Norman staggered home very late after another evening with his drinking
Buddy, Mick. He took off his shoes to avoid waking his wife, Brigid. 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 toosh; a whiskey bottle in each back pocket smashed and made the
landing quite painful.

Managing not to yell, Norman
sprung up, pulled down his
pants, and looked in the
hallway 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 everywhere he
seen blood.

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

In the morning, Norman woke up with a lot of pain in both his head and
butt and Brigid staring at him from across the room.

She said, "You were drunk again last
night, weren't you, Norman?"
Norman replied, "Why you say such a
mean thing?"

"Well," Brigid 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 them there Band-Aids
sticking on the hallway mirror."