Send for the Nurse.

I have a hideous wart on my toe. To be precise -- and precision is key when discussing lumpy, gray skin growths -- this wart is on the "knuckle" of my left big toe. It's unfortunate, because I'm an otherwise perfect specimen of virility. When people stare at me, I want them looking at my square jaw and Nordic features, not at this monstrous deformity. I've experimented with all kinds of cures, to no avail. Someone told me I should freeze it off, and I tried that, but standing there in the kitchen for hours with my foot jammed between the ice cream and the box of corn dogs got really old, really quickly.

So today I got online as the kids like to say, and started searching out the definitive cure. I Googled the term "foot wart," and for a few minutes resisted the temptation to click on the "images of foot warts" link. But I'm weak . . . oh, I'm weak. And in that moment of weakness, I learned there are far more people out there with warts on their feet than I ever would have dreamed. Briefly, I mentally outlined plans for a wart-footed rights movement, before deciding I didn't want to go anywhere near those freaks.

The other thing I learned is that there are wart fetishists out there -- a substantial number of them, apparently. God bless America! You think they have wart porn in Iran? Take that, Ahmadinejad.

Get Sick, Get Well.

What a crazy, crazy summer. When it began with my getting in a fistfight at the pool on Memorial Day weekend, I knew I was in for a strange few months. I told that kid at the snack shack I didn't want my fried cheese microwaved, but he just wouldn't listen.

I have many rare allergies, so you can imagine what a mess I am during June in Cincinnati, what with my wheezing and my spitting and my crying.

July was all right, except for the fireworks mishap. At my age, learning to write left-handed is quite time-consuming, to say the least.

In August, the temperature here didn't drop below 105, not even for a moment, but we Cincinnatians love our weather-talk, so I wouldn't have had it any other way. Towards the end of the month, my family and I went to King's Island, an amusement park. This was cool for any number of reasons, not the least of which being that they have their own Eiffel Tower thingy out there, so now I don't have to go to Italy to see the real one. Plus, I guess it was muscle shirt-and-tattoo day for the men, so that worked out well for me.

And best of all: corndogs!