One Man’s Poo is Another Man’s Fantasy

Went to the gastroenterologist today to follow up on the old man’s chronic diarrhea, one of the tougher topics to tackle in the morning and without any controlled substances stronger than caffeine. By the time we got home, the outside temperature was over 100, with a relative humidity a bit drier than the breath of doom from a mouth-breather with gum disease and a bad cold. But first, there was 30 minutes of the predictable toilet-chair-toilet routine, of course. Interspersed with coughing spells with sound effects like the worst teenage barf movies in Dolby stereo. That’s before we left the house! More fun was in store.

‘Kay, the drive to the doctor. So we finally get in the car, back out of the carport, park and return to house for his cell phone and then actually depart. New fun fact. Did you know that when you cough, you have to take your foot off the accelerator, regardless of the ambient speed on the freeway? But for an even bigger thrill, picture this. I’m in the suicide seat, adjusting the vents on my dashboard air, and trying to drink my coffee before we got to the parking lot and began circling for one of the closest three spaces. We’re halfway there when TCG grabs my wrist and squeezes quite painfully hard. This is the understood signal, in lieu of any verbal input, to convey the imminent likely possibility of a fainting spell or a coughing seizure by the driver, for which he wants to apologize wordlessly in advance to his doomed passenger. I, of course, duly over-respond, are you okaying and all, make an anguished facial expression indicating extreme distress. There! Ahhh, if only I knew what you were trying to say…

UCC Are you ok? (trying not to draw the driver’s attention to a partial unannounced lane change at a comfortable 45 mph)

TCG: No words, but sounds approximating that I imagine would be made by a zombie before he slaps his fish-hands in your face, who is at that very moment being anally raped in a three-way by the bastard child of Boris Karloff and DOB, by an angry postmenopausal woman suffering from spousal dementia, and finally, by your mamma. Between dramatic, desperate, wordless puppy-eye looks, continuing to emit sound effects from your worst drunk driving nightmare, or the fuzzy way your teeth felt the morning after prom night, or the way the sound track to my life is played in the background.

UCC: (With a bit more drama) Are you ok?

WISIMH: Ahhh, if only I knew what you were trying to say… Are you trying to remind me of the recent sad news that Ted Kennedy has lost his brave battle with brain cancer? Is there breaking news about whether Sandy is Still a Good Boy? Has the Coalition of the Willing scheduled a reunion and not invited Hungary? Are you asking me to describe the way your kisses taste after you have licked a camel’s butt and not removed and/or cleaned your dentures in a coon’s age? Are you remarking on the improbable fate of the Soviet Union, which so filled our teenage cold war nightmares of Armageddon, and yet ended spawning a bunch of impotent backward post-communist market kleptocracies that have too much oil and too little understanding of the seriousness of environmental pollutions? Are you saying I was a latchkey mother, and now I’m paying the price? Wait. What? Are you saying Muppets don’t have souls?

Needless to say, we made it home alive, or, I’d be blogging this from heaven, which could happen you never know. The doctor was this 6 foot tall Nordic blond with a Kissinger accent who performed TCG’s colostomy a while back. He was on iv Valium that day. Good times. As TCG said, she knows him in a way no other women does nudge nudge wink wink. I will spare the details of our double entendre poop/sex joke-filled discussion with the lady gastro. I have evolved a remarkable ability to decline to be embarrassed in public by TCG. Like Dad said, in a shit-throwing contest, the winner isn’t the guy who throws the most, but the guy who has the least sticking to him. Or, was it that life is a shit sandwich: the more bread you have, the less shit you taste?

By the time we got home, outside temperatures were up to 106. Seriously. It’s too hot to even try to hand water the parched yard. Think tumbleweed blowing through, dust-bowl breezes pushing the air pollution around and heating it up. Nothing a good news joke won’t cure:

The good news:
A propylene glycol-tini looks like an apple-tini, tastes sweeter, has fewer calories.
The bad news:
An antifreeze-tini will kill you. Too slowly.