Thursday's 3WW, "Sins of the Flesh"

The words over at Three Word Wednesday are cut, endanger and hazard.

Sins of the Flesh

Sanders was drinking coffee from his I (HEART) Schipperke mug and I knew that shit was going to cost me at least 12 pokes, but then I remembered that it was well after 8 a.m. and the ratio of cheap vodka to coffee was probably 3 to 1, so I back off six pokes for destructive behavior. 

And before you get into a fucking twist, I am not a cutter. Way too OCD for that. 

I poke. 

Take one large paper clip, straighten completely, then wind snugly around one’s index finger (between the first and second knuckle) and bend, leaving a half-inch of metal. Sharpen the end into a spike. 

And press it into your skin in a tightly-packed grid system on one’s flesh. 

Occupation hazard, I suppose. Making up for everyone else’s fucked-up lives. It’s a burden I bear without complaint. 

The fat-assed secretary with the bad dye job (making her look 10 years older than she intended) who told me to have a nice day Monday? A dozen pokes.

The ex-jock in sales who keeps pinching the skinny, introverted intern on her boney ass – even after a supervisor’s intervention and sexual harassment threat? Eighty-six pokes. 

My boss, the prick, who uses the phone at my desk to set up lunchtime trysts with young fags he finds in the classifieds of the alt-weekly – endangering his new bride of eight weeks with all sorts of nasty he trails home? Two hundred pokes, easy. 

I have, at this very moment, 2,486 festering holes in my flesh.

Mind you, I’m fairly new to this. 

I was on the bus when it hit me, my life’s work. Watching two Hispanic kids mauling one another, all the while encroaching onto the lap of a sweet little – and very jittery - Jewish woman with a paisley-colored walking cane and a Macy’s bag filled with flowers and produce.

I got to the office, found a paper clip, and went into the bathroom to give myself the first 24 in a much longer line of pokes. 

It may not make you feel better – hell it probably sickens you to death – but I know what I’m doing, OK? 

What bothers me now is the leakage. A few grids are really starting to fester, sending a domino-dot pattern seeping into the crisp fabric of my dress shirts. The one’s I keep buttoned-down, even after 5 p.m., when nearly every other guy in the office has rolled up their sleeves, loosened their ties and unbuttoned the top one or two buttons of their classic Oxfords. 

Yellow puss, which means no more white shirts, I guess. And until things start to get a lot better – and people stop being such assholes – no ointments or anti-biotics.

I do it all for you, you know. 

I suffer your sins. With my flesh. 

No thank you required. 

Just stop being such fuckups, won't you?