Broken chips, bottom of the bag

COUSIN JULIE'S NOSE
a short story 

©2013 William H. Payne

You guys remember cousin Julie, right? She's awesome cute, and she has all her teeth.

So she called the other night, really late, and said she needed help, and to come over quick. Well I ain't about to ignore a distress call from either family or cute girls, and Julie is both, so I got in my pick up and went over.

"What's the matter?" I asked, and she pointed to her nose. I walked over closer to get a better look, and sure enough, her nose was swollen and red. "What does that look like?" she asked, and pointed to the reddest nostril of the two.

"Well," I said, "it's either the biggest booger I've ever seen in my life, or it's a space alien took up residence in your nose." She looked scared.

"What should I do?" she asked.

"I think we ought to call cousin Cletus," I said. "He'll know what to do if anybody will." I got my cell out of my pocket and sent Cletus a text.

Cletus was over in a couple of minutes, probably for the same reasons I was.

Now, some of you may not know about Cletus. See, those of us in the Tater family (the Arkansas Taters, not the snotty Texas Taters) don't always do too well in school, for whatever reason. Most of us drop out in the third or fourth grade to, you know, support our wives and kids and such, but Cletus - Cletus, he dropped out of medical school, so you know we're proud of that boy. He rushed into the room, and took a look at Julie's nose. He turned his head this way and that, and turned her head this way and that, and considered, and thought, and then he said, "I'd say it's either the biggest booger I've ever seen in my life, or it's a space alien took up residence in your nose." I felt good to have my diagnosis confirmed by an expert.

"Bubba," he said to me, "I want you to go out to your tool box and get me some needle nose pliers." I went right out and opened the passenger side where I keep my tool box, and then I saw the bottle of Old Nuclear™ I had stashed behind it. It occurred to me that Julie might need a sedative, so I got it, too, and hurried back inside.

Cletus agreed that it was a good idea for Julie to pull a couple of good draws out of that bottle before we commenced, and so she did. They were good draws, too. Drained about a third of the bottle. Julie Tater can put that stuff away, see.

We gave her a minute or two for her eyes to glaze over, and Cletus went to work on her. We both figured it was probably a giant booger, but just in case, he poised the needle nose for a quick grab, since either way, it would need to come out in a smooth operation.

He took a deep breath to steady himself, and Wham! He grabbed that thing firmly, and started pulling, and out it came! And here is the part you're going to argue with me about. It started screaming and snapping its little teeth! I swear to you, it was struggling, and it was all Cletus could do to hold on tight to the pliers. "Get me something to put this thing in, Bubba!" he shouted, and all I could find was the partially consumed bottle of Old Nuclear™ with the screw cap off. I held it out to him, and he crammed it into the bottle, and I screwed that cap on as tight as I could. That little rascal thrashed and hurled itself into the walls of the bottle, and then settled down to doing a nice little backstroke, and then its little eyes crossed, and it smiled - it smiled, I tell you!

Cletus and I looked at each other, and we looked at the bottle, and we looked at Julie, and we looked at each other again.

"Bubba?" he said.

"Yessir?"

"I guess you know, we have to report this to the proper authorities."

"Yessir, we surely do."

So we went into the kitchen to try to look up the phone number of the National Enquirer editorial offices, and we didn't have much luck. So I figured maybe we should call 911 instead, and we went back into the living room where we left Julie.

And our hearts nearly stopped, because Julie was awake, and she was holding the bottle, and it was empty, completely empty.

And that's why I wrote you this letter, Ray. That bottle of Old Nuclear™ was gonna be your birthday present, and I'm sorry, I really am.