You'll never believe what I saw the other day exclaimed Terry
as he sharpened the carving knife one Thanksgiving. Terry is a radio-oncologist
who specializes in cancers of the urinary system and you rarely want to hear
whatever it was he saw the other day.
I was putting radioactive needles into the sweetest old man's, well, bits
and I noticed an extraordinary tattoo... on his, ah, you know. Bits. We
looked at him with uncertainty. He didn't look up, focused intently on the
sheets of turkey folding onto the plate.
That's something, right? An elderly man, well in his sixties with prostate cancer and a tattoo down there!
Terry paused, reveling in the suspense. He looked up to inspect our faces.
We stared at him. He swept his tie back over his shoulder and went back to
carving.
Well, it wasn't just any tattoo; it read, in a faded, wobbling
script, the most bizarre thing. It said "Filled with the Christmas
Spirit!" Right there, along his, ah, you know.
My grandmother looked up from her holiday-themed cross stitch. My
grandfather shuffled his newspaper uncomfortably.
I know, right? So anyway, I was really curious, too. But you can't really
ask a patient a question like that the first time you've met him. So I waited a
couple of days, 'till he came back for his second exposure... He was lying
there naked, and we were waiting for the nurse to come back with the needles
and I looked him in the eye and asked him: "So I couldn't help noticing your tattoo. Could you tell me about
it?" And he looked at me and he said "Son, I like you, so I'll
tell you two things. First, I was very drunk."
Terry shook his head and laughed as he said this.
"Second, I did it
myself."