The following story is true. Unfortunately.
Fred” had been with me for almost 25 years. We were tight, and Fred never left my side. Through victories and tragedies, I always knew Fred would be there.
One day in 2007, however, it became clear: Fred had to be cut out of my life.
He was a sebaceous cyst.
Located strategically in my right arm pit, Fred was a tough competitor. When my hair left me, Fred stayed put. When I lost my figure to middle age, Fred was stalwart. (Get it? “Stalled wart”?)
At first, he was barely there, a pea-sized nodule. As a precaution, I talked to my doctor.
“Doc, I’m dying!” I asked, tears flowing free.
“Geez, Richey, pipe down,” said “Doc,” my doctor. “I got patients in the next room.”
As I tore my garment and raised my hands toward the heavens, Doc said that, from its texture, Fred was just a tiny cyst.
Kissing Doc fully on the mouth, I strolled out of the office, whistling at the birds in the trees. Meanwhile, Doc scrubbed his mouth with a sterile rinse.
Two decades later, back from L.A., I checked in with “Doc,” who took me back as a patient, despite my exuberant hypochondria and inappropriate displays of affection.
“So, how’s Fred?” Doc asked with a smile.
I raised my right arm.
“Mother of Morgan Freeman!” Doc shouted, pointing with alarm.
Fred, you see, had grown to the size of a small grapefruit. I looked like I was blocking unsightly perspiration with a softball.
Hurriedly, his staff cleared the waiting room and, therefore, the blast radius. All scrubbed in and set to work.
Lying prone on a table, my right arm extended back, I looked like a Nazi passed out at a rally. After numbing the area, Doc made the first incision.
Fred burst like a malignant blister. Warm water trickled down my side.
“We need to get all of this out,” Doc told his staff. “Otherwise, it’ll return.”
As Doc returned to his mission, the enemy detonated a chemical weapon.
“What in Ed’s name is that?” I blurted, my nose curling up into my sinuses.
Evidently, Fred was not just a sebaceous cyst, but also a “keratinous cyst.” It is as unpleasant as its name suggests. Take a cyst, bury it in your armpit for 20 years, then lay it open like a trout. A trout that has been dead in someone’s backseat. For two months. July and August.
Keratin smells like feet. Hundreds of them. Distilled into a pickle jar.
The veteran nurses swooned like Justin Bieber groupies. Doc hung in there, though his nose hair had begun to fall out.
In the end, Fred was defeated. All that remained was an inch-wide scar and the half-life of whatever biological toxin Fred released.
Less than a year later, Doc moved into a new suite of offices. But me? I can’t move on.
Freddy’s dead.
Contact Rodney Richey, whose shirts fit better these days, at 640-4861, rodney.richey@heraldbulletin.com.
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