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The Pucker That Stuck

Everyone in 8th grade knew
that Sigmund was full of himself,
that he’d bend over backwards
just to cast enough curiosity to turn
the most eyes toward whatever general
direction he happened to be in, relative to
the highest concentration of individuals
(factoring in algorithms that pre-determine
such things as influence and biggest bang for
smallest buck, which he would swiftly, subtly and
inherently quantify based on the quick, aggregated
statistics of any group’s constituents, of course),
he’d finesse a sentence until it was so bloated
with twists and tangles that most of its words
almost fell outside, but yet, amazingly, never
quite spilling over, the double fortresses within
which veracity is safely and securely contained;
it was quite a way with words that Sigmund
had, which he would use to slander
incontrovertible facts, morphing
them into something that
would almost become
debatable or impossible
to prove, utilizing the devices
most commonly perfected by the
world’s most nefarious swayers and
purveyors to cast spells over their var-

ious congregations so that the truth is
chopped and churned within the minds of those
more average citizens from something incontrovertible
into something almost debatable, and then, impossible to
prove, until finally these truths are turned inside out and
upside down so that each is a flat-out fantasy, which, in its
new incarnation, becomes impossible to have ever
been believed. Sigmund had just been to the
mall (a fairly irrefutable fact
toward which his mother,
who’d accompanied him
on this excursion, could
provide ample, persua-

sive evidence), and
while at the mall’s book-
store (for more about
what those are, I can
recommend an article
or two that, be fairly
warned, you’re not
likely to find on the
internet!), he had
coaxed (more at
annoyed) his mother
into purchasing for him
a brand new hardcover edition
of Hot Lips Make the Sexiest Kisses:
Eighteen Everyday Exercises Anyone
Can Do to Achieve Excellent Embouchure.
He had been wanting a copy of his own for
over a year, and anyone could see he was
downright giddy now that he had it in his
hot little hands. Sigmund was a trumpeter,
you see, but he was “third trumpet” (out
of five) in the junior band. And, Sigmund
being Sigmund, he hated being any-
thing but first or best at, well,
anything. And dropping out
of band was not an option,
given the fact that within
the confines of each
fifty-five minute
session that band
class stole from
his relatively
young life, which
was held each day
from Monday to Friday
(and even on some
glorious weekends;
which does not even
take all of the football 

and basketball games 

into account!), Sigmund

had discovered that,
by far, relative to
any other
period of
time in
a given week
(and it wasn’t as
if he hadn’t had a
rather extraordinary
amount of practice at
this; on this subject he
was, it could reliably
be pronounced, the
authority!), he was
easily able to wrest
the most concentrated
amounts of fully ascertainable
attention (away from the band’s
chagrined director, away from every-
thing else), and for the longest durations.
At times this meant even the entire wealth
of overly eager adolescent curiosity would be

his, for longer and longer durations, all of the

focus, clasped snugly within his pasty, overly 

moist and (at least to anyone who might for 

any reason be paying close attention to 

them) shockingly miniscule hands. 

Also, and you might recall, as I

mentioned this earlier, there 

was nothing in the world 

that Sigmund loved 

more than to 

toot his own horn.