Monday, February 19, 2007

What Makes You HOWL Inside?



What in your life has made you HOWL inside?

You know, those moments that are so terrifying that your mind vaults itself into a scream? And by scream, I mean those mental screams that are so loud and bone chilling that had you vocalized them your vocal chords would have shredded like a well cooked Pot Roast and the roof of your mouth would have taken a debris beating what with all the shredding vocal chords and stuff…

So what about YOU?

I thought back since last night and asked myself what made me HOWL inside? What was the moment, the crowning, horrific moment that created intense terror and internal horrifying panic inside my SKULL?

The answer that came was an easy winner. It was the screaming apex of my life. It was the most horrifying and ignominious moment that had ever occurred to me. It was like a Hitchcock movie, coupled with a King novel, coated with melted Halloween candy and lorded over by a Ginsberg poem. It came so unexpected. It came so uninvited.

It frightened the HELL out of me.

Now not all dark and scary things occur in the shadows of slivered moons and smashing pumpkins. Some events happen in the bright and warm afternoon daylight glow of a lovely summer day. It can be warm and sunny and birds can be singing, and people can be milling about sipping on frothy beers and music can be playing on a jukebox and a pool game could be clacking around in the background.

Sure.

Who says SCARY has to be dark and spooky?

For me it was light and sweaty. Truly. And pale and pasty.

I once rode a bicycle up the coast of Australia. From Sydney to Cooktown to be exact. I did it on a mountain bike, with mountain bike handle bars and a set of panniers on the back. By week seven, I was somewhere near Townsville, and the pinky and next two fingers on both of my hands had gone completely numb.

Funny thing numb. Numb doesn’t mean you can’t feel anything. It means you can’t feel what you want to, and what you CAN feel is an irritating, sharp and buzzing sensation like your skin is now occupied by raging bees.

The road roughness and my having to lean on my palms for eight hours or more a day, caused the nerve that crosses over my palm and leads to my fingers to go haywire and quit working properly. The nerves sort of died and caused this numbness. And YES! numbness is a feeling, I swear. Like your hands are asleep, and are trying to wake up.

Anyway, I bet most people know what I am saying. Numb, but buzzing. Just a light buzz. An irritating buzz. Enough of a buzz that I worried about my hands going numb. I mean, really numb. Where there is no buzzing. And never will be.

“Permanent nerve damage” is what they say on TV.

And you have nerves in other places too. Places that sit on skinny little bicycle seats for eight or more hours a day. THIOSE places. And on this particular scary, frightening, beautiful day, I felt some of that buzzing I was talking about, only, you know, DOWN THERE.

Not only that, but the rising heat of a tropical summer was causing a kind of sweaty chafing effect, you know, DOWN THERE. I had bought some white powdered medicinal remedy for what the Australian’s called “prickly heat”, and I doused my crux of the matter liberally several times as I pedaled. Nearing the middle of the afternoon, I came upon a pub and decided that my hands and my seat area (and my soul) could sure use a beer or two. I mean, I had been pedaling for nine or ten hours straight. I deserved it, right?

So I walked into the pub in my silky black bike shorts, and I stared back the stares I got from locals who were drinking away the early afternoon and looking for something silky to stare at, and I clacked up to the bar in my bike shoes and I ordered a pint and drank a pint and ordered another and reached my limit with my bladder.

Click clack click clack to the bathroom, where I HOWLED inside my mind.

It was HORRIBLE!

It was AWFUL!

It was almost beyond the scope of human tolerance, I swear to god…

I clicked up to a urinal on the wall and pulled down the front of my silky bike shorts.

My penis was shrunken to its shrunken most point. I mean. THERE WAS NO BLOOD INFLATING THE LITTLE GUY!! NONE!!

And he was a pale, pasty white. The white of a zombie. Like a white powder had coated him.

And he was NUMB! Numb like there was a bee trying to get out of him before the skin collapsed altogether.

I screamed and HOWLED on the inside.

I am surprised I even survived.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Questions:

Why in the hell did you decide to ride a bicycle across such a long stretch of land?

How is "the little guy"-your words, not mine? Any chronic damage? Did you have to pay for an austrailian lap dance to get the feeling back?

And another question..why don't we ever hear about any of your lady friends? I know there are a few in Oregon.

Whine Girl said...

Flat.. the ladies in Oregon are out hugging trees and smoking pot.. they don't have time for relationships. haha.

You know what makes me scream inside? Someone pestering and smothering me until my skin starts crawling.... I'm screaming inside right now...


hear me?

none said...

I could never do the little seats, I bought a huge ass bike seat at a specialty shop that put the pressure on my ass instead of that spot between my balls and asshole.

Some folks crush that artery and never get it up properly again.

Personally I'm not one to panic. My mind might race but I'm usually pretty calm.

Scott from Oregon said...

Well, Mr. Hammer... have you ever thought you killed your little Johnson?

Like I said, a real brain HOWL.

Forr the ladies in the audience, it all came back to full function, though it took the greater part of two weeks.

And to make matters worse, the prickly heat set in as well...

none said...

I did rip my sac open once where I could see my boys, I was pretty scared then. I can imagine two weeks without a functioning johnson could be pretty frigging scary too.

kario said...

Hammer: FYI, that particular spot has a name - the taint. I'll let you figure out why...

Scott: you are hilarious. For the record, I've had that numb, tingly feeling in my nether regions, but since I'm a girl, it is more annoying than anything. Glad to hear everything came back to working order.

Anonymous said...

heh heh heh

Anonymous said...

I can at least sleep at night knowing everything turned out alright.

Jeannie said...

That certainly would be scary - they know about these things now and I think they have better bike seats...

Cheesy said...

I don't even have a "little guy" and I think my brain is howling at the thought.. ekkk..If you ever have that woe again Scott... I have some bag balm in the barn..I'm just sayin...

Jordan??... Some of us DONT hugs trees~~ :o)

I've had plenty of brain howls..and some verbal ones.. but by no means even close to humorous or sharable.

slaghammer said...

Sweet mother of Zeus, I’ve had a few close calls but I can’t think of anything more horrifying than murdering your own dingaling. I’m glad you were able to resurrect the damn thing, and I mean that in a totally non-sarcastic way.

Lizza said...

The idea of any man's thingy looking like that is horrifying. Glad everything's back to normal.

Having to leave something against my will because it would only destroy me in the end made me howl for what seemed like a billion lifetimes.

little things said...

Gives shrinkage a whole new face, huh? And not a good one! More like a shrunken head of a shrinkage. Okay, I'll stop now.

CS said...

So, so glad not to have to deal with this one!!

Anonymous said...

heh.

....

Death squeezed my heart once.

'Howl' doesn't cover it. It was the opposite of howl, a great inhaling of a singularity.

Thing is, I died once flipping over a bicycle as a kid. Asthma, lack of breathing. A hospital was involved. My mother, crying.

So that's twice it didn't do its thing with me. It's not luck, it's randomness.

True story. Both of them.
/jo

amusing said...

What's with you and bees....