So. In what seems to be a now-recurring life plot, I find myself once more sitting in contemplation on the remarks of a small brown dog, and wondering, yet again, why I am finding it so hard to sit here to the computer and write. Should I write more often my thoughts would be fewer, and likely somewhat less scattershot. What with attention spans in the diminished state of a network news blurb, it would seem I’m better served, as a writer, to condense both the width and breadth of my mental simmerings.
Having said all that, as my Gram always says when she’ll tell you, “Who really gives a shit, Mooner. You’re a nutball, so git over it and pass me tha maters.”
The Squirt’s words, while aggravating at the time, have come to dwell in my ADD-addled brain like a visit from Aunt Harriet’s shiftless shit of a son, Cousin Arthur. Arthur came to visit us down to Austin this one time after he had already dropped out of high School, trade school for mechanics, embalming school, auto detailing school and if memory serves, trade school for derelicts. Seems even doing nothing on a schedule was too much for our boy Arthur. Stayed the entire summer of my junior year in high school—a summer spent by me entertaining someone I did not even like, and him doing whatever he could to make my life even miserable more. And in putting myself out to accommodate him, I got into a world of trouble.
As many of the shiftless learn with experience, if they are sneaky enough they can cause others to pay for their bad deeds for at least a time. Like the three months of that summer. When Arthur was finally caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar in mid-August and sent packing back to Aunt Harriet’s, my Gram said to Mother, she told her, “‘Poligize ta tha boy, Mother. Ya been all up in his assholie an’ he ain’t done shit.” The boy being me and Mother being my very own.
Mother’s response is one of those things said in life that somehow sticks in your brain in its verbatim-ness, words for the ages if you will. Mother said, and here I’m quoting from something more than fifty years ago, she replied, “I’ll not apologize to Mooner for anything. I never will. He may not have done this, but he’s done something. A boy who won’t go to church can’t be trusted, and I’ll not apologize to a heretic. Ever!”
And she hasn’t, and looking back on life with Mother through both the decades of time and her currently dementia-ravaged mind, I realize that if it weren’t for my Gram’s loving support, I’d likely be writing you from prison nearing the end of a life sentence for maternacide.
Anyway, I had just returned from Houston after driving down-and-back for my latest Prostate Biopsy, and the Squirt and I were discussing the trip.
“Were there any cute nurses? Did you spot us a potential mommy?” was her first question, a contrived query designed to start making fun of me right up front. As much as Squirt would like to have another female in the house, it is her enjoyment in teasing me that’s more important.
“Sure enough, little lady. There was this one, a caring technical assistant who helped with my actual biopsy, a woman of middle age named Gloria Salinas. Something about a woman in uniform, sweetie pie, simply warms the cockles of my heart.”
I somehow managed to get our relationship off on the right foot when upon reading her name tag, I sang to her, “Glorrrr-i-a. G. L. O. R. I. A, Glorrrr-i-a!” and it was a good thing that the lead tech walked in on us because for starters, those are the only lyrics I can remember to that song, and second, I was in a state of agitated ADD wherein my already scattered thoughts were smothered by the knowledge that my adorable ass was fixin’ ta be violated. Anxiety causes spikes in my inappropriate behaviors, and hospitals seem to have a reduced level of acceptance for such things when compared to the rest of society.
Gloria got me undressed and into my medical gown and helped position me correctly for the procedure. As you know, it’s been so long since I’ve felt the touch of a comely woman, I get erections in anticipation of possible contact.
Have any of you guys ever noticed that hospital gowns would proudly display a wooden matches’ erection like a circus tent pole? Hard to hide a Woodie when you’re grabbing a fistful of thin fabric from both sides of the ass-end of those always-too-small, mandatory, “who among us can tie the fucking thing in the back like that?” hospital gown.
For those unfamiliar with a Prostate biopsy, it consists of some shitwad shoving a phallic-shaped, 12-inch space-age plastic wand up your ass with you on your side, your legs partially bent with a spacer between your knees, with your head on a pillow while hopefully you gaze into a nice lady’s hazel eyes. Lucky me, Gloria’s hazel eyes were bright and teasing, the two eye traits highest on my eye traits list.
The positioning and technical application of the wand make the open ass-end style of your typical hospital gown clothing de approprie’ for this procedure, and the idea of what’s coming somehow manages to shake any impulses to form an erection from your brain’s Etch-A-Sketch. And while they use both a medicated lube and a shot of Lidocaine injected directly into your lower bowel and prostate, this guy right here only fell but the once for the idea that this is a painless procedure.
And why don’t we spell it “proceedure”, you know, with the two E’s?
This fucking wand has both a sonogrammer function—it requires imagining to direct the procedure’s progress into each of the twelve distinctive lobes, or compartments, of a prostate—and the drinking straw-sized needle/snipper used to remove samples from each of the twelve goddamned prostate lobes to be sent off to the lab, and as such you need to realize that it takes some girth in the wand to encapsulate sonogrammer functions and needle/snipper both.
“You’ll hear a snap sound like this,” and the technician will click this button to produce the metallic “snap!” you’ll be hearing twelve times before this is over. “You’ll also experience a “little” pain. Try not to move, OK?”
I told him, “OK, so how about I hold on to your nuts while we do this. It’ll help calm me and maybe you can manage to make this just a “little” painful.”
Gloria Salinas giggled and said, “Well, Jake, it seems this isn’t Mr. Johnson’s first rodeo. Let go of Jake’s testicles, Mr. Johnson, and try to relax. What he meant to say is that this hurts big-time but we can’t help it. It hurts less if you relax and be really still.”
“Can I stare into your eyes, Nurse Salinas? I find my mind drifting off the subject of having my gizzard plugged like a golf green when I stare into your pretty eyes. Are you spoken for?”
She wasn’t and she was OK with my stare and stared back with both nursely compassion and bemusement. Long story short, she’s allergic to dogs and has asthma, when stirred and shaken with my two puppies leads to a no-go on the go/no-go dating continuum.
“Well Squirtie girl, Gloria was all lined up until she told me she’s allergic to dogs and she has asthma. While it was a tempting choice, I got no place to dump you guys.”
“Fine,” she told me. “Did you do that toe-tapping thing you do when distance driving to bring you good luck?”
“No,” my hasty answer, a lie.
“Liar. Liar-liar-pants-on-fire!” This said with the tease of a first grader and a laugh. “You are so superstitious.”
She was right, but I just ignored her and she stared at me like only a dog can—head cocked and canted, adorable brown eyes boring hot laser streams at the side of my head. After an uncomfortable couple minutes she said to me, she says, “I’ve got a question for you, shithead. How is it that you can be so completely certain that there are no Gods yet you are superstitious? How’s religion and magic different? What the fuck is up with that?”
Again, in an attempt to distract from my shortcomings, I told another lie. “There are no conventional gods, those are all made-up deities designed to serve either power, or fear. I have my own God, sweetie pie, an unbiased deity without a vengeful heart and we’ll be seeing each other soon.”
Truth is I never know when my God will show up or what the topic of conversation will be. I can replay the events and then understand the whys and whens of a particular visit, but I never see Him/Her/It coming. Like the last time. I can say for sure that ingesting a healthy swig of my Gram’s mushroom juice, three of Lady Chee’s indica brownies washed down with a few icy cold Carta Blanca beers is one trigger. Additional thinking leads me to say that except for in my dreams, just like a prostate biopsy, my God has always requires me to be somewhat lubricated during a visit.
Did I have a point? Maybe. How about I say that with my ADD I require order and procedure to have even minimal control on my focus. Example cum laude would be that when stoned I have the most ability to focus as that state allows for the fewest number of thoughts to swirl around in my head. But it also allows the least level of cognitive thought, so there are times when I need to have both focus and sobriety. I think a few superstitious behaviors are reasonable. Like always saying, “Fuck Walmart!” when passing one of their stores or delivery trucks, or when hearing one of their commercials. Or, finally, when ending one of these postings.
So, Fuck Walmart!
