About the nose…

My husband recently had surgery to remove a small melanoma on the side of his nose. Afterwards, the doctor applied a sterile dressing and bandage to the site and told my husband to keep it on for 48 hours so the skin could begin to heal.

My husband dutifully did so. He also told everyone who asked about his nose at work the next day a big fat lie about what had happened to him.

He told them that he and I were play knife-fighting in the kitchen and it got a little out of hand.

“You did not say that,” I said when he told me.

“Yes, I did,” he gleefully assured me. “You should have seen the looks on people’s faces for that split second before they realized I was joking. One of my co-workers said after I told him that, he couldn’t concentrate on anything for the rest of the day – he kept imagining you and me pretending to knife fight and couldn’t stop laughing.”

“Oh, great,” I moaned.

“Really, everyone thought it was hilarious,” he continued, then paused for a moment. “Except for a couple people who don’t know me very well. They weren’t quite sure what to make of it, I think. They gave me an odd look and walked away.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “If the police show up at the door to talk to me, I’ll have you to thank.”

“No thanks required,” he replied. “I knew people would be curious, and some would be too uncomfortable about asking, so this way, I could make a joke out of it and relax them.”

“If that was the case, you could have just written right on your bandage: Ask Me About My Nose,” I suggested. “Or you could have printed up flyers to hand out when people asked.”

He gave me a long look.

“That’s a great idea,” he finally said, a big smile on his face. “I’m going to do a flyer.”

“What’s it going to say?” I asked. “‘Don’t let this be you – use sunscreen to prevent skin cancer’?”

He sat down at the laptop and began typing his flyer. I looked over his shoulder to see.

“ABOUT MY NOSE,” I read aloud. “My wife and I were play knife-fighting…”