Tuesday, October 05, 2010

A Horn by Any Other Name


So the other day one of my wild turkeys got close enough for me to kiss and being a woman of proper breeding (we had not been formally introduced), I of course did not. But even so, at such proximity I couldn't help but notice the amazing (and only mildly suggestive) protuberance rising pretty much straight off her forehead.
Oh I'd seen this feature before, but there was something about being so close to it that gave me pause. And whilst pausing, I remembered that only last year, I myself was host to a startlingly similar protuberance which I took to our local doctor who sent me to an eye surgeon who told me that what I had was a cutaneous horn.
"Of all things" I said to myself whereupon he draped a sterile cloth over my face with a hole cut out just big enough to accommodate the horn, and then set out to remove it all the while chatting with his lovely assistant as though I were not there, under the cloth, awash in a swirl of relief that I would no longer have to explain to people why I was knitting such a tiny toque.

I think wild turkeys have a plethora of admirable traits but I must say, I hope this is the end of my attempt to emulate them too literally.

1 comment:

  1. Sheila - I don't want to worry you - but it appears there are so many ways that this can go wrong. Imagine something closer to ....well, a clown's hat or a dunce cap...this might be the kind of thing better left to the imagination but too late for that....http://www.picturesdepot.com/medical/13798/cutaneous+horn.html


    Chris

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