I officially hate the word

I never thought that “cryptic” would be used to describe ANY of my body parts.... not at 34. Or even 44. MAYBE 54. But I digress.

Cryptic. Isn’t your first mental image of that skeleton dude that always did the intro and exit monologue on “Tales from the Crypt?” You know, the CRYPT Keeper? Well, in case you were sleeping through the late eighties and early nineties or (don't tell me) still in diapers, he looks like this:

Now, I know what cryptic means. People talk about cryptic messages. Or cryptic passwords. Or even cryptic bodily NOISES. But cryptic body PARTS?? All right, so before you start letting your imagination run wild, let me just say it’s nothing as important, say, as my TEETH or EARLOBES. No, what we are talking about here is pretty well hidden... I see the wheels turning everywhere out there... Tonsils, people. Tonsils! That part of my body that caused me to stay home many a night in sixth grade and, apparently, never shrunk after teenhood like most normal adults. They’ve been giving me grief in ways too dreadful to mention in polite conversation. So I had them looked at today. My conversation with the doctor went something like this:

Doc: Wow! (stepping back and squinting like a spotlight just hit his eyes.) Those are HUUGE!

Me: (kinda proud) Yeah. I’ve been told that all my life.

Doc: Those must get in the way, huh?

Me: If they do, I don’t notice. (puff puff, polishing my knuckles)

Doc: They’re… They’re…

Me: Yes??

Doc: They’re CRYPTIC!!

Cryptic. According to Dictionary.com, cryptic means:

1. Having hidden meaning; mystifying.

2. Secret or occult.

3. Using code or cipher.

4. Biology. Tending to conceal or camouflage: cryptic coloring

OR

1. Hidden or concealed.

2. Tending to conceal or camouflage, as the coloring of an animal.

OR

1. serving to conceal

2 : not recognized —cryp·ti·cal·ly

SO. Since they are definitely not hidden or concealed or even camouflaged (once I open my mouth and let someone shine a flashlight on them), I can only guess he meant that they belong to a secret occult, therefore he’s mystified. THAT, or he’s thinking of the dead crytpkeeper, too. Either way, NOT FLATTERING! Which is fine. I can live with CRYPTIC tonsils. What I couldn’t abide was the cryptic diagnosis. Anyone know a good tonsil doctor out there??