I am paying for my raising. Fact is, I have been doing that for a while.

My latest payment was to have a part of my left ear whacked off. Most of my childhood found me outside running around the farm in the sunshine. Lots and lots of sunshine.

All those years in the sun finally caught up with me. My dermatologist and I are now on a first name basis. On my last visit he informed me I needed to have a Basel Cell carcinoma removed by a surgeon.

I asked if the surgeon’s name happened to be Mike Tyson and he assured me it wasn’t. Then he scheduled the procedure for today.

When I was called back to the procedure room Carrie Underwood was on the intercom singing You Better Run For Your Life.

While waiting for Mike Tyson to walk in and take a bite out’a my ear a memory from the past suddenly came to mind.

When I was a kid we had an old mutt named Tippy who would wander off into the woods at night to go coon hunting.

Tippy would come home most mornings all scratched and clawed up from his encounters in the woods the night before.

One morning he limped home with his face bloodied, missing part of one ear and the other one was torn in half.

I wondered if I was going to leave the building looking like old Tippy.

Carrie had begun another song. Leave The Pieces When You Go.

Dr. Tyson walked in and the fun began. After the cutting stopped he left the room to have the specimen tested.

While he was gone his assistant began doing something with what was left of my ear. I could hear a loud crackling sound. I asked her, Do you smell something burning?”

As Carrie began to sing Living On Tulsa Time she answered, “That would be your ear, Dear.” Then she left the room.

Several minutes went by before Mike came back in and said everything looked good. The first whack got it all. Then he said he was going to attach a piece of donor placenta to my ear to aid in healing and help fill in the gap.

“Placenta?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Then I asked him if he knew the name of the donor. “I should probably send her a thank you note.

He said it wouldn’t be necessary.

I asked if I’d be able to tune pianos by ear after the surgery. He asked, “You tune pianos?”

I decided not to answer after his assistant groaned and he walked out.

She thoroughly bandaged my wound and wrapped a big band around my head to keep everything in place.

Carrie was singing Can I Get A Hallelujah as she finished mummifying me.

As I was putting on my jacket getting ready to leave Carrie had given way to some guy singing Whiskey’s Supposed To Drown The Memory.

I looked through my paperwork but that wasn’t on any of the prescriptions he’d written for me.

I’m home now and I’ll probably stay here until I can remove all these bandages. I don’t want to traumatize any small children in the neighborhood.

Friends Romans, Countrymen, lend your ears… Well at least one until I can take the bandages off and hear out of both of them.

_______________
Rick Algood
April 17, 2023