By Jim Mullen

Aunt Alice had a rule that, whenever she had a get-together at her house, we could only talk about our diseases and medications for the first 15 minutes. After that we had to change the subject.

Fifteen minutes is hardly enough time to describe the procedure to replace my pacemaker, much less go into my sciatica -- especially if everyone else is going to keep butting in with tales of their bypasses and blood clots and deep vein thromboses and knee replacements and hip replacements and shingles and carpel tunnel surgeries.

But because of Alice’s rules, we have all edited down our tales two minutes per couple. Much to Sue’s embarrassment, I find showing my scars an easy way to speed up the telling of my story.

My scars are testament to my suffering even though I didn’t suffer very much. I got them all while I was under plenty of anesthetic, and on best pain relievers insurance will buy, but I don’t much see the point in including that in my allotted time. I prefer my version where they poured whiskey down my throat and made me bite down on a stick while they eviscerated me.