Pirates Ahr Coming! Patients Are Our Top Priority! Enter to win a "Pirate Parade Pack for Two" contest for every visit to Tybee Teeth In September"!! TybeeTeeth.com 1018 US Hwy 80 �� Tybee Island �� 912-786-9433 Writer’s BLOCK Our featured writer this month is Hollie Sessoms. Hollie not only writes for the Beachcomber, but has also had short fiction published in other magazines as well and had a piece chosen as best fiction of the year for Brawler Lit. She is an avid writer and is currently working on her fifth novel. (Once, when she was young, she saw an orca breach in the sea off the Alaska coast.) Not only will you find her in our Reflections column, but she has also written some of our Feature Stories as well. Thank you Hollie for your contributions! Most Important Questions of Life: Tybee Life: On again, off again for 20 years. When I grow up I want to be: Healthy and wise, no need for the wealthy when you have those two! My passion: Spaces in between, Sunday afternoons, and fall leaves that crunch underfoot. My Spirit Animal: Dolphin. They always make time for fun and never forget to come up for air. TYBEE BEACHCOMBER | SEPT 2017 11 By Jimmy Prosser Feeling Bugged I drunkenly agreed to write the rant, before having any idea what I wanted to rant about. In this industry that can be ok, because when you’re a writer, sometimes you have to adapt, create situations, forge the truth, and make do with what you got. This, this, is NOT one of those situations. I own a dehumidifier, since I live in one of the most humid places on the planet. This is necessary if one does not want to spend one’s day writing REDRUM in the wall sweat opposite any mirror, electronic screen, or reflective surface. My dehumidifier is rated for a 2000sq ft. space, and my sprawling Tybee apartment is just under 230sq ft. (and NO, we didn’t miss a digit, I live in a 12 foot by 18 foot home). Needless to say my dehumidifier can go a while without needing to be emptied, even with 194% Humidity in the air. On this particular evening, the humidifier shrieked its horribly loud beep to let me know it’s gallon tank was full and it needed to be emptied. I removed the basin and headed to the front door to dump the collected water off my front porch and make a mud puddle. I’m nearly 30, but boys will be boys - I see an opportunity to make mud, and I make it. This was a typical ritual, as I’ve lived on this island for years, but this night, this night was the worst night of my Tybee life (and believe me, I don’t know how I haven’t been a Taxi Tale yet). I opened the front door to the blue glow of my porch light (I have a blue porch light because my home faces the beach and turtles hate white lights because they’re racist, thus I have a blue light or they won’t come lay eggs on our beach). Continuing on… I stepped outside and first, I must say, I am a mouth breather. I never noticed this about myself but it’s vital to the story to mention this. I walked outside, and I swallowed a bug. Straight up inhaled a bug into my throat, and this was NOT a little bug. I had a dry winged bastard the size of a dime stuck to my moist uvula. Now I was basking in the blue light of my front porch, trying to dry cough this SOB out of my damp throat. I was coughing, hacking, and dry heaving, while all his little bastard friends were hitting me in the face. I felt like a human bug zapper (now I’m writing a screen play called The Human Bug Zapper). This son of a biatch was stuck. STUCK. I panicked, was I going to die, most certainly, though tonight it was unlikely. I ran inside. Water, water would save me, but the sink was too far away. Beer! Beer was the obvious choice. I grabbed my PBR and chugged it, washing this powdery ass insect down my throat. I was standing in the kitchen starring at myself in the mirror. I just swallowed a bug. I just swallowed a live insect. In my kitchen. I voluntarily swallowed a bug. I could have cut my throat open, I mean that’s why I have a knife drawer, or I could have died, and yet I chose to swallow him. I chugged all that was left in my beer can. One beer. I wasn’t buzzed enough to process what had just happened. I grabbed my remaining beer and made my way to the bathroom, in the dark, I needed to be alone. I sat on the floor of my shower, under cold running water, drinking beer, processing what had happened. I finished my shower, opened the door, and turned off the porch light – which I only leave on because the fat toad I live with - no, not my roommate - but in real life there lives, underneath my front porch, an actual fat toad that I call Jefferson. He comes out at night and sits next to the front door, he chills and eats bugs – except when I eat them. Tonight he looked sad as I said my goodnight, turned off the light, and slowly closed the door. But in that moment, I saw a twinkle in his eye, from what was possibly the moon or a street lamp, and I knew he knew. We’re brothers now. I guess to sum this up my rant would be bug related. Or, ingesting them. Either way, I’ll be using my strainer in the bathroom until I have physical evidence he has passed (I am kidding, well … about the strainer).
20503TB
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