Flynn
staggered home very late after another evening
with his drinking buddy, Paddy. He took off his
shoes to avoid waking his wife,
Mary.

He tiptoed as
quietly as he could toward the stairs leading to
their upstairs bedroom, but misjudged the bottom
step. As he caught himself by grabbing the
banister, his body swung around and he landed
heavily on his rump. A whiskey bottle in each back
pocket broke and made the landing especially
painful.

Managing not to
yell, Flynn sprung up, pulled down his pants, and
looked in the hall mirror to see that his butt
cheeks were cut and bleeding. He managed to
quietly find a full box of Band-Aids and began
putting a Band-Aid as best he could on each place
he saw blood.

He then hid the now
almost empty Band-Aid box and shuffled and
stumbled his way to bed.

In the morning,
Flynn woke up with searing pain in both his head
and butt and Mary staring at him from across the
room.

She said, "You were
drunk again last night weren't
you?"

Flynn said, "Why
would you say such a mean
thing?"

"Well," Mary said,
"it could be the open front door, it could be the
broken glass at the bottom of the stairs, it could
be the drops of blood trailing through the house,
it could be your bloodshot eyes, but
mostly.....it's all those Band-Aids stuck on the
hall
mirror.