The Chicken And The Tattoo

As many of you know, my pet chicken, Samantha, got loose in the parking lot of a cheese shop in Brookline, Massachusetts last October. Well, as amazing as it sounds, she turned up in a petting zoo in Lewiston, Maine. I got a phone call from animal control this morning after her ID chip was scanned during a routine veterinary check-up. I'm going to leave her there, as it is a good place for a chicken. It's a total mystery how she traveled so far, and I'm afraid we'll never know. There was even a brief story about all this in the Lewiston Picayune. Quite a tale. It just goes to show that life is full of mysteries, and that happy endings are always possible.

A few posts ago, I wrote about how I have made arrangements with a company called MedCure. Upon my death, my body is to be donated to a local university, hospital or barber shop. They get to play with it for three weeks, and then I will be cremated and interred in the Lyle family plot. There are a lot of good things about this plan, like helping to further science and getting a free cremation. In fact, I can think of only one con; that medical students (or possibly anyone) will play around with my dead body in a crude and humiliating manner. Not that it matters, as I won't be around. But the thought does upset me a bit. As my father says, "You don't want a bunch of students playing basketball with your head." I'm more concerned with my penis size being mocked, or someone saying, "Hey, this dude has bigger tits than my girlfriend." It bothers me because there is no possibility for a snappy comeback. In high school, I was fat and anti-social (some things don't change), and the cutting retort to a nasty remark was all I had. I was a funny bastard, and bullies hesitated to bother me, lest they get mocked and laughed at by the crowd. Well, I wasn't that formidable. But I did take pride in my comebacks, and found solace in them.

When I'm on the slab, however, I'll be fat and naked and wide open to jokes at my expense. Some guy will say something funny about my balls to make the girl he is hitting on laugh out loud. The last thing I want to be is the straight man for some prick trying to show off how amusing he can be.

For that reason, I'm asking people to help me out, on this blog and in the real world. I've decided to get a tattoo, perhaps on my ass or upper arm, that will simply say something delightful and comical, droll and dark but funny as hell. That way, I'll have a sort of last word, probably in an anatomy class (one hopes). It needs to be really great, though. Ideally, the tattoo will read so funny that the med students will have a story to tell at cocktail parties for the rest of their lives. That's asking a lot. Even a chuckle will suffice. Sort of an ice-breaker before they saw my skull open and play with my brain.

If you have any ideas, just write me at DWLyle@comcast.net, or leave it in the comments section. Somethink like, "My other body is George Clooney" or "Can I have a pillow?" or "Just to be safe, use anaesthesia." I'm partial to, "Go ahead and play with my ding-a-ling." I don't know...use your imagination.

Oh, yeah, and the chicken thing is total bullshit, I made it up. The rest is true, though.