Bloodstain on My New Shirt

When I head out to my AeroKnow Museum on Sunday mornings to continue this 18-month saga of setting up (still) and maintaining it, I like to dress particularly well because often that’s when Springfield area citizenry visit and they are the visitors I want most to impress. Why? Because they are those most likely to return someday and volunteer to help.  Don’t misunderstand, I love talking with pilots and passengers whose general aviation and military aircraft are parked outside because I learn a lot from them, and they often permit me to photograph their airplanes, escorted of course, on the tarmac. Local visitors offer me a chance to teach, and are most likely, in turn, to contribute dollars and their future time. That’s been the hope so far. So, it was only natural for me to wear my new dress shirt to the Museum a few Sundays ago.
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AeroKnow Museum is evolving. Things are getting relocated. The only things that have not moved since they were first brought to the airport are the 20 filing cabinets in the Research Room, directly adjacent to the Operations Office upstairs. But things are edging toward their natural places as visiting and using the other upstairs rooms housing the rest of the collection which is not already pretty well set as it is in the downstairs Visitor Reception Room. The goals, Museum-wide, are maximum accessibility and visual appeal.
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It never occurred to me a few weeks ago that my moving shelves, concrete blocks and boxes-a-plenty into the new storage room should be delayed until I was appropriately attired for the occasion. It should have occurred to me. About mid-morning, I noticed a droplet of blood on my white dress slacks. My choices were limited. Suffice to say I knew right away. To be honest, maybe they weren’t dress slacks. After all they were machine washable permanent press, but they were nice pants. I’ve recited my poetry in those pants.
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“Where the fring-frang did that come from?!” I asked to no one in particular, the sole occupant of the room being obvious and being me.  I had felt no pain or discomfort, but clearly something had connected aggressively enough with my personal epidermis to go deep and draw blood.  My first guess: bare arms below the elbows since my sleeves were rolled up. My first guess was ”spot on” one might say, pun intended. For the love of Benji, I could not remember how it had happened, and obviously I had rolled that shirt sleeve back up a few times to above-elbow-level because there were a few spots o’ red on the in and outside of that sleeve. Then I noticed the drop and a slightly smeared drop and whole drop, on the body of the shirt, right down FRONT.
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“CHEESES (I worship Wisconsin) what the fring-frang am I going to do NOW?” I said to myself.  Significant money paid for that shirt! J.C. Penny money! (<– homage to James Bond movies. Did you catch it?) So, for some days, I’ve been feeling like a bleeding idiot (<– homage to the British lexicon. Did you catch it?) for letting it happen and lamenting my misfortune in staining the new shirt, to say almost nothing about the pants. Finally, today I decided not to make a bigger deal out of this than I’ve made already by wasting your time with this blog post, to say almost nothing about wasting my time too.
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For reason unknown, the blood disappeared from my pants with just one circular sojourn through the basement Maytag. They’re clean as a whistle . . . . . a whistle  that has two legs and a zipper as it were.
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I’ve decided to keep wearing the slightly “distressed” off-white dress shirt in polite company; even recite poetry in it; even go to my employer (ha ha ha) in it.  Even wear it again some Sunday at AeroKnow Museum at the airport.  The blood suggests no great bodily harm to me. I might think differently if the largest stain were as large as, say, a dime, but none are.  No one I believe I know is going to notice it, and fewer will ask how they got there. And if someone does, I will explain with pride that I willingly parted with that blood for the glory of the AeroKnow Museum of Springfield, Illinoise.
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I do not desire volunteers yet undiscovered to go that far, should someone be waiting in the “wings,” almost ready to share one or two hours of precious TIME a MONTH for a good cause. I knew there was an element of danger that is a part of my dedication the way “in-freaking-credulous!” is a part of my reaction to every Michelle Bachman speech.
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After all, of all the things I am, it seems the constructive attitude I have adopted as my own, following the messy encounter with an abrasiion allows me to be what I want most of all to be: an American!
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Michelle, eat your heart out.
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 Live long . . . . . . .  and proper.