[Ed. Note: This piece was originally posted at ordinary-times.com on 4/8/22 which was a Friday. You can look it up.]

Apparently if you have scurvy your old scar tissue breaks down. That means that if you have an appendectomy at eighteen and then went sailing with a bunch of British pirates at age forty-eight, your surgically sewn up wound might re-open depending on the availability of citrus fruits.

That has nothing to do with this week’s column, but you come across things like that when you scan the internet for reasons to justify the theme of Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. I had one of those surgeries where they take out a bloated organ when I was eighteen and the pain was immense, until. I was curled up in misery. One shot of Demerol and I learned that I could never, ever, flirt with addictive drugs. I went from every nerve ending screaming out in torturous rage to blissful serenity in a needle prick of time. People throw their lives away for that kind of high and because of that hospital visit I know why. It was awesome. It was also an awesome warning. That said, siempra di no a las drogas (I got that phrase off a box of lettuce and I’m not really sure that it translates but please play along.)

This week you are Pissing Off Early, should you accept the mission, because of an abundance of monosodium urate monohydrate crystals deposition. That’s gout to you and me.