgusting . . . :)

Sush said...

As the Mother of four boys I loved this story and the tale it tells of men and their 'war stories'!
Great story!

River said...

I'm so glad you always find something to write about. I love coming here every day.

Suldog said...

Have pity. It's a peculiar affliction of we with the Y chromosone. Our wounds are our visible signs of having faced death and come away victorious. We MUST show them off. It's part of our nature.

John Nicoll said...

He must be a riot at parties!

Unknown said...

Money talks.

Wounds heal.

Or at least, they SHOULD.

Still, I gotta say, I admire the creativity!

Pat said...

“You have no regard for the flesh,” I say.
Not just flesh - skin. people should realise that the skin is one of the bodies most important organs and should be protected at all costs.

jabblog said...

Arrgggh!

Pat Tillett said...

Badeges of courage...
Growing up in a house full of boys, we often compared wounds. The bigger the scab or scar, the prouder we were.

imtsmom said...

T's Mom here - I, I, I just don't know what to say, er type... The only thing I can think of is that he does it for attention. I can't figure out where he got that from. Maybe from my brother who cut off three fingers in a lawnmower accident. It's a chick magnet. Except he tells them it happened in a shark attack. Maybe T just forgot to change his story. Or, maybe he did change it.....