EXPOSED, THE SHOWER SCENE

Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay just a little while longer? Just for talk?
—Norman Bates, Psycho


Someone commented on my last post about the JR Thumbprints Band. I can assure you there is no such monster. I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, and I’m almost certain that if I tried to sing in the shower something dark and sinister would happen to me. I can see the knife’s shadow rising and falling, rising and falling, a continuous violent jerking motion straight out of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho, rising and falling, my poor defenseless forearms giving way to the attacker, my hands grabbing the shower curtain, the eyelits tearing away from the hooks.

Such horrific thoughts are unnecessary. I am not a warbler. There’s no sense in committing to a New Year’s resolution, where at the stroke of midnight I say to my wife, “Okay dear, I promise to never ever hide the kitchen knives from you again.”

Speaking of New Year’s resolutions, soon the gym I workout at will be crawling with new members. Physical trainers will be demonstrating how each weight machine functions and how to punch in the personal FitLinx code. If only they’d give our new members a complete tour of the facilities. Last year, while lathering up, I saw an Indian woman standing at the entrance. She sent her seven or eight year old daughter through the men’s shower area and into the locker room to use the bathroom. I turned my naked derriere toward them. I wanted to yell something, but nothing came out—the knife—rising and falling—rising and falling.