This is my second excerpt from Rain Dodging. Enjoy:
Six months of wedding planning and preparations culminated in a week of very physical labor, for example, painting our hayloft floor for our reception, hanging miles of twinkle lights, and 5 hours stretching on a ladder to restring an antique chandelier that had laid dormant in storage for a year.
Our electrician had drawled, “I ain’t never done hung a chandelier in a hayloft before.”
Doing the wedding ourselves on our farm along the sweet Piney River, I was beyond fatigued by the morning before our wedding. Still, blessedly warm, I guess that is why, a few days earlier, with my soon-to-be-mother-in-law—lovingly picture Paula Deen without money, y’all—while pounding stakes into rocky soil for twinkle lighting, I rued that I hadn’t thought to wear hiking boots instead of glitter flip-flops. Or that I hadn’t thought to spray myself against insects that love me.
A nice long morning before the wedding hot shower was just what I needed before spoiling myself with a luxurious manicure at Dickson’s finest, the Sassy Scissors. That evening, we were hosting a dinner for family and out-of-town guests at the landmark Miss Mable’s Tea Room and Fine Dining Establishment, as posted on the interstate exit sign, along with signage for the Waffle House, Taco Bell, and Pepé’s Pizzaria.
I soaped up, my head filled with images of how beautiful the property looked and how exciting it would be to walk through the field to where—Oh my God, a lump. A quite large lump on the right lip of my “bagina,” as my ex-husband, Manuel, would have pronounced it—bougainBillea for bougainvillea, ‘fuckus’ for ‘focus,’ and ‘Sneeker bar’ instead of ‘Snicker bar,’ just some of my personal favorites.
Immediately I felt sick to my stomach, although I knew a tumor wouldn’t have suddenly appeared.
Oh, no, could it be a tick bite from my sojourn in the rocky Dickson county soil? Blast those flip-flops, again. My beautifully planned day now topsy-turvy. Any hope for a nap down the tubes.
First things first. I grabbed a mirror and hoisted my leg up onto the nightstand—damn, where were my reading glasses? OK, now I had them . . . Oh my God, there it is, a big old lump with a tick in the middle of it. “Totally gross!” my English students would say. I grabbed tweezers and after a few tries just knew it was hopeless. Now part of the engorged tick was out and part was dangling. Could it be any more disgusting?
I felt like Lucy Ricardo, not a bride-to-be at 53. The phone rings.
“Hello,” I yelled.
“Hi hunney, what cha doing?” Tony asked.
“I can’t talk now I have a tick on my bagina, I’ll call you back.”
Slam went the receiver. I paced madly before deciding to check the Dickson Yellow Pages. New to Dickson, all my doctors were still in Nashville. I had no clue where, on a late Friday morning, I would find even a clinic, never mind a tick removal specialist. In panic mode and flipping through directory pages, I could feel the lump and visualized half a tick squirming. No G-Y-N, no internist—all I could find was a children’s clinic.
“This will be interesting,” I muttered as I dialed, still pacing.
“Good mornin’ Children’s Clinic,” a sweet-voiced receptionist drawled.
“OK, get ready for a story you’ve never heard before,” I began, nervously trying to make light of it. “I am getting married tomorrow and I have a tick stuck on my vagina: Can you tell me where I can go to get it removed?”
“Sweetheart, you can’t be serious,” she sympathetically drawled.
“Nevermore,” I replied.
“Hold on, dear, I’ll ask.”
She put the receiver down. I could hear her in the background.
“Charlotte, this here lady here has a tick on her privates and she is getting married tomorrow. Can we help?”
A minute later she returned to me.
“Honey, we can’t help you here, we are a children’s clinic. Go to the Dickson Family Medical Group. It is right across from the hospital . . . and good luck, y’hea!”
“If you want to know what happens, read the book!”
WHAT IS YOUR TICK STORY? Comment below!
