It started with a little tickle right along the edge of my left shoulder blade. I thought there might be a bug on my shirt so I grabbed the bottom and fluffed it out a few times to knock it off. It was then that I realized that that tickle was on my skin rather than on my shirt. The quick puffs of air only intensified the sensation. The tickle grew to a slight itch. I wrapped my arm across my back as far as it would go and even pushed up on my elbow with my other hand, but I still could not reach the source of my discomfort. Because I could not reach the spot, my brain decides to put an urgent stamp on the situation.
I desperately find the nearest door jamb and rub up and down like a bear on a tree in an attempt to ease the itch. The friction from this action created a patch of burning skin that circled the original annoyance. Now I was itching and burning. A dull surface was not helping the situation. I needed something sharp. I point my squirmy, dancing discomfort toward the kitchen, open the silverware drawer and take out a steak knife. That’s when the inner dumbass alert signals. “Don’t do it, Molly. That’s too sharp. You know it is. Slicing off a ribbon of skin will not make it stop itching.” I had a vision of a myself peeling a strip of my back skin from my shirt only to discover that it still itched, so I anchor the strip on the counter between two fingers and scratch it with my finger nail and I am temporarily distracted enough to forget about my itch. You’re right, dumbass alert. You often are.
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| Which one of these is the cootie fork?? |
The tickling on my back snaps me back into reality and I reach for a fork. It reached perfectly and with the right angle and pressure applies just the right amount of delicious, scraping relief. Goose bumps rise along my arms and I am in sheer ecstasy. I think I might have actually moaned a little. I absent mindedly drop the fork back in the drawer. Queue the dumbass alert, “You did not just do that.” I look down to see a tangle of forks and I have no idea which one it is. I don’t know what is on my back that itches with such urgency. It could be a patch of dry skin or an oozing group of poison ivy blisters. Either way it’s not really something I want to put in my mouth. I grab all the forks and throw them in the sink and reach for the dish soap. “That’s what you get, idiot.” (The dumbass alert always gets in the last word.)
