Brave, Brave Plottie and the Nose of the Future

Nobody likes the C word, so Plotnik didn't mention that he had to have a basal cell carcinoma (on the side of his face) removed this morning. Even the Great Plotochondriac wasn't worried about this one, and it went perfectly, no problems. In fact, in the end, the procedure is so hi-tech as to be almost interesting.

Plotnik made only one suggestion to the surgery team: the Yanni Plays Abba With Ten Million Strings CD would be more palatable if they turned up the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP from all the monitors they hook you up to, so as to drown the f*!*er out completely.

After they were all done and they'd stitched up Plottie the Brave, he asked the doctor: since the dermatologist said these things never spread and there is no danger whatsoever from having them, why they had to remove them at all? The doctor said that if you let them go long enough they will burst through to the nerves underneath and that is a pathway to the brain and you get brain cancer. You want brain cancer?

Plotnik said, meekly, no Sir.

Well, then, the doctor said.

Anyone who spent his or her life in the sun, as Plotnik did for his first 18 years, deliberately burning and peeling so each new set of skin would be darker, and covering himself with Coppertone Burn-o-Matic with Cocoa Butter just to speed the malignant process along, has got to worry about these things in their wizening years. And now...get this...Plotnik has to have a dermatological physical EVERY YEAR from now on. ANOTHER PHYSICAL FOR CHRISSAKE! FULL BODY! They'll strip the boy nekkid and check all his pathetic pores for little basals teeming with smegma.

But, apparently, he deserves it. And yes, yes, yes, the social irony of the concept of basically burning away your skin just so you can get darker does not escape Plotnik. Meanwhile, generations of already-dark people were using skin bleaches to lighten themselves up.

You should have seen the waiting room, filled with old people with bandages on their noses, ears, temples, chins. Noses were the most numerous. Plotnik would think that if the sun lands first and hardest upon that party of your body that is the easiest to find, his - let's say prosperous - nose would be the obvious port of entry.

For now, he just has a bandage under the earpiece of his glasses. He has to apply new-age-ice-in-a-bag every thirty minutes for eight hours. He is hungry. He is always hungry.