Pain

I returned yesterday from my cross-country trip with Evangelina. As I pulled up in front of my house in the old Saab turbo, I thought that maybe things had changed with my useless housemate J.

How wrong I was.

I entered the living room and saw him sprawled on the couch reading an issue of Feckless Loser magazine. He was sipping from a can of generic root beer. A dirge-racket blared from the hifi.

“What are you listening to, dear fellow?” I inquired.

“That’s the new album by Sciatica, the speed-metal band. They’re more mature now, so they’ve slowed things down.”

“Don’t you mean ‘older’? Like maybe, they’re older and have sciatica and can’t play as fast and jump around like they used to?”

“Aw man, don’t bring me down,” he whined.

I picked up the newspaper. INTELLIGENT DESIGN PROPONENT STRAINS LOWER BACK; NOW ESPOUSES DARWINISM read the headline. I chuckled to myself.

“Dear fellow,” I said, “the house is a mess. What have you been doing these past few weeks while I’ve been gone? Hmmmm?”

“I have been incapacitated with a case of burstitis,” the Fool replied.

“You mean bursitis, b-u-r-s-i-t-i-s. Bursitis of what?”

“You know, burstitis in general, like, the doctor said I had a very very bad general case of burstitis and shouldn’t exert myself.”

“I see you have been quite compliant with the doctor’s instructions. But then, you always were the compliant type.”

“Aw man, don’t bring me down. I’m sick! I’ve got burstitis!”

“Dear fellow,” I said, rubbing my chin and considering the sorry state of his organism, “if you have bursitis, I dare say it is bursitis of the brain!”