There are times when the natural environment has it in for me. And Mother Nature, like most women I know, has moods. This past weekend Mother Nature and I had a little run in, that gave “it’s no skin of my nose” a whole different yet literal meaning.
Everyone is entitled to the odd “blond moment” and I had such a moment this past weekend. You see on Sunday I decided to do a spot of gardening. Why I felt this necessary escapes me. Our gardener did a mighty fine job the day before and there wasn’t really any need for it, but I indulged the urge regardless. As I was watering our flowers and admiring the odd butterfly, I noticed a branch that was half dead and had the potential of becoming an eyesore. So, I decided to cut it down. A simple enough exercise you might say, so what could go wrong?
Well, when cutting down a tree branch it is advisable not to stand underneath it when cutting it down - a simple logical deduction that escaped me. The branch did come down alright. It came down on my fucking nose. Proximity and gravity can be bitched! As it hit me, I had a very lucid moment and recall thinking that I knew God had a plan for my life and I wasn’t quite sure how this fitted into the bigger scheme of things. As the nerve endings’ pain signals didn’t have far to travel to my brain the pain was instantaneous. And as all head wounds do, my nose bled profusely. As hubby was helping to clean and plaster my nose, I came to the horrible realization - it was going to leave a scab. A big nasty SCAB on my very big nose! I have always joked that I wanted a nose job, but this was not what I had in mind.
Having an injury is one thing but having a self inflicted injury on the one prominent feature of my face for the entire world to see as a whole other story. So came Monday morning and having to go to work with a scab that seemed to be growing by the bloody hour, I did what any gay boy worth his tiara would do – I reached for the makeup. Anyone that has ever visited a Mac Cosmetic counter will confirm that base and concealer are designed around your specific skin tone and not around bruises and scabs. I don’t know where abused women shop for their makeup, and on Monday morning I sure wished I could call one of them.
Spending a good twenty minutes using the makeup I had, ladling concealer onto the scab as one would do with icing on a cake, I managed to lessen its visibility. Or at least that’s what I told myself and choose to believe. When I arrived at work I decided to go about my business and pretend that nothing was wrong. Well, just because you pretend nothing is wrong does not mean other people will pretend with you. As much as I had hoped nobody would notice the bloody mess on my nose, they did! Some colleagues were very courteous at restraining themselves from asking me about it, and others were not.
Being rather embarrassed of my blond moment and the resulting injury I eventually conceded defeat and decided to put the whole incident out there. After all I didn’t want my colleagues thinking I was in an abuse marriage with a husband not chivalrous enough to beat me on parts of my body where my clothes could hide the bruises. Sure they all had a good chuckle on my behalf and some probably even went home and told their spouses of the stupid thing the gay guy at work did, but at least the massive scab was explained. But work was not the only problem.
I have theory, every time I have an appointment with my orthodontist I arrive with some injury or ailment. The first time I saw her was after my cosmetic procedure and I looked like I was in a fight and had lost. The second time I arrived with an eye infection which looked like I had burst a vain in my right eye, and now the nose thing. Not once did she ask me about what had happened, but I am sure she wonders. Maybe there is a direct correlation between my orthodontist appointments and me getting hurt.
I will not be cutting down any more branches off trees for some time to come. For the next ten days or so I will have to walk around with a scab on my nose. I will not explain it to strangers at the crockery store line who look at me sympathetically, nor will I explain it to people at meetings. It’s embarrassing and I am so glad I do not have a job in television.
Till next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment