Bert's Curse

 

For about a week, Alan had felt a sort of tingling on the inside of his buttocks. Actually, he admitted to himself, it was right beside his arsehole! This time as he was wiping, he felt a very tender nut-sized lump there, and he cursed because he suspected it was a boil!

His eyes watered at the memory of the boil on his neck when he was a boy. His father had heated the top of a beer bottle and jammed it over the boil, pressing hard. He had to be held in the chair by his mother and through the burning pain, he had felt the pop as the boil erupted! Mother had cleaned the mess up well, squeezing some more to make sure all the puss had been evacuated. Even today he could feel the small dent on his neck that was a permanent reminder.

Alan didn’t want to tell his wife about the boil, because she would want to have a look at it, and that would embarrass him. As well she might get the idea, to save some money and use the heated beer bottle trick – the thought made his eyes water again. No, he would go to the doctor in town who would lance it.

It felt like a volcano about to erupt!

Alan shuffled into the surgery, bent like a half-open pocketknife, protecting the red hot boil. As well his legs were splayed as if he was carrying half a bucketful of pebbles in his underwear! 
The doctor had him remove his trousers, lie face down on the bed and open his legs. Sadistically, with no surgical precision  he prodded and poked at the boil with a wooden spatula and Alan winced in pain with every touch.

‘Ok, you can put your trousers back on.’ The doc said.

Alan had expected the lance, or at least a big needle to be used, even though he didn’t much like the idea. He remained standing, goofily, with a quizzical look on his face.

‘It’s a good, big boil,’ Doc explained, ‘but it hasn’t developed a proper core yet. Come back in a couple of days!’

None too happy, Alan went back home and spent the next two days protecting the throbbing growth between his legs and his wife Edna, almost hourly suggested that she could deal with it. Those two days were miserable for Alan and his wife’s badgering and lack of sympathy did nothing to improve his mood.

It was much the same scenario when Alan again went to the doctor. As he lay there, vulnerable on the bed, the doctor plunged the blunt, six-inch-nail-size needle into the boil to release the yellow/green stuff inside – Alan squawked but felt huge relief when the job was done.

While driving home, his face reddened, fed by the bulging veins in his neck as he recalled the fiery dispute with his farming neighbour, Bert. Their boundary was an overgrown gorse hedge that was no longer sheep-proof and Bert’s sheep often popped through to feed on his grass. Frustrated Alan had gone to Bert to insist they build a new fence. Alan had accused Bert of having lousy sheep, which he admitted to himself was an offensive thing to say.

Reluctantly Bert had cleared the gorse and the agreement they made was that Bert would supply the fencing materials while Alan would carry out the work to erect the fence. Admittedly, Alan was a greedy bugger, which is why he had cribbed a bit of land. The survey pegs had long since rotted away, but Bert knew for sure where the boundary line was because years before he had parked his old horse-drawn mower right beside the old fence strainer post.

Angrily Bert had stormed down to Alan’s place and did not accept the offer of a cup of tea from Edna nor did he step inside. Bert and Alan had a flaming row, each claiming doubt on the others ancestry! Bert’s best line being that Alan had come from a long line of maiden aunts and bachelor uncles! While Alan’s was that Bert had been sired by a donkey and was hoicked out by a wanton turd-sucker’s assistant!

The dispute ended unresolved with Bert jamming his pipe into his mouth, pulling his coat collar up, and the brim of his hat down to just above his steely glare.

‘I hope your arse festers and never bursts!’ he spat as he turned and stormed out.