Sting Of Retribution
Back. Contrary to the opinion of a whole team of doctors assigned to my care, there was enough insulin in the world to save me. Barely.

There is so much candy in my house at present that if we don't get a massive invasion of ants in the next 24 hours, I will lose all faith in ants as a species.

As for what I did on my day off blogging, well, let me share that with you now. It's either that or I talk about the Supreme Court thing. Or maybe bird flu again. Anyone? Halloween, yes? Yes.

Last Monday, if you will recall, my one day of non-blogging resulted in a mild but unmistakable case of karmic blowback so traumatic as to require pictures to illustrate the event in all its metaphysical brutality.

This Monday, rest assured that I was once again made to suffer for missing a day with you, my Bucketeers. Something happened to me so horrible, so heinous, so shockingly unexpected that I still can't believe it to type it. I just... I guess I'll just have to say it:

I got stung by a wasp.

Whichever one of you owns a Pops voodoo doll and likes to abuse it on days I don't blog, rest assured: it's working. Time and money well spent, that.

Since my wife took the day off, we went running around all over the goddamn place doing all kinds of crap that needed to get done. This included a lunch break to check out the new park that has finally been built out in our old neighborhood. It was a giant pile of classic Riverside County weed-ridden mudslide-in-waiting dirt while we lived there. Now it is a lovely acreage of rolling hills and play equipment, all ideally suited as a breeding ground for deadly flying insects and personal humiliation.

While on the swings next to one of my kids, apparently the little bastard (the wasp I mean this time, not my kid) landed on my arm. As my elbow bent when I leaned forward to execute the back-cycle of my swing, the rippling, sinewy muscle beneath the taut, golden skin of my forearm must have contracted and threatened to crush the creature. Because that's when it stung me.

The worst part was when I leapt off the swing holding my arm, I sullied the innocent ears of my darling children with a selection of vulgarities and blasphemies taken from Pops' Greatest Hits. "Oh Shit, Holy Fuck!" was followed by "Goddammit Goddammit Goddammit". Always a crowd pleaser. I then launched into some standards, such as "Jesus Motherfucking Christ, Oh Christ" and "Oh Shit, Oh Shit, Oh Holy Fucking Shit". I closed the set with a rousing rendition of "Jesus, Mary Mother of Donkeyfucking God That Hurts".

Those should go over well today when my son gets back to Catholic school.

I had a little tiny red welt and everything. I don't know when the last time any of you were stung by a wasp, but it burns for a while. And it didn't just get to me. The pain was so persistently bad that Mrs. Pops, obviously suffering from some kind of sympathy pain, was moved to tell me to "Stop being such a pussy and shut up about it already."

The pain came and went, but the PTSD was non-negotiable. I haven't been stung by a wasp since I was 9. In some sort of triggered Proustian sense-memory, I kept fighting the urge to do other things I hadn't done since I was 9 like hock loogies, call "dibs" for stuff, punch people when I would see a VW Beetle and offer to show my junk to 9-year-old-girls. It's a good thing my wife was there to monitor the situation because I'm pretty sure most of those are a parole violation.

The rest of the day went fine. It was Halloween, so there were the costumes and the candy and the strangers invading my personal space and begging me for free stuff. All very uncomfortable.

Some of you were curious as to what my kids went dressed as. In descending order of age, they went as 1) An aborted fetus (I suspect Catholic school influence) 2) John Keats' "Ode On A Grecian Urn" and 3) Tigger.

The oldest had some anti-Planned Parenthood literature he wanted to distribute as well, but I told him that this was Halloween, where it is better to receive than to give. As for the second child, that one was all his idea. We suspect he's either a genius or a psychopath. Either way, we bet they make a TV-movie of the week about him some day.

Me, being a history dork, I like to go dressed as famous historical personages. This year I went as Pops.

No, not "me". I am not Pops. "Pops" is this character I created. The real me is me, Korvath Ganymede MacLeish Horrington III. There, I said it. Finally, for the first time you all know my real name. Ironic that I chose Halloween as the occasion to unmask myself. I feel so liberated. This must be what it felt like to be George "Sulu" Takei last week.

"Pops" in and of himself is not historical, so I went as Pops circa 2004. That meant I ate all the candy as I went and tried very hard to insert references to Brad Pitt's dick into every conversation. The other dads were uncomfortable, but I was a big hit with the moms and college students.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.9


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 10:20 AM