Transatlantic---"Bridge Across Forever"
It's a shame how some people make fun of those less fortunate or, in my case, those that are completely blitzed
at 10 in the morning.
I went to the mall to pass some time after spending the pervious 5 hours in an allnight karaoke bar. I have found
that a mall can sober you up quickly for some reason that I haven't quite figured out.
Anyway, I was in some store checking out picture frames (or maybe it was power tools?), when I saw a kid staring
at me. I stared back while trying to summon up my evil ESP so I could have the kid kill, kill, kill!, but it didn't
work and I guess I didn't scare him because he just stared back.
After a few minutes of this I became a bit frazzled and looked away. This little incident had sobered me up enough
and I started to walk away when I heard the kid say, "Hey dad, what's hanging out of that guy's ear?"
I turned around and this time I had the kid AND his father staring at me. Since my ESP powers obviously weren't
working, I again stared back, but this time at the father.
So we stared at each other for a while and then he finally said to his son, "I guess some people have never
heard of Q-tips."
I shook my head from side to side and, sure enough, a huge chunk of ear wax dislodged itself from my left ear and
fell to the ground.
As I bent down to pick it up, I felt myself transported back many years, back to when I was a child growing up
in a small town in NEw Jersey.
There was a kid named Mike who was in the same grade as me. Mike's family wasn't well off, but he was a cool kid
and we hung around a lot.
One day, Mike noticed that he had a problem hearing in one of his ears. When he told his mother, she looked in
his ear and noticed that there was a god build up of ear wax. Since finances were very low that week and they couldn't
afford Q-tips, she told Mike to go outside and get a sturdy thin branch.
Mike brought in a branch which his mother broke into a few pieces and then boiled. When the boiling was done, she
took a knife and sharpened an end of the stick.
When she was done, she called Mike down to the kitchen and had him sit at the table. She slowly inserted the stick
into his ear in order to dislodge the earwax, but then the the phone rang which startled her, causing her hand
to jerk and the stick became lodged in Mike's ear.
They didn't have any medical insurance and were scared to pull the stick out thinking that doing so would cause
some kind of permanent damage, so the stick was left jutting out of Mike's ear.
Mike was okay with this and continued with his everyday life. I was amazed at how strong he was especially when
other kids called him things like "Mr-stick-in-the-ear" or "Ear stick Mike". Kids can be so
cruel.
Mike liked playing basketball and was quite good. When we got to high school, he tried out for the team and made
the starting squad. By this time, the stick in his ear was old news and nobody paid much attention to it anymore.
During the first basketball game of the season, Mike was under the basket ready to rebound the ball when a guy
on the opposing team accidentally elbowed Mike in his ear driving the stick deeper into his skull. Mike fell to
the court convulsing, the ambulance was called and Mike never played basketball again.
Actually, he never did anything else again since the stick was driven deep enough into his brain to make him nothing
better than a drooling idiot. As we all know, there's really no place in society for drooling idiots, so Mike's
life was fucked and I lost a friend because there really was no reason for me to hang around with him anymore since
I would have to wipe his mouth every couple of minutes, which I didn't have the time or patience to do. And I still
don't.
I came back to the present and walked over to the kids father and beat the shit out of him for bringing back such
a bad memory. When I was done I turned to the kid in order to kick his ass, but he saw that I meant business and
ran away.
I guess what I'm trying to say is be nice to others, especially those that are drunk, or something like that.
COMING NEXT: Maybe something
new, maybe not.
Email Stephen!
snide_remarks@theweirdcrap.com
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