There’s only one way to say this, and that is quickly, with as little suspense as possible:… There’s only one way to say this, and that is quickly, with as little suspense as possible: I have a problem. It’s not the worst thing that could happen to me – I didn’t have to choose which one of my children should live or die, like Meryl Streep in “Sophie’s Choice” or anything – but it’s a problem all right. And it’s this: I suffer from balding ankles.

Oh, I know.

I know what you’re saying now. “Balding ankles? That’s it? That’s the big problem? I’m done reading this suck-fest of a column. Where the hell is the crossword or the sudoku so I don’t have to pay attention to this lecture? As a matter of fact, where’s that drug my too-lenient shrink gives me, the one that lets me into a glorious haze where I’m calm and the world isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be? Ahh, there we go. Sweet oblivion, come on.”

Well, fine, if that’s how you want it you can just leave now, buddy. But this column is going to take off and you’re going to be the one who misses it. Unless you come back to it and read it later, I guess. But we’ll both know, and it won’t be the same.

My ankles, I’m afraid, won’t ever be the same either. I remember the days when they used to look like a normal adult male ankle, with hair and everything, and then suddenly – well, suddenly, they weren’t. They suffered from extreme dryness that caused the hair to fall out, making me appear as if I suffered from some terrible disease, like mange or something only woodland creatures or house pets get. My leg hair began thinning as well. I felt – and looked – diseased.

You know that bit in the Bible? With Jesus and the leper and the touching and the message of acceptance and tolerance and love? Look, I’m not saying anything, but if you put my ankles at the height of their problem in front of Jesus, we would see exactly how much of the Lamb of God’s talk was just talk, because my ankles were struggling.

If you note, drugged avoider of lecturers, I used the past tense there, which suggests that my ankle problem is no more. Is that true? No, absolutely not. I still appear to have mange. But – and I can’t stress this enough – unlike the situation in Iraq, my ankles are getting better. And I didn’t even have to increase troop strength!

My legs had been dry for a while, so dry that the hair was falling out, but since I’m a boy and thus genetically predispostioned to not notice stuff like that – I’m also better at math than girls, according to Lawrence Summers, although I have to live my life composed primarily of snakes, snails and puppy dog tails, also according to Lawrence Summers – I just thought I was losing my winter coat.

I’m reminded of the scene in “The Simpsons” where Homer, who has his arm stuck in a vending machine and has just been informed that it’s going to be cut off, asks plaintively, “It’ll grow back, right?” And that’s what I thought would happen to my leg hair. I thought it would grow back and I didn’t have to worry. And then it didn’t grow back. And I began to worry. I had to do something. But what? What could get me through this dry patch in my life?

Vaseline. People, I thought, use Vaseline to moisturize dry skin. What I had was dry skin. What I needed to do was moisturize that dry skin, because if I did, there was a chance my hair would grow back.

Ever since this epiphany sounded its clear, bell tone in my skull, I’ve been rubbing Vaseline all over my poor, battered legs every morning when I get out of the shower. There’s that Clipse song, where one of them says, “Your neck/I want it shining like mine” and to that I could echo, “Your legs/I want them shining like mine” because after I apply the Vaseline, my legs shine. Which is okay, because that just means my skin is healing and my leg hair, after a tough go of it, is making a fierce comeback.

The downside to the Vaseline is, of course, that it isn’t water-soluble. And if you moisturize your legs with Vaseline in the winter, the Vaseline gets on jeans. And then it turns your jeans all shiny and weird and you can’t wash it out – oil and water, duh – and then you have to throw them out and buy new jeans. But trust me, this is a small price to pay for looking at ankles that appear human and not like a diseased deer.

So that’s the end of the column. My legs are looking better, and the lecture you’ve been avoiding is nearly over. You can look up now and nod at the instructor as the sweet rush of your meds kicks in. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go buy some new jeans.

Pray for my ankles at [email protected].