One of the charming byproducts of having 80 smallish wounds on your body is that they all scab up and get itchy at the same time. Oh, what a marvelous slice of heaven this is.

I'm no stranger to itchy though. I've documented my love-hate relationship with itchy before. So, really, 80 itchy scabs can be viewed as 80 scratching opportunities. The scab is half-full, grasshopper! I can scratch my left hand or my right hand (front or back!), my right arm, my right leg, and my new personal favorite: my right ass cheek. I think less of evolution and more of intelligent design each time I scratch that baby.

If you scratch a scab a teeny bit often enough, a funny thing happens. It starts to loosen up a scooch. Soon, you've got a scab with one corner peeking up. Really, it's not so much peeking as calling out to me. "Mike!" it pesters, "Yooo hooooooooooo, Mikey!"

"Shhhhh!" I admonish, "I'm busy scratching right ass cheek."

"Pick at me!" it demands satanically.

I am powerless to resist. So, I pick at the arm scab, and the hand scab, and the knee scab, and the shin scab, and plenty of their demonic little friends, and it is deeply satisfying. I'm awash in raw pink skin, punctuated by little bits of less demanding scablets. I am, in a word, pretty.

My wife, for reasons that are undiscernable, finds this joyous activity of mine to be...man, what is word I'm looking for. Let me ask her right now.....

"Disgusting"

Thanks, Hank!

Anyway, I'm cool with that. We don't have to share all our activities. I'm not into beading or volunteering at my daughter's school. Similarly, I would not demand she pick at her scabs, and I certainly have no desire for her to pick at my scabs. They're all mine, baby!