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Inside: Cultural Sausage. ~ Ludic Lists. ~ Skullbucket. Outside: New additions to the Ludic Lit page, which features selections of my writing outside this site. "games dreamers play" "dead wops" "hardcore military" "towelhead" "flaming guitar tattoo" "insurance company run-around" "how hump comic" "William Henry Harrison fat" |
09.07.2004
I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. No, I am not a pleasant man at all. At least, that's what my wife used to tell me, rest her soul. To her I would say, "I am a hungry man! Why not get me my dinner, already, instead of complaining?" But try talking to that woman. Of course you can't now, she's passed away. I still haven't gotten my dinner. I believe there is something wrong with my liver. However, I don't know a damn thing about my liver; neither do I know whether there is anything really wrong with me. What am I, a doctor? No. A retiree, I am. A lonely old man with nobody to talk to, I am that. A guy whose liver might be failing, sure. But a doctor, that I am not. My son, he is a doctor. Not that he ever calls up his father to say, hello, dad, thanks for working in the deli for forty-six years to put me through medical school so I could become a big shot, how is your liver doing?. No, no, he's a busy young man and has no time for such niceties. I am not under medical treatment, and never have been except once back in '78 when I had such a case of the shingles you wouldn't believe, though I do respect medicine and doctors, especially ones who find the time to call their parents. At least the ones who are still alive and didn't die of a broken heart because their son never called. In addition, I am extremely superstitious, at least sufficiently so to respect medicine. Of course you have to respect medicine these days, with prices the way they are, am I right? Of course I'm right. Anyway, I am well educated enough to be superstitious -- not that I brag, or anything, I am only saying it for information -- but I am superstitious for all that.) The truth is, I refuse medical treatment out of spite. I don't suppose you will understand that. Am I talking loud enough? Can you hear me? I'll talk louder! No, no, it's no bother, honestly. Well, I do. Refuse medical treatment out of spite. I don't expect I shall be able to explain to you who it is I am actually trying to annoy in this case by my spite. But I'll give you a hint. It's my no-good son who never calls. I know I was being very subtle before, but that's the long and the short of it. I realize full well that I can't "hurt" the doctors by refusing to be treated by them; I realize better than anyone, particularly that lousy ingrate of a son who lives in Bel-Air, California, la dee dah your majesty, no I can't be bothered to visit the Lower East Side this weekend I have to perform an angioplasty on the Vice-President or somebody, Mr. Big Shot, that by all this I am only hurting myself and no one else. Not that anyone cares. What is another lonely old man, found dead on the #9 train, in this unfeeling city? What? This isn't the #9 train? Well, what's the difference, anyway. One train is as good as another one for dying alone and unloved of a busted liver and your son won't even remember a card on Father's Day. Now, what was I saying? Oh, I remember. Still, the fact remains that if I refuse to be medically treated, even if I could, with this fekakte health care system we have nowadays, and you have to wait three weeks to see some doctor who just got off the boat from who knows where, not that I'm saying anything against those people but I should want someone looking at my liver who goes home and eats a dog for dinner or wears a bath mat around his waist and shakes a voodoo doll or what have you?, it is only out of spite. My liver hurts me -- well, let it damn well hurt, you should pardon my language! -- the more it hurts the better. Not that I'm complaining. |
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| TODAY'S DRIFTWOOD: "The whole world is about three drinks behind." (Humphrey Bogart) |