Slinger and the Sting

With a wake-up call of 4 am, I won’t be busting out any decent thesis tonight. But before I knock back that last glass of cognac, I’d like to issue an official statement: Never again will I scoff at the lowly yellowjacket. Not since one with the jaws of a small dog leapt up and bit the shit out of my left hand this morning. “Oh, SNAP!” I did not yell, choosing instead a few choice adjectives I picked up in the Navy to better express the sudden throbbing sensation in my thumb. Looking down, I saw that I was standing in a whole nest of yellow jackets! In fact, I think I interrupted some kind of striped wasp convention; that or they were just breaking for a nice catered lunch of sweaty photog flesh. It was then I began high-stepping it out of that nice lady’s backyard; leaving her and our newest reporter to marvel at the linguistic remedies I used to sate my newfound pain.

Come to think of it, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to those construction workers I made blush - even that foreman guy who shot Cheerwine out of his nose while watching the cameraman dance. Sorry, fellas! It’s just that … this doesn’t happens to me. See, I’m that guy who bugs never bite. I can roll around half naked in poison sumac and never break out in hives. I knock back a pot of coffee at 9 PM and still fall asleep by midnight (once I shave my tongue, of course). It isn’t that I’m all that manly (I’m not). I’m just usually impervious to all those niggling little inconveniences of the natural world. Or so I thought. Apparently, the little menace that took a hunk out of my hand didn’t check her voice-mail. Otherwise she would have known to leave me the hell alone. As it was she didn’t, and twelve hours later my thumb is still throbbing.

So there you have it, the exhortations of wounded word nerd. I know, I know: Mal James is ducking enemy fire with far less drama, but dagnabit(!) - my hand hurts and as long as it’s my blog, I’ll choose the subject matter, thank you very much. Besides, my wife’s a former ER nurse and unless I bring her my spleen in a paper sack, she doesn’t want to hear it. That reminds me, did I ever tell you about the time that rogue wave wiped the bottom of the Outer Banks with my unshaven face? It was a breezy autumn morn and I’d just watched a rain-slickered Dan Rather glower at an underling...