Friday, 9 October 2020

A Foreign Body Down Under.

I strongly suspect, in fact I’m nearly certain of it, that I have a foreign body in my groin. (And just in case you think I’m being uncomfortably personal here, I should point out that it’s in the top part of my groin adjacent to where my left thigh pivots. It’s all to do with the procedure I had done a couple of weeks ago to get my left leg functioning again.)

I won’t bother to offer what evidence I have to support this suspicion, but it’s very strong and I don’t much like it, especially since the object is almost certainly green and made of plastic. This won’t do, will it? If it were a piece of shrapnel coloured gun metal grey I’d be able to hold my head up high in any company. I could even fly to Australia, and when the customs man asked the question which determines whether or not you’re a fit person to be allowed entry – do you like Vegemite, mate? – I could answer: ‘I really couldn’t say, my fine fellow, but I do have shrapnel.’ And then he would be duly impressed and reply: ‘Oh right, mate. That’s the next best thing. In you come and pick up your barbie vouchers by the door.’

But green and plastic? How can I possibly walk freely among my fellow creatures with a green plastic article loitering indecently off limits? And what about when I’ve shuffled off my very own mortal coil and been cremated? Some curious person might empty the ashes out onto an old newspaper or something and exclaim in a tone of disgust and disbelief: ‘Yerk! What’s this lump of green stuff, here?’ And then somebody from the assembled multitude in the room would offer: ‘Looks like a bit of melted plastic to me.’ And the rest would concur, and then I’d be too ashamed to haunt anybody ever again. 

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