Mark Twain Approved

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

Mark Twain wrote that. He was a great observational humourist, known to celebrate Silliness in his writing and in his life. I’m no Mark Twain but I have always celebrated Silliness in my life. When I was young I thought it was just part of being young, helped in that narrow interpretation by my English parents and the regular admonition

“Don’t be silly Tony”

I’m happy to report that at the age of 76 I still embrace Silliness with all the enthusiasm of Monty Python’s knight, he of the ‘That’s just a flesh wound’ declaration. It has helped immensely to have grandchildren during my search for Silliness. It’s their world and sometimes I envy them for that.

Silliness is I think more important than we give it credit for. It is known to relieve stress and lower our heart rates. And we know that without being told. When we are Silly, we feel good. Why else would a hundred people from 5 to 85 stand knee dip in an oncoming tide at the Annual Deep Bay Duck Race in Bowser, British Columbia, each year. It’s a celebration of Silliness. Among them, my friend Terry although I need to quickly add he is not THE Terry of my hemorrhoid story, to follow. Otherwise, my friend Terry’s wife Debbie with Two B’s would be mortified. Let me be clear we are not talking below about Debbie’s hemorrhoid.

Sometimes, like now for example, I go in search of Silliness. Trouble is Silly is not available On Demand. But that’s okay because I have a secret weapon, a vault where I store my stories, a place I can return to when I need a Silly Escape. Such as now. If you read my recent rather dark, apocalyptic evisceration of the United States of America, you will know that I am in serious need of some Silliness, a way to break the dark spell that has descended upon me. How else am I to fend off the corrupt stench of Donald Trump who has bathed us all in a relentless overwhelming stream of lies, corruption and his particular version of darkness. I try everything. I read as much as I can, I talk to my wife and friends, I busy myself in a full and fulfilling life and yet at the end of it all, there he is. This wretched man who has descended into our world, free to break things as he sees fit.

You see, there I go again.

But I have a way to break the spell. It is Silliness, something I know something about.

And what better than hemorrhoids to break the spell.

This is a true story, not made up as you might think to yourself as I unwrap it. That’s what makes it such Silliness. I have told it before but high quality Silliness can be best repeated.

“Can I tell you about the biggest hemorrhoid I’ve ever seen?” 

It was Terry, a friendly welcoming member of what I came to call ‘The 10am Small Dog Dog Park Group’, a gathering of dog owners who met most mornings at a dog park in West Kelowna where my wife Mac and I had moved. It was the spring of 2021.

Now it takes a lot to throw me off balance but I do remember thinking I needed to be measured with my answer. To say ‘No’ might seem unfriendly, even uninterested although I did calculate that to appear interested at all in ‘the biggest hemorrhoid ever’ might seem wrong on some leveL. My inner claxon was going all Defcon 1 on me trying to get me to say ’No’!  On the other hand, to say ‘Yes’ might appear too eager by half. And what by the way is the general ‘Small Dog Dog Park’ etiquette in such matters? Anyone?  All that aside, one does not have an abundance of time to calibrate a precise answer. I had to make my decision. 

I heard my disembodied answer, 

“Sure Terry, haven’t heard many hemorrhoid stories recently.” It was a failed attempt to sound glib, you know not rude but not too interested.

“My wife has had troubles with hemorrhoids for years, ever since childbirth I figure.” Terry assumed a casual conversational tone which could have had you thinking that it was asteroids he wanted to tell you about, not hemorrhoids. I would have been okay with that actually, I’ve always had a passing interest in the night sky.  But alas it was not Uranus he wanted to talk about. It was hers.

“Damn things were huge. So there we were in the emergency room one night back east where we were living.”  Terry and his wife were living in Ontario at the time. 

“We were always going in there. Those ‘roids popped out all the time. ” 

Now you need to understand there was no place to have a private conversation at the ‘10am Small Dog Dog Park Group’. Everyone stood or sat around in a circle which ensured that if someone said, oh I don’t know ‘hemorrhoid’ for example, everyone immediately looked up. Even the dogs, ever interested in butts, turned to listen.

“So this doc is holding a piece of ice against this thing and all of a sudden he gets called away.  So he turns to me and says, ‘Hey Terry, you need to learn how to do this anyway.  Just put the ice against your wife’s hemorrhoid, just like this and push it back up’. And he leaves.”

“Oh my God!” I said, more out of not knowing what a more appropriate response would be in the context of this particular conversation, “What did you do?”

“I pushed hard on the ice and the doc was right, that hemorrhoid disappeared up my wife. Who knew?” The image of a piece of ice disappearing into the inner corridors of Terry’s wife was more than I could absorb in the moment, although I suspect the ice melted away soon enough, as did the image in my mind’s eye.

And just then, as I was thinking ‘okay, well that’s the end of that slightly uncomfortable story’, the gate to the Small Dog Dog Park swung open. It was Terry’s wife Marion, yes that wife, the owner of the ‘biggest hemorrhoid Terry had ever seen’. 

“Oh hi honey, I was just telling Tony here about your hemorrhoids.” I braced for the inevitable explosion.

“That mother was huge!” Marion replied and laughed her hearty laugh. We all did. It was Silliness at its best, and we all felt better.

I hope you do too.