The Indignity of Being ME

I am thankful that this week marked the reconnection with one of my oldest and best friends, and it occurred to me that he's got a pretty damned good memory and a lot of exposure to me in my youth- yeah, no shortage of material. So with that being said, I thought it wise to tell some of the more mortifying tales before he reminds Schmoopie of them (ha! - like SHE'D blog), and in this way I can at least try to explain myself.

Part one- the Joker.

There was a 7-Eleven down the street from us that sold beef jerky. I'm a sucker for beef jerky, or venison jerky, or buffalo jerky- anything that can be "jerkied". Except 7-Eleven sold bad jerky, from sinewy delinquent cows I guess. It looked like big patches of bark from a sickly brown Sycamore more than conventional beef jerky. It was rigid and stale, but by God, it was jerky. $1 for a roughly 4"X8" slab. I like things sold by the slab. So one fine day, I'm filling up the car with said friend and Schmoopie, and I added a slab o'meaty delight to the bill.

It was a self serve kind of affair- a lucite box with a hinged lid, where anyone could open it, sneeze in it, paw about with their grubby ebola mitts- whatever. You bought a slab and you took your chances. I happened to choose a slab with a "spur"- that is to say, a barb of hardened meat. The "shiv" of the cow. The point of which was not completely parallel with the plane of the slab.

I took my peppered meat plank triumphantly to the car where "TM" (his blogger handle) and Schmoopie were patiently waiting and I took a manly bite. Incisors and bicuspids will only get you so far with these things and in order to pare off a mouth-sized portion, I pulled the slab to the side. With a snap, it splintered free like plywood, and the spur/shiv of meat raked across my face from the edge of my mouth toward my ear. Bleeding. I made myself look like the Joker from Batman on one side. I'd once again hurt myself with food.

This is an artists rendering of the sad result. I was mocked ever after.