Protrope (pro-tro’-pe): A call to action, often by using threats or promises.
”Get the hell out of bed or I‘ll blow your lazy ass away!” It was my father standing in my bedroom door pointing a ,45 at me. He walked across the room and stuck the .45 into my back. I was on my side in a fetal position. Suddenly, I woke up! I was ‘only’ dreaming. My father was poking me in the back with a broom handle. “Goddamnit, Larry, get up! The bus will be here in 10 minutes and I’m not driving you if you miss it!” My father was pissed. It was Wednesday and I hadn’t been to school yet that week. I had a problem.
I told my father I’d get up when he left my room. He left and I threw off the covers and carefully got out of bed. I had a boil on my butt that was getting bigger every day. It started out as small as a mosquito bite and now it was as big as a strawberry and it was painful to sit on it.
I was too embarrassed to show it to my parents—especially my Mom. I couldn’t imagine pulling down my pants in front of my Mom and having her touch my boil—it gave me the willies just to think about it. Yech! And my father—God only knows what he would do—-probably get his electric drill and drill a drain hole in my butt. I just couldn’t do it.
Because of the boil, riding the school bus I had to stand so it wouldn’t make my butt hurt. Everybody would look at me and the teen-aged driver “Brakes” Bentley would yell at me to sit the “heck” down or he would pull over and throw me off the bus. He kept his promise, and I was late to school. I had to stand in school too. I told my teacher I was standing for leg cramps, raising money for “Crush the Cramps,” I told them .25 cents was donated in my name for every hour I stood in the back of the room. My teachers believed me! Then, my boil had a big growth spurt.
It had become the size of a half-grapefruit riding on my left butt cheek. I turned to the internet and Google to see if I could find a remedy: “How to sit painlessly on a boil.” I got several hits but the most promising was “Boil Bumpers.” They were cushions that “Naturally mold to your boil and cushion it like a down-filled nest.” The Bumper used your body’s heat to make the pillow fit to your boil’s own unique shape. I cleaned out my bank account and bought a boil bumper. It arrived 2 days later. The instructions were simple: shove it down the back of your underpants, or pull your underpants up around it and get dressed.
The Butt Bumper was wonderful. I was sitting again! I knew I could beat this thing by riding it out. But then, all hell broke loose! My boil blew up to the size of a half basketball. My pillow wouldn’t fit any more, not to mention my pants. I talked my sister into buying me a pair of pants three sizes too big at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. The pants fit over my boil, but I needed a belt. My father asked me what the hell was going on with my pants. I told him I was experimenting with using big pants as a backpack substitute. He was impressed.
Then, it happened: my boil blew. My sister thought it would be funny to put a thumbtack in my bed. She didn’t know about my boil and the possible consequences of what she was doing—she thought it was a harmless prank. I rolled onto the tack in my sleep. I was awakened by a hissing sound. It was air being expelled from my boil where the tack had penetrated it. It smelled like Kentucky Fried Chicken and took about twenty minutes to deflate.
I discovered later that I had had a “false boil.” It filled with air, rather than pus. I couldn’t understand the technicalities, but I was grateful that it ended the way it did. In a way, I have my sister to thank. Being punctured when it was, kept the boil from growing up my back, and eventually, turning me into a balloon.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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