Sometimes I'm so glad I'm just too busy to pay any attention to a game.
But I knew it started at 1:20.
I went into the mount room at work, there was a tv on. It was only about the 6th inning and it was 1-9 with the Dodgers creaming the Cubs.
But it was 4:00 pm!
I thought my god, that poor kid Casey Coleman - the Dodgers must have been up to bat for hours.
Found out later there was a rain delay as I listened to Marcos Mateo give up 6 hits and 3 runs and taking about an hour to get thru the top of the 9th.
That's pure pain, people.
No one could stop the bleeding.
Speaking of which, and the reason for the painting...the styptic pencil.
You know what that is, right?
A little white stick of some magic stuff that stops bleeding.
This is probably too much information, but I shave in the shower.
No mirror.
It's my daily Zen experience or something.
So the other day I'm shaving, and feel a little nick at the bottom of my nose.
Stings when the water hits but whatever, right?
I get out of the shower, and see my own horror movie in the mirror.
I have a blood fu-manchu and it's dripping off my chin and all coming from a perfectly round 1/8" circle on the bottom of my nose where some skin used to be.
It looks like murder.
Won't stop either.
So I find my travel shaving kit where I've got a piece of a styptic pencil that's gotta be 15 years old.
Not there.
So I do that stupid tissue thing where you put a piece of it on the cut and that's supposed to stop the bleeding.
I get dressed and drive to Walgreen's on the way to work.
It's very early, and I'm surprised to see it's semi-crowded with shoppers already.
There's a girl behind the front cash register, and no one in line.
"Do you have styptic pencils?" I ask.
She can't look me in the eye because she's staring at the inch long piece of bloody tissue sticking off the bottom of my nose.
"A what?" she asks back.
"A styptic pencil."
"I don't know what that is."
I hear the loud exhale sound of an impatient person behind me, and turn around to see 2 people waiting to buy stuff.
They both get wide-eyed when they see the bloody tissue waving like a scarlet flag off my face.
"It's a white pencil that stops bleeding." I say.
I mean, what else could I be there for, right?
Obviously I've cut myself shaving, even if it's my nose.
But this confuses her even more because she says, "A white pencil? For bleeding?"
And now there are 4 people in line and they're all staring at me, the freaky bleeding man.
So off I go trying to find a styptic pencil, and it would make way too much sense that it would be in the shaving section, right?
I look up and see the first aid section sign waaaay in the back by the pharmacy.
I go to the front of an aisle, and there's a lady down there and I'm tired of the staring so I go to the next aisle and there are people there too...at 7 am there are people in every freaking aisle of Walgreens so I give up and walk past a woman buying her morning candy of all things who gives me the leper treatment.
And there are no styptic pencils by first aid.
I look up and...maybe they're in the cold and flu section.
No.
So now I cut in front of the 3 people waiting for prescriptions and ask a pharmacist if they know where a styptic pencil might be.
"Try shaving." she says.
I laugh, and she laughs back but clearly has no idea why that's funny.
Finally, there are 2 Clubman Pinaud brand styptic pencils right there next to the disposable razors.
Duh.
And now there's of course a line of people who pretend not to notice me standing at the register, I finally get up to the front and buy the thing.
Rush out to the car, pull off the bloody tissue and apply styptic pencil to the bottom of my nose in the rearview.
And OF COURSE somebody's wife is in the car next to me, staring at the man putting a white thing on his bloody nose.
I taped a sign on my closed office door that said, "Leave me alone, I cut myself shaving."
Anyway, that's what a styptic pencil is, and if you don't have one I suggest you buy it now, when you're not bleeding.
It looks kinda crappy out, but it's supposed to get up to 61 and be partly cloudy.
We're heading to Wrigley in a couple hours to see Terrible Ted vs. Ryan Dempster.
Pretty sure Ted gets the standing O today, and I hope the Cubs have a late rally after Ted's done his work.
Go Cubs.
