Brace yourself for butt-tastic T.M.I.
I sunburnt one ass-cheek. Yes, just one. I was working in my garden this past weekend, wearing stupidly-worn-out cutoffs, one leg-hole of which was enlarged due to having gotten it caught on a piece of decorative wrought-iron work on a gazebo handrail. So, when I wear these shorts (only for grubby jobs like gardening or painting, at home) the better portion of my left buttock is exposed, as well as whatever underpants I am wearing.
To my credit, I was wearing sunscreen on most other bits of my body—at least those which I knew would be exposed to the elements—neck, shoulders, waist, face, arms, legs, but didn’t get all the way up to the buttcheeks. Yeah, ass isn’t always at the forefront of my mind, no matter what you may have been told.
So, I’m out there in the garden, marveling at the iridescence of earthworms in the sunlight and musing about whether or not the rank abundance of sowbugs bodes good or evil, and whether or not the sunflowers I am planting in front of the bedroom windows will be sufficient to prevent my accidentally providing the little neighbor boys with informal intro to girly anatomy lessons. Potter, potter, dig, dig, toodle, toodle, plant, plant, weed, etcetera, etcetera, for hours in the sun, but I laugh, oh how I laugh at those nasty UV rays, for I am fortified with SPF50 goodness in the form of “Water Babies Spectra3†greasy-smelly zinc-oxide and vitamin enriched balm of sun-repulsing wonder. Soon my fortification is joined with a fine layer of rich, brown, loamy soil and bits of grass and probably squished bug guts, as everything adheres nicely to the rich, greasy sun lotion, but it’s all good. I am being smart and responsible and protecting my precious epidermis. Wheee!
I dug and planted and meditated on the sensual wonders of gardening until I simply couldn’t stand it anymore, then I went inside and took a shower. As I soaped and scrubbed, and shed a layer of valuable topsoil, I noticed that my left buttcheek was stinging a bit, but I chalked it up to a probable bugbite—these things happen. I lived in my entomological delusion up until my itchy, stinging buttock started to peel—that being the day before yesterday. I came to the sad, slightly disgusting revelation that I sunburnt one half of my ass. Then, the internal monologues began.
Mostly, I am having this absurd scenario running through my head about a trip to the doctor’s office for a skin-cancer screening. I’m a very moley person, and while I have never had a mole turn on me, I did talk my doctor into scissoring one off this past fall that I had thought was dodgy. It turned out to be nothing, but I’m all about keeping on the safe side.
Anyway, mentally, I’m at the doctor’s office, having her investigate my buttock, which has developed a suspicious spot, which, indeed, turns out to be skin cancer. Except it is not skin cancer—it’s butt cancer, and she’ll have to amputate. So then I end up like Cunegunde in Voltaire’s Candide, with only one buttock. And then I wonder what sort of lurching pimp-limp a one-buttocked woman would affect when galumphing along. I cannot possibly imagine that one could walk gracefully when shy a gluteus-maximus, more or less.
And this, my friends, is why my mind should not be allowed to wander about unsupervised. I basically become a one-woman Terrance-and-Phillip show, with shades of Beavis & Butthead, among other unsavory things. I honestly don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.