by Joseph McCann

Created on: August 03, 2008   Last Updated: September 15, 2008

While I wasn't exactly the meanest bull dog in the pit, most of the other boys in the neighborhood would probably agree that I wasn't a cupcake either. Never backing away from a confrontation was a matter of honor, and I earned a universal respect by receiving savage beatings almost everywhere I went. The big issue here was me. I was Irish. (Actually, I still am!)

The neighborhood, in the heart of the great US northeastern megalopolis was culturally diverse, and at the impressionable age of junior high school, I stood out like a sore thumb. At 12 years old most of my classmates had full beards. At least a mustache! Were trim, muscle-bound and dark skinned! They wore form-fitting black tee shirts and after a shower in gym class, they would stand on top of the benches and let the big steel fan in the corner of the locker room dry off the private parts of their naked, matured bodies. I, on the other hand, looked like a balding, powder blue Smirf, desperately struggling with my ankle length underpants while huddled in the corner farthest from the air source.

I always remembered the story my Mother would tell about how she had bathed while wearing a black dress when she was growing up at the Catholic orphanage in Canada. To me, showering with a black dress would only seem to cause more attention, particularly while serving aboard ship in the US Navy. My point to all this, is that I simply dislike being seen naked. And that brings me to my story.

Years later as a young adult with a wonderful wife and two very bright sons, I began to notice a small "pimple" on my abdomen. Because it was in direct alignment behind my belt buckle it began to irritate. Being a responsible, corporate manager, I wore an expensive woolen suit, tie and white shirt each day to work, and my irritated pimple began to hurt.

The more it hurt the more it grew, and between my wife and me (the only one I could ever share this with) we decided it was more than a pimple, it was the beginning of a boil. While the woolen suits certainly didn't help, the real culprit here was the belt buckle. Because I was rather trim, the good Lord somehow forgot to give me hips, or a backside, and the worsted wool trousers would slip down to the same position like I was magnetized, despite several attempt at changing belts and buckles.

To make matters worse, it began to grow, and it began to leak, and it was getting more and more painful. Because of all my beatings as a kid in the neighborhood, I learned to tolerate great

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