A Series of Troubling Uns

Forgive me Nervous Nancy for I have wronged you! For surely you can't be the sloppiest dresser around. Not after last night.

I forgive you even for the ubiquitous Crocs you strut around with.

That's nothing compared to Pig-Pen. Such an unflattering sobriquet but seriously I can think of no other more apt name. At close to midnight, Pig-Pen lazily schlepped in with a haggard expression on his scruffy face, his wrinkled shirt ( dotted with unidentifiable stains ) haphazardly buttoned over a crumpled tee and his dusty pants half-zipped. His shaggy longish hair knotted with a dirty old rubber band possibly taken off the snack he was munching on.


Don't hate me cause I'm a fucking mess.
Unkempt. Unbuttoned. Unironed. Unwashed. Uncut. Just a series of troubling Uns.

Would have thought him a recently dispossessed vagrant in search of his missing cardboard box - if not for the identifying stethoscope ( fortunately clean! ) looped around his neck. Fortuitously I noted the shiny stethoscope before dropping a few coins in front of him.

And he's a doctor!

For one of the few times in my life, I was speechless. I'd have imagined the bedraggled fellow had just rolled out of bed. In a makeshift tent in the unhospitable Taklamakan desert. Before being dragged across the dusty highways of Central Asia.

Don't think of it as dust. Just think of it as the dirt and dust of far-off lands blowing over here and settling on 'Pig-Pen!' It staggers the imagination! He may be carrying the soil that was trod upon by Solomon or Nebuchadnezzar or Genghis Khan!

Tried my best to be charitable and think the Charlie Brown way but I couldn't. Seriously. I don't think I've ever looked that grungy in my life. Not even after a harrowing 48-hour shift.

Like the iconic Henry Higgins with his lamentable muse Eliza, I wanted to dunk Pig-Pen in a vat of boiling water ( or bleach ) to remove the excessive gunk. For want of a better word. Not to mention the various fleas of misfortune. Trust me, besides Pig-Pen, our Nervous Nancy practically shines like Eliza Doolittle at the ball.

Even in her Crocs.