The pleasure/pain principle
Since my phone and house keys were stolen on Friday night (I meet a fuckwit AND someone steals my bag, all in one night!) I haven’t been able to lock my bike up, so this morning, I leave it under the guardianship of the Herero lady who sells the Big Issue outside the supermarket. Because she swelters in this heat, dressed as she is in vast Victorian skirts and petticoats, I pay her for her services in Namibia’s universal currency – a cool drink.
I go in to see the doctor, who flirts with me every time I go in there; this makes me feel weirdly bashful. She comes into the room, all gung-ho, bearing a thermos flask of liquid nitrogen in one hand, and a fistful of q-tips in the other, sits me down, and with no further ado stabs me in the armpit with a cotton-bud that has a surface temperature of approximately -196 celcius. It fucking hurts, but I figure it’s better than skin cancer. I look at my armpit, and there is now a crater where my strange mole once was. It makes me faintly nauseous. She stabs me a couple more times, and attacks another completely random red patch ‘just in case’.
On my way back to the office I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to buy a pair of shoes. I saw them on Sunday. They have 3 inch heels, and they make my normally stumpy calves look incredible; I am in love with them. I put this uncharacteristic extravagance down to the fact that the pain of having bits of my armpit frozen off has addled my brain, and so I am now listening to myself when I say things like “But the exchange rate is so good right now, and it is your birthday tomorrow.â€
I lug my wounded armpit back to the office. My new acquisitions don’t really go with my outfit, but no-one can see, because my feet are under my desk. I sit, quietly content, and tap my heels pleasingly on the tiled floor.
January 17th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
sweetpea. much underplaying the mole zappage, must have been quite frightening, surely? glad the shoes had a therapeutic effect. mx
January 17th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Hey melsworth! It wasn’t really frightening. I’ve had moles removed and zapped before. Except in the UK they have this space age looking thing with a zapper gun on the end, which is attached to a gas canister. This time it was a normal, slightly battered orange thermos, and she said “It’s fresh! I just popped over to Afrox to get it for you”. That was weird.
January 17th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
There certainly _is_ something about going to the doctor that makes you feel like you deserve a treat, isn’t there? Or maybe it’s just when they remove cells of one sort or another. I know that whenever I face stirrups and speculum, some kind of something yummy will be consumed before I even get home or back to work.
Happy birthday from a stranger halfway around the world!
January 18th, 2007 at 3:50 am
Happy birthday, Rachie. Just celebrated mine last weekend. Little cottage on the beach, no need for shoes. Played endless Spongebob’s Game of Life — highly realistic reflection of my own life.