The pairing of “rusty” and “nail” conjures up childhood memories of a tree house, a pediatrics office, a long, tetanus booster filled syringe, and three days of injection site soreness.

I was a hypochondriac in youth, and episodes like the aforementioned served only to enhance my paranoia. Every cut, every bruise, every ache and pain was an underlying symptom of something far more serious…likely deadly. I don’t know how my parents put up with me sometimes, though I think they do assume some responsibility for shaping my suspicions.

Hospitals and doctors weren’t oft utilized in my family. We had our normal physicals and occasional ER runs, and my sinuses were good for three to five Dr. Burke visits a year, but for the most part, we took care of our maladies at home. “You’re Fine. Sleep on it,” was a frequent utterance of my father. Truth be told, I now look back on his approach and find sanity in it. If we had zipped over to St. Joe’s Hospital every time we beyatched about somethin’, there’d have been named a Vitrano wing before I hit first grade. And hey, my parents did the best they could – and their best was pretty darn good.

But there were multiple instances in which “sleep on it” fell well short of the right thing to do. “Dad, my arm is broken. Seriously. I know it’s broken.”

Now, in the case of a rusty nail piercing the flesh, it’s not paranoia to insist upon medical attention. Rusty nails were hazardous in youth, and remain so in adulthood. Until this past weekend, there was little good that I could say about a rusty nail.

Then I went to Kroll’s West.

My wife and I hit Kroll’s West for perch on Friday and stopped into the bar on the way out for a cocktail with our man Jason – yeah, the same Jason that comes on the show every Tuesday.

The gracious host that he is, Jason offered to buy us each a drink. “Old fashioned…rusty nail…what can I get ya?”

Against my better judgment, I threw caution to the wind and went with the nemesis of my youth – the rusty nail. Scotch. Drambuie. Done. Just that simple…and oh so delicious.

The paradox that is the rusty nail – though I’m certain that this rusty nail and that of my youth trigger the same effects in a man. So I guess it’s not so paradoxical after all.