Dig Your Own Grave Sucka!

The moment I found a nose lying at the bottom of my cereal bowl – I knew it was gonna be a bad day.

Searching my face confirmed that I had lost my nose.

Yup, that was mine alright.

Godamnit.

Must have fallen off while I was having breakfast and enjoying reruns of Jeopardy on TV.

Glancing at the clock I realized that unless I came up with a quick solution – showing up to work “noseless” was going to cause a heck of a stir at the office. 

I had already taken to shaving my scalp and wearing a beanie after most of my hair had fallen out in the shower last week.

Losing hair was somethin’ I could deal with, but my nose…well, if I continued to lose shit I was gonna look like the bandaged version of the Invisible Man in no time

Why this was happening to me was a mystery. But, I suspected that I was gettin’ sick for some mysterious reason.

And with all the scary news about a new virus going around, I worried that maybe I was just exhibiting some undiscovered symptoms that hadn’t been reported yet.

Since my office had made some severe budget cutbacks, I no longer had insurance benefits. So I couldn’t get tested.

Which sucked big elephant chimpos.

But, what if it wasn’t a medical issue? What if I had pissed off the wrong asshole – who in turn had put a curse on me?

Okay, as lame as it might sound to you – I am a superstitious kinda dude. Comes from having a slightly overactive paranoid imagination.

The sneaking idea that someone had placed a curse on me caused the Grape-Nuts cereal to curdle in my stomach as I pondered who would want to do such a thing? And why?

I could think of several candidates who might have had grudges against me.

For one, there was that weird lookin’ homeless dude with pink braids who had given me the stink eye while panhandling in front of Starbucks a couple of weeks ago. I hadn’t any change to give him and a torrent of vile curses had followed me into the coffee shop. But it wasn’t like I was gonna fork over my debit card to the freak. Right? 

Or maybe it was my Romanian ex-girlfriend who had reputedly descended from Gypsies from the Old Country?

The last time we had talked it had been my treat at The Sizzler where she had accused me of being a cheapskate.  I, of course, was indignant. Me? A cheapskate? Wasn’t I the one picking up the tab while she inhaled three-quarters of the salad bar in one sitting?

Screaming over our shrimp salads, we argued back and forth until she abruptly grabbed our plates and dumped both our dinners into her purse. And with an “I never want to see you again, asshole!” she stalked out of the restaurant like a tugboat going up the Hudson with both our steak dinners.

Women who do the dumping don’t usually put curses on their ex-boyfriends I thought. Now if I had broken up with her – mystery solved.

Then there was that green-haired tattooed chick with brown teeth who wore that big ass pentagram necklace around her neck. She was always giving me dirty looks at the office. The witch practically had an apoplectic fit when I asked her if she and her Wiccan sisters danced “nekkid” on full moons and did they allow male celebrants to attend?

I had gotten written up by Human Resources over that one.

So who else had I pissed off recently?

Since my personality and sense of humor tends to be an acquired taste – my list of enemies was unfortunately endless. So I gave up trying to figure out who the culprit was while I finished my morning Joe before getting dressed.

Luckily we were still wearing masks at work cause of the virus going around –  so I stuffed a bunch of cotton balls in mine to give an appearance of having something other than a hole in my face. 

The Muni streetcar was packed and I sweated my buns off getting downtown. I kept touching my mask to make sure the cotton balls hadn’t migrated to my cheek or chin, which would have made me look even weirder than I already did.

I made it to work on time and clocked in at my desk. After a few minutes, I glanced around to see if anyone was staring or had noticed my changed appearance at work.

Since we all were working on the next hype job for a new software promotion – everyone was busy at their desks. So I put my head down and went to work on my assignments on the computer.

On my lunch break, I walked over to a local botanica near my office to see if they had any books on spells and curses. 

The shop doorbell made a chiming sound as I entered and the smell of herbs, candle wax, and incense made me sneeze repeatedly which was weird considering my noseless condition. 

I had to squint at everything since the store was poorly lit by old fluorescent bulbs. Most of the items on the shelves were covered in a fine layer of dust making everything grimy to the touch.

A dark-skinned woman wearing all yellow clothing and a fruit salad on top of her head emerged from a doorway in the back of the botanica. Her cheerful demeanor faded faster than snow on a warm spring day as she looked me over. 

Muttering the word Brujeria,  the shop owner immediately turned heel and fled.

For all you non-Spanish speaking Gringos out there – “Brujeria” in good ol’ Espanol means Witchcraft. So yeah…her reaction confirmed my worst fears.

Someone had put a butt ugly whammy on me alright.

Now, what was I going to do about it?

There were quite a few books on spells and Yoruba saints on the shelves, but most of them were unfortunately written in Spanish.

I finally found a book in English with the lurid title of Spellcasting for Dummies! in dripping red letters and a picture of a voodoo doll stuck with pins on the cover.

Inside the book were all kinds of spells and curses ranging from humorous to malignant. The curse of giving one’s enemies never-ending flatulence was a keeper.

I looked up curse removal in the index and found several listings. But after reading some of the remedies I quickly became disillusioned by some of the ingredients I would need to perform a successful banishing. The vision of me sneaking around a graveyard at midnight and digging up an el “Corpo Fresco” seemed beyond ludicrous and highly illegal.

It seemed like I had hit a dead end with more questions than answers. But, the book was marked down to nine bucks plus change –  so I threw a ten spot on the counter and took it back to work with me for further study. I figured it might be good for a laugh later.

Later that night after I had just gotten my nose glued back in place with superglue, I let out a terrific sneeze that shot both of my ears out of my head with a loud WHUMP!

Glancing down I saw my ears lying on the carpet looking like two anemic potstickers.

“Godammit! Sonovabitch!” I hollered clutching my earless head. 

Guess it was time for me to go buy a shovel.