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Davis, California

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Column: Can’t win ’em all

Well, it was rainy as shit for a lot of last week, right after I wrote a column about how glorious the spring weather in Davis is. And, as you’re reading this, it’s probably really nice out. Or it’s not. I wrote this a few days ago. As Bob Dylan said, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

Unfortunately for all the innocent dames who depend on me for rescuing them from various train tracks and mustachioed villains, I have been sick with some kind of affliction the past couple of days. I haven’t been sick in a while, and I don’t remember it being such a total bummer.

My mom told me I got sick because I drink too much. I reminded her that if that were the case, I would have been in ICU for the past five years. Anyway, my face feels like the Lyndon B. Johnson mask from Point Break, some gland in my throat is really fucking up and I contemplate plucking my own eyeballs out to stop them from itching. (Oedipus must have had really bad allergies.)

As you may have discerned from reading any of my other columns, I like to think of myself as some kind of wild man geared for life on the frontier, in the land of big sky and setting suns. Well, like any sick gunslinger worth his salt, I grit my teeth, cleaned and loaded my Colt Peacemaker and rode out to the Student Health Center.

Before I go any further, I should tell you something about myself: I absolutely loathe doctor’s offices. I’m terrified of the smell, those biohazard containers and the plagued masses sitting near me reading magazines about bass fishing. To me, going to the doctor’s is like being in a George Romero flick, where one wrong move could leave you infected and eating brains in a gutter. I’d just as soon suffer at my house than go seek medical attention. I had like five different things wrong with me simultaneously, though, so I went with the lesser of the two evils.

The visit to the health center didn’t kill me. In fact, they really helped me. Who’d’ve thunk. I don’t want to bore anyone with my ailments because, well, they’re boring, but I will share one little story:

Recently, I was folding some shirts and putting them away. XXXtreme, right? Well, for some reason I was able to slam the drawer shut and catch my ring finger with tremendous force right on my nail. It really hurt. The nail was instantly black. It swelled up so much that touching any of my other fingers to anything else made the ring finger throb.

I was pretty sure I was going to lose the nail – which is gnarly – and I was pretty upset with myself. I could have at least injured myself in a knife fight or in a rockslide, but putting away laundry? How toolish.

Anyway, when I was in the health center, I showed them the finger and asked if there was anything I could do. Not really, they said. Wait it out.

As I was about to leave, one super cool nurse pulled me aside and took a look at the nail.

Nurse: “You know what you could do about this?”

Me: “Besides cry about it?”

Nurse: “Besides that. Take a paper clip and light it up over the stove. Then burn a hole through the nail. That will relieve the pressure.”

Me: “What?”

I was skeptical. I tend to avoid having searing hot pieces of metal anywhere near my fingernails. But I was intrigued – and my finger really, really hurt. When I got home, I clicked on the stove, unfolded a paper clip and got to work.

It was so awesome. You can melt through a fingernail like butter. Blood spurted everywhere. The best part was that my finger instantly felt a thousand times better.

Moral of the story: Doctor’s offices are not Turkish prisons or tiger pits with poisoned stakes. More often than not, they know what they’re doing and can help you feel better.

So the finger is cured. Now I just have to fix everything else so I can rage all over Picnic Day. Until next week, my friends. Long out.

WILL LONG will make this the most Wu-Tang Clan heavy edition of The Aggie there’s ever been. RIP ODB. Check out Will’s review of Meth, Ghost and Rae’s new album Wu-Massacre in MUSE. Then e-mail him your own thoughts at wclong@ucdavis.edu.

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