Acnestis.

I was driving along when I saw a cow rubbing its back against a cable slanting down to the ground from a pole.

The cow looked like she was in a good mood. “Mood” and “cow” belong in the same sentence. If the bovine had been any happier, she would have been laughing so hard that milk would have been coming out of her nose.

I had the urge to stop and see if that cable could reach the itch on my back that my hands were unable to touch.

Acnestis is that point of an animal’s back that lies between the shoulders and the lower back, which cannot be reached to be scratched.

I have one of those. It’s right between my shoulder blades. I’d have better luck climbing Mount Everest than I would reaching that spot with my fingers. I think I can reach the itch, but it’s like the old saying that states that only a fool thinks he is a wise man.

“Scratch my acnestis,” I commanded my wife, The Queen B.

She gave me the look and called her mother instead.

When she had completed the discussion of my peculiarities with her mother, I picked up the phone to call a former neighbor. I congratulated Artie Facts on his recent wedding.

“Thanks,” Artie said. “I had to get married.”

“You had to?” I questioned. “You and your new wife are both over 80 years old.”

“Not that kind of ‘had to,’” he explained. “I had to get married so I would have someone to scratch that itch in the middle of my back that I am unable to reach.”

Apparently, we marry for love, money, companionship, and because there is an unreachable itch in the middle of our backs. The way to a man’s heart may not be through his stomach. It may be through an itch on his back.

An itch is a terrible thing, even though folklore says that when the palm of the hand itches, that hand is going to come into money. My neighbor’s neighbor Still Bill (whose life’s ambition is to have no ambition) scratches his rear end whenever he does some serious thinking. He scratches one side for business decisions and the other side for decisions involving his family. His ambidexterity has given the admonition, “Turn the other cheek” an entirely new meaning.

Itches on the knee, nose, scalp, and elbow are scratched easily. An itch on the bottom of the foot is more of a problem, especially when wearing shoes. An itch on the bottom of the foot means that it is time to travel, so a man with an itchy bottom to a foot needs to travel some place where he can take his shoe off.

It’s an itchy world. People tend to itch. To live is to itch. That’s why there are so many creams, lotions, and ointments purported to stop the itching. I like being outside. I’m no Daniel Boone, but I killed a mosquito when I was only three. If you’re itching to go outside, you’re going to itch.

We sing about itching. A song titled “Poison Ivy,” says, “Measles make you bumpy and mumps’ll make you lumpy. And chicken pox’ll make you jump and twitch. A common cold’ll cool you and whooping cough’ll fool you. But poison ivy’s gonna make you itch. You’re gonna need an ocean of calamine lotion.

You’ll be scratching like a hound. The minute you start to mess around.”

I read a study that concluded that right-handed people tend to scratch more often using their left hands while left-handed folks tend to employ their right hands for scratching purposes. That itch between the shoulder blades teases me. I can almost reach it with both my left and right hands. Almost. I would have to dislocate a shoulder in order to do so.

An unreachable itch torments me so much that I entertain thoughts that I shouldn’t about electric sanders. I look on with envy at a scratching post being utilized by a cat.

People use manufactured backscratchers that look like small hands, a large kitchen fork, or a coat hanger to reach the impossible dream—the unscratchable. Me, I like to back up against something. I rub my back against a doorframe. A doorframe can be brutal, but when it scratches what I cannot, I figure it’s a case of tough love.

An itch in an inaccessible location worries the mind. I try to ignore such an itch, but it’s like Wild Bill Hickok trying to wish away an itchy trigger finger. It doesn’t work.

For where your itch is, there will your mind be also.

And all I can do is scratch my head.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.