Quit laughing, James

James would have appreciated the farce, I think.

Last year, I wrote here about the passing of my friend Mildred Jackson.  As often is the case, her husband James followed her not long afterward, on Nov 2 of this year.  Today was the memorial service, which I intended to attend.  Therein lay my peril.

Getting up in the morning is nothing unusual.  Folks have been doing it as long as there have been folks.  I’ve been doing it myself for nearly sixty years, mostly without noteworthy mishap–well, except for that rather extended bit of nonsense when I was a little kid (sorry, Mom).  But in accordance with both Murphy’s and Bombeck’s Laws, this morning was the morning that plans went a bit awry, in ways that now upon reflection seem like the plot for a low-level sit-com.

Most of us who bother to shave would agree that it’s a simple enough process, yet not one without its pitfalls.  Thus, it is always a good idea to delay the practice of applying a very sharp blade to one’s skin until fully awake.  I didn’t this time, and as a consequence left a blade-wide slice in my chin, where the razor turned inwards just a second before my face did.  Okay, get the toilet paper, look like an idiot for awhile; no big problem.  Should anyone ask, I got it in a cutlass-fight with one of the King’s men, and took ye wound a’fore slitting him stem-to-stern.  In other words, shut up.

I still had a few hours to go before the memorial, so I decided to kill some time by going down to my favorite local coffee shop for awhile.

 

A few preliminary words are perhaps in order here.  While the neighborhood I live in isn’t really know for its violent crime (unless you count the time some good ol’ boy in a jacked-up rig ran over the neighbors’ car at four in the morning), it’s not exactly a gated community, either.  Therefore, just to be cautious, I always carry a small can of pepper spray, usually in my front pants pocket for easy grabbing should the need arise.  For that very reason, I also walk with my hand in that pocket.  Today was no different.

What was different, however, was that somehow the safety catch on the trigger had found its way into the “off” position, meaning it was ready to fire.  What’s worse, somehow (again) the trigger, despite being recessed into the cylinder cap, got slightly depressed.  I say “slightly” because having tried the thing out when I first got it–foolishly, in a fairly enclosed area–I became quite familiar with the intensity of the effect even the blow-back can generate.  Had this thing blasted out a full shot, I would have doubtlessly known about it soon, and with extreme certainty.

But I didn’t realize it right away.  In fact, as I strolled along, I slowly became aware of–how to put this delicately–a lot more excitement in my pants than I’ve had in a long time.  Remember:  front pants pocket.  The hullabaloo continued to increase, until even I began to realize that this was more than could be explained by a bad reaction to laundry detergent residue, or a subconscious detection of stray pheromones wafting about the Springfield downtown area (noted for its wealth of “adult clubs”, if you catch my drift) after a busy Friday night.

By now I had made it to the coffee place–actually, I had to wander around for a half-hour, because this being Saturday, they opened later than during the week.  After getting my drink–did the lady at the counter wrinkle her nose at me because of some faint whiff of capsicum , or was it just for general principles?–I sat down at my usual table, and began to set up my netbook.  It was while waiting for the thing to boot that I became aware myself of some trace fragrance that made me think of peppery Chinese food.  Since that didn’t fit well with the menu there, I did a little surreptitious sniffing around and eventually found the source–the apparent source, that is–to be the hand that had been in my “loaded pocket”.

Now while I don’t claim to be the most alert person in the world, by now I was starting toget an idea what might have happened.  Add that to what was now a full-blown rock concert going on in my shorts, and I was pretty much certain.  So casually (I pretended) I headed for the toilet, did a quick check, and found that not only the pocket liner but the–ahem–layer of cotton beneath were beet-red from the mix of pepper and oil that makes up the ammunition of these little defensive shooters.  Perhaps more to the point, a region of the human body well-known for its sensitivity to stimuli, caustic or otherwise, was also showing a similar coloration, one not entirely from the active ingredient’s staining properties.  And to top off the misery…remember I said I had a nice cut on my face?  It should be easy to imagine that I might have drew it pensively across fresh slice, as well as scratched my nose or rubbed my eyes with the contaminated extremity, before I realized the likely resultant effect.

Fortunately, I had enough time to head back home, shower again, change clothes and make it to the service.  Unfortunately, all through the event, the chemical irritation hadn’t let up, which resulted not only in me fidgeting more than usual, but in a runny nose and teary eyes as well.  This being a memorial, no doubt people were thinking, “Gee, they must have been close.”  I have no idea what they thought of my flaming cutlass-wound; a failed attempt at hari-kari over the loss?
It’s later now, I’m back home, and the inflammation is just one more bad memory.  I’ve gained more respect for pepper spray, too.

I’m just glad it wasn’t a pocket .38 I was carrying.

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