Bad Combinations

Dry, itchy skin + deep sleeper + sharp toenails = ouch!

One of the things I hate about wintertime is that my skin dries out. Especially my legs. Now, I’m sure this happens to thousands and thousands of people. Of those thousands, I’m sure that at least half of them are also very deep sleepers. Of those, I think it is probably reasonable to suspect that at least a handful have toenails that get a little sharp. So why is it that I think I’m the only person on the face of the planet that maims himself while he sleeps? I woke up this past Friday morning with the biggest, nastiest, most painful scrape on the inside of my right calf. It itched and it stung. I really have no idea where it came from but suspect that, while sleeping, I scratched my leg with the toenail on my left big toe. And now I’m running around with a band-aid on my calf. Does this kind of thing happen to anybody else, or am I truly a freak of nature?

Too much coffee + too much beer + smallish bladder = very poor night’s sleep!

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that I am addicted to my morning (and early afternoon) coffee. I know I drink too much, but if I don’t get at least a cup in me by 10am then I have the worst headache imaginable come lunchtime. Being a creature of habit, I almost always also get a cup of coffee before any rehearsal. Just as a little pick-me-up to help get the blood flowing before taking the stage. Now, I am not really all that much of a beer drinker, simply because beer fills me up. Every time I drink a couple of beers I feel bloated and I am never at my charming best when bloated (are you?) so I tend to stay away from my old friend Budweiser. Now, when the excess of coffee combines with the excess of Budweiser, something of a strain is put on my poor, unsuspecting bladder. And, even though I am a heavy sleeper (see above) there are some things one just doesn’t sleep through. Granted, repeated trips to the bathroom seem to have prevented me from mangling my leg any further with my sharp toes.

Overly rushed make-up person + actor with family history of hemophilia + crepe hair beard being pasted to said actor = blood!

So, at the next-to-final dress rehearsal for The Passion Play I’m sitting in the make-up chair while the poor guy applying my beard is trying to rush because they’ve just called 15 minutes and he still has another actor to do. The fake hair is on my face and he’s just trying to trim it up so that I don’t look like Bigfoot when I walk on stage when his scissors take a turn for the worse. Snip! There goes the center of my upper lip. “Did I get you?” he asks at the very moment I taste blood. “Yup, you got me.” He then begins to apply the end of a Q-Tip to my lip, not realizing that when I’m cut there’s no cotton swab on the planet that’s gonna rectify the situation. Meanwhile, the spirit gum (used to hold the beard on) oozes into the cut causing … well, let’s just say a level of discomfort. That night’s performance was all about “I’m really distracted and pissed because my face hurts” and not much of anything else. Needless to say, I had notes at the end of the night.

Person who agrees to meet you for a drink even though they really have no intention of showing up + unsuspecting “take a person at his/her word” me = one bored guy sitting at a bar among a bunch of complete strangers feeling like a stooge!

What is it with people these days? This is a trend I’m seeing more and more. People will tell you they’re gonna do one thing and then never bother to do it … even though you are expecting them to. Hey, picking up the phone, giving me a ring and saying, “King, I’m not gonna be able to make it out tonight” is completely understandable. Or, just for giggles, telling me upfront that you’re not all that interested in having a drink with me would be cool. But we’re becoming a society of folks who stand one another up. No wonder I’m hearing more and more stories about brides or grooms being left at the altar. We’ve become a society of people who promise to do one thing and then do another.

Not eating dinner until one o’clock in the morning + not having anything in the house to eat but Spam and bread = somebody who’s going to call in sick in the morning.

Okay, so I should’ve known better. Rehearsal went terribly late and I didn’t walk in the house until well after midnight. As is my remarkably unhealthy custom, I hadn’t eaten all day. As is also my remarkably unhealthy custom, I hadn’t been to the grocery store in weeks. I’m starving and everything in the neighborhood is closed. So, I dig around in the cupboards and find that my choices are chili or Spam. “Hey, I still have some bread. I’ll just fry up some Spam and have a couple of sandwiches,” I think to myself. Aw, I should have just gone to bed hungry. Two hours later I’m hovering above the toilet propelling everything inside of me that’s not tied down out. Three hours later, I’m still there. I pride myself on hardly ever taking sick days … but pride went out the window that morning.