Today I had the mole on my jaw removed.  It's been a part of me for so long that I needed to make a commemorative tabblo.

Some of my fondest memories of mole involve my kids.  When they were small I carried them on my right hip, where they always got a nice view of mole.  In fact both of my kids' early vocabulary featured the word mole.  They particularly liked to point and comment on it loudly in public places, a la Austin Powers.

I did wonder exactly what would become of mole after he was excised from my face.  Several ideas were floated:

--My co-workers thought we could place mole in a jar of formaldahide, and we could use it as a sort of  "magic 8-ball" every time we were stumped about strategy ("Mole will show us the way')

--My friend Elise thought I could use it as a sort of bogeyman to elicit good behavior from my kids ("If you don't behave, I'm going to go get mole")

--Antonio speculated that, like Sampson and his hair, mole could be critical to my intelligence, and that after its removal we may have to give it a job.  (I can't think of a pithy quotation.  My god!  Maybe he was right!)

In the end it was decidedly anti-climactic.  A couple of shots to numb it up, a little bit of tugging, and it was done.  Mole was whisked away to be examined by the dermatologist, his exact whereabouts unknown to me.  But we'll always have our memories!