Perspectives

I sometimes talk to the television. I know. I fight it. I do. Someone’s prattling on, talking nonsense, gibberish and I’ll unleash a “shut the fork up.” Any of the simplistic Tea Party morons or Rick Scott (one and the same) can provoke my ire.

How about the local TV promo? The must see live at five, unfolding “Motel Mayhem on the Trail” featuring some disheveled, impoverished, shopping-cart-pushing, toothless old hag who saw it “all!” Only on Six!

Or, the TV weatherman, so giddy he’s actually drooling over the impending Armageddon of a “Grab the old ladies. Everyone goes!” approaching storm system. Oh, and screw your Super Doppler, X-Mo, Mabuse-Mo, Skydar-Raydar that sees around corners, under water and up skirts. Jeeeeeez.

You know who watches the national news at 6:30 p.m.? Men with erec … uh, extension issues, people without teeth, women whose bones, that if caught in a stiff wind, might break, and squirming white guys on job interviews who think that surreptitiously eating a piece of plastic will somehow magically diffuse the gas passing from that never-to-be-mentioned orifice. “What are your salary expectations?” Toot! Toot! “That much!?”

And sick people of every imaginable sort. Invariably, some gray-haired old fogey, just a few years older than myself, looks straight at the camera and starts whining about some aspect of his condition. He’ll reluctantly rub his shoulder and arm and start: “I have this deep, radiating pain …”

And I’ll calmly observe to no one, “Yeah, it’s called life.”

I do not know anyone who does not have a plate-load of life (pain) that they are dealing with. If not themselves personally (at this specific moment), then a family member. A long-time unemployed nephew, a niece who can’t get pregnant, an Alzheimeric father, an alcoholic sibling, disappointing children, a relative upside-down experiencing foreclosure, a worthless son-in-law, a shrewish, emasculating daughter-in-law, a friend with breast cancer, problems at work or school, any number of money-related issues, a failing business, divorce, disenchantment, disease, despair, depression, suicide, the middle-aged man who came out of the closet late and has yet to reconnect with his parents, broke, destitute, isolated and alone. Did I leave anything out?

Did I mention my boob? That’s right, my boob. My pectoral. My breast. For the past five months, I’ve had a lump in my right breast. It kept expanding until it was half the size of a chicken egg. In my breast! Just like a woman! Initially, I was a bit miffed. A lump in my breast? That’s what “goils” unfortunately get. Then I thought, “Hmmm, much better in my breast than in my, um, favorite ‘B’ parts.” If you catch my drift. I went to the doctor. He wanted to give me a script for a mammogram. A mammogram! Must I wear a skirt, too?

I had done my research. Only 1 percent of breast cancers are in men and my lump hurt. “Most” cancers do not hurt. So I said, “I’ll wait and see.”

Months passed. Folks (who care about me) got in my face. It didn’t go away.

And then I got the news I had been waiting for. My insurance actually pays for such procedures. Hah! No, seriously.

My X-ray technician said nice skirt, and the doc proclaimed it was nothing.

Whatta boob! I am.