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Tuesday, 22 May 2012 20:03 |
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by Mark Hunter
Most kids love to see a big fire engine, with all the bells and whistles on it. Since Albion just received a new one (fire engine, not kid), I thought I’d give you all a little overview of what a fire engine is and how it operates, ignoring the fact that most don’t come with bells or whistles anymore (fire engines, not kids … usually).
The Albion Fire Department has a twenty year truck replacement plan, and the one being replaced is 24 years old, so you can see why they were anxious to get to it. The idea is to avoid the situation we ran into in the 80’s: The first time I responded to a major house fire was in a 1952 engine, which meant that at 28, it was ten years older than me.
That’s 82, in car years.
It was a very cool truck. However, while a 1930 biplane is a very cool aircraft, you’d want to update your air force every once in awhile.
The traditional term for these trucks is engines, although they’d been called pumpers around here for decades. The Feds prefer “engine” and so do I, but it’s a pretty silly argument: For them to be successful, the trucks need both engines and pumps.
Ironically, Albion’s original fire engine was called an engine, but didn’t have one; just a pump. It was hauled by hand to a fire scene, and then pumped by hand. I think I can safely say we’ve improved since then.
Okay, so what do we need for an effective fire engine?
Well, tires. Tires are good. Also, a steering wheel with which to turn the tires. You think I jest, but some very early fire engines had to be picked up and carried, and when they finally got wheels those early wheels often didn’t turn – the firefighters would have to pick the engine up and change directions when they got to an intersection.
They were a lot lighter then.
Also, I mentioned an engine for the engine. It has to be powerful, capable of getting a truck full of equipment, firefighters, and water to the scene. Due to new Federal emission standards on the engine engines, the estimated cost of a fire truck has increased by around $15,000. When asked if they’d help pay for that, the Federal Government said … nothing.
Did I mention the water? The new truck carries a thousand gallons on board, which is especially helpful out in rural areas where there are no hydrants. Ask any farmer, and they’ll tell you hydrants don’t just spring out of the ground.
And, yeah, a pump. The main purpose of a ladder truck is to carry ladders, the main purpose of a rescue truck is to carry rescue equipment, and the main purpose of a fire engine is to pump water. Sometimes they mix and match and it gets complicated, just like my home repair jobs but with less bleeding. The new truck’s pump will have a capacity of 1,500 gallons per minute, enough to fill your bathtub in, oh, two seconds. The 1988 truck has a 1,000 gpm pump. It would take three seconds. Who wants to wait that long?
That much water flow isn’t needed for your typical house fire – well, not usually – but insurance companies like to see a nice, big capacity for the worst case scenario. For big fires, big water is there, and if one hydrant can’t supply the truck it could be fed from two hydrants. If Albion’s water system went down or a big fire broke out in rural areas, it could go to the nearest pond, lake, or stream and pump through large diameter hose for miles.
Also required for a fire engine to operate is a crew of firefighters. Technology hasn’t advanced that much. Most experts agree that a minimum of four human beings is required to crew an engine, and the new truck will have seating for six. The 1988 truck had, in theory, seating for three, on one bench seat.
In actual practice the older truck has a manual transmission, and the guy sitting in the middle sometimes couldn’t help at the scene because his knee got bruised so badly when he didn’t get out of the way of the gear shift lever. In my experience going from third to fourth was especially dangerous. Lately we’ve taken to hauling two firefighters on that truck, and I can also say from experience that being the only guy on board besides the pump operator can be a very lonely experience.
(I once drove that truck alone to a brush fire, then deployed, pressurized, and operated a hoseline by myself until more firefighters arrived from another call. It took me two days to recover.)
Something else required for a fire engine is safety. You can get two kinds of fire trucks. One is a standard cab, which means basically a pump was put on the body of a regular truck: the same thing that might be hauling grain, bread, or ice cream. Yum. Bread.
We chose a custom cab, because it’s designed to actually be a fire truck, from the ground up. More sturdily built, better designed, and more capable of keeping us alive in a worst case scenario.
So, let’s review: The new fire engine pumps more water, carries more manpower and equipment, has updated technology, is safer, and through sheer newness is more reliable.
Still no bells or whistles, though. I miss the bells.
by Mark Hunter Most kids love to see a big fire engine, with all the bells and whistles on it. Since Albion just received a new one (fire engine, not kid), I thought I’d give you all a little overview of what a fire engine is and how it operates, ignoring the fact that most don’t come with bells or whistles anymore (fire engines, not kids … usually). The Albion Fire Department has a twenty year truck replacement plan, and the one being replaced is 24 years old, so you can see why they were anxious to get to it. The idea is to avoid the situation we ran into in the 80’s: The first time I responded to a major house fire was in a 1952 engine, which meant that at 28, it was ten years older than me. That’s 82, in car years. It was a very cool truck. However, while a 1930 biplane is a very cool aircraft, you’d want to update your air force every once in awhile. The traditional term for these trucks is engines, although they’d been called pumpers around here for decades. The Feds prefer “engine” and so do I, but it’s a pretty silly argument: For them to be successful, the trucks need both engines and pumps.
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Wednesday, 16 May 2012 20:40 |
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by Mark Hunter
Every now and then all the little news and pop culture items I collect go into one column, usually because, say, roofers are banging on my house and I can’t concentrate on anything longer. Be warned: Finding out what’s going on in the world may cause you to lose your faith in humanity:
A video clip of Adolf Hitler giving a speech was recently used in a commercial to sell shampoo. Okay, did they even look at that guy’s hair? The Stalin conditioner doesn’t seem appropriate, either.
Speaking of inappropriate use of historical figures, The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, responded to a protest by pulling the bobblehead doll they were selling. It was a figure of John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated Lincoln. The figure carries a gun. It would be roughly equivalent to showing that Adolf Hitler commercial at a Holocaust Museum.
A new fad has stars in bikinis showing off their “baby bumps.” They used to call it pregnancy. Of course, the original baby bumps were two sources of baby nutrition, a bit higher up – most celebrities couldn’t use those for any practical purpose without giving their infants plastic poisoning.
An explosion in Georgia killed a man known for fighting to keep chickens on his property. Police list Colonel Sanders as a person of interest.
A study of over more than 222,000 people indicated that sitting too long can kill you. Four out of five of the researchers doing the study died.
Another study found that eating red meat can be unhealthy, especially to cows. After all, zombies eat only red meat – and they look terrible.
Federal agents recently shot dead a man involved in a murder for hire plot. It’s perhaps ironic that they didn’t get a bonus for it.
Nobody’s talking much these days about the US government’s “Fast and Furious” program, which sent thousands of firearms over the border into the hands of Mexican criminals. It’s nice to know the Obama administration’s doing something about our international trade imbalance.
An Easter egg hunt in Colorado was canceled because of rude, selfish, pushy behavior – by the parents. In related news, fifteen years later a riot broke out among parents trying to be first in line to get the diploma at high school graduation.
President Obama was recorded telling the President of Russia that after his last election he’d have “more flexibility.” Obama then presented him with a gift of frozen pancakes, and told him not to flip them until November.
North Korea is downplaying the discovery that their “weather” satellite had lettering on it that translated to “Insert bomb here.” Top officials, speaking anonymously, are embarrassed that they forgot to insert the bomb.
The largest known breed of rats in the world has been discovered invading the Florida Keys. Weird. I thought that state’s Presidential primary was over.
Scientists recently announced that most of the Moon seems to be made up of material it got from Earth. NASA astronauts were immediately dispatched to serve the Moon with an IRS audit notice.
The comedian Gallagher has retired after having a heart attack. Maybe if he’d eaten the fruit instead of smashing it …
Speaking of retiring, another man is accused of sawing off his own foot in an attempt to avoid working. You have to admire his non-work ethic, but wonder about his lack of imagination.
It was recently announced that liberal activist Jane Fonda will be portraying … wait for it … Nancy Reagan in a movie. Also cast is Alec Baldwin as Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich as Jimmy Carter.
New rules say beach volleyball players will not have to wear bikinis at the 2012 London Olympics. This was followed immediately by the networks scheduling beach volleyball during prime time, until it was discovered the rule does not permit nude volleyball, and that in fact the players might actually cover up more. Beach volleyball is now scheduled in the 5 a.m. slot.
Recently two asteroids, one the size of a tour bus, buzzed by the Earth on the same day director James Cameron made the deepest undersea dive ever. Coincidence? Or an act of self-preservation by going to one of the most dangerous spots on earth to escape a possible collision, thus proving him brilliantly insane? Probably coincidence.
I recently read an article asking what might happen if all 350 million toilets in the United States were flushed at the same time. I can only imagine that a humor columnist facing a deadline came up with that question. Unfortunately, the federal government got wind of it (ahem) and is now organizing the Department of Hydraulics (DoH), to mandate guidelines that will prevent any future mass dumping. I don’t think they should go up that creek. Especially without a paddle.
Apparently the person who bombed Kim Kardashian with flour is a member of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). No word on whether they were planning to bake her or fry her.
Water ice was recently found on Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun. Insert Uranus joke here. Or maybe I just did.
That’s the news roundup … generally everyone made it through unharmed, except for John Wilkes Booth fans. The sad part of that is that there probably are some. by Mark Hunter Every now and then all the little news and pop culture items I collect go into one column, usually because, say, roofers are banging on my house and I can’t concentrate on anything longer. Be warned: Finding out what’s going on in the world may cause you to lose your faith in humanity: A video clip of Adolf Hitler giving a speech was recently used in a commercial to sell shampoo. Okay, did they even look at that guy’s hair? The Stalin conditioner doesn’t seem appropriate, either. Speaking of inappropriate use of historical figures, The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, responded to a protest by pulling the bobblehead doll they were selling. It was a figure of John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated Lincoln. The figure carries a gun. It would be roughly equivalent to showing that Adolf Hitler commercial at a Holocaust Museum. A new fad has stars in bikinis showing off their “baby bumps.” They used to call it pregnancy. Of course, the original baby bumps were two sources of baby nutrition, a bit higher up – most celebrities couldn’t use those for any practical purpose without giving their infants plastic poisoning.
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Wednesday, 09 May 2012 14:22 |
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by Mark Hunter
Once again Indiana was left in the cold, as Republicans had their Presidential nomination process all but wrapped up before reaching the Hoosier state’s May primary. In 2008 the Democratic battle between Obama and Clinton was still going strong at that point, giving Indiana a rare opportunity to actually pick between a rock and a hard place.
Clinton narrowly won Indiana. As a result, when Obama ultimately won the Presidency, he kicked Hillary out of the country.
Well, you can call it Secretary of State.
Now Republicans are left with Mitt Romney, a guy whose first name makes everyone think of frostbitten fingers. That’s why I’ve got twenty bucks on Obama being a two term President.
But who could beat Obama? He’s handsome, slim, and a snappy dresser, at a time when all that matters to people. The media’s going out of its way to make him look cool. Many women love him almost to the point of frenzy. Most black voters will vote for him because he’s – let’s face it – black.
Justin Beiber couldn’t defeat Obama right now. Of course, pre-teens can’t vote.
Maybe the Republicans should play Frankenstein, cutting up all the second stringers who ran this year and sewing their best parts together into some kind of super candidate, while dumping the worst parts into a toxic waste dump. Let’s take a look at some of the former wannabes, and see what we could extract from them:
Herman Cain is a veteran, and successful businessman who understands private enterprise and leadership, and he really loves the ladies. If you could just chop off the part after that last comma, he’d have the nomination wrapped up all by himself.
Although some of his social stances are too right wing for me, I supported Cain early on. In addition to all the above stuff he’s black, which I thought might finally remove all questions of racial bias and divisiveness from the campaign, and get people to focus on what really matters.
Imagine my surprise when I was told by a liberal that supporting Cain against Obama would make me a racist. D’uh? That’s like saying supporting the consumption of beef means I’m a vegetarian. I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument that didn’t translate to “I don’t want your black guy to run against my black guy!” Remember those things, what were they called – issues?
Still, he likes the ladies, although people didn’t seem to mind that with Clinton. So from Cain we take his business and military experience.
Michele Bachmann? “She’s crazy! She’s crazy! Let’s put really unflattering pictures of her on magazine covers to show it!”
Bachman has five children; she and her husband have been foster parents for 23 other children, all teenage girls. So maybe she is crazy. She was once a Jimmy Carter supporter, so certainly she’s made bad decisions. Just the same, from her I pull the experience of family and service to others.
Rick Perry. Ehhhhh … I got nothin’. Let me do some checking and get back to you. Texas is nice, though; they’ve got Stetsons. Stetsons are cool.
Ron Paul is, I believe, a leprechaun. As such, he’d have been born in Ireland and not be Constitutionally permitted to run for President, but I like his libertarian attitude and take from him the belief in individual liberties, cutting government, and a pot of gold in every rainbow. His foreign policy ideas are too head-in-the-sand for my tastes, but with a mug like that you’d bury your head in the sand, too.
Newt Gingrich is named Newt but still had a successful political career, in a country where almost half our Presidents were named John, George, William, or James. Just think: Newt could be our next Ulysses Grant.
Some things about Gingrich could make him a strong candidate (which is not the same as being good for the country, mind you). He’s by all accounts cerebral, well-read, and experienced with the ways of Washington, and I suspect he’d mop the floor with Obama in an open debate – if he kept his temper. On the minus side, he’s experienced with the ways of Washington.
He also sleeps around. Now, it seems okay to be uncovered as an adulterer once you get into the White House – in some famous cases, it’s even okay while in the White House. But Heaven forbid a candidate sleep around and get caught before being elected.
Still, I’d take from Gingrich his knowledge, and skills that helped lead, while he was House speaker, to the first balanced budget in thirty years. As far as I’m concerned, any President who can pull us off the Red Ink Express before we go over the broken bridge of insolvency can party with strippers every night. Maybe that’s not fair, since they don’t let the Secret Service do it anymore.
A couple of other candidates caught my eye, and one is Thad McCotter. Unfamiliar to you? The Michigan Representative’s run didn’t last long, but the man’s lead guitarist for a rock band! I’ll take that coolness factor.
Just for fun, I’d like to throw in Fred S. Karger, the first openly gay presidential candidate from a major US political party. Yeah, he’s a Republican. I just like the idea of someone showing you can be a member of either party without slavishly following its entire platform; we could all learn from that.
Stitch all these together, and you come up with a candidate who has political expertise, yet holds leadership abilities and real life business experience, has served the country in the military, understands the challenges of family and career, is knowledgeable of history and well read, can compromise when necessary but make a stand on issues that really matter.
Oh, and he’s also a gay black man who fronts a rock band … in a Stetson.
You find me that man, and I’ll beat Barrack Obama with him. But he’d probably be too smart to run. by Mark Hunter Once again Indiana was left in the cold, as Republicans had their Presidential nomination process all but wrapped up before reaching the Hoosier state’s May primary. In 2008 the Democratic battle between Obama and Clinton was still going strong at that point, giving Indiana a rare opportunity to actually pick between a rock and a hard place. Clinton narrowly won Indiana. As a result, when Obama ultimately won the Presidency, he kicked Hillary out of the country. Well, you can call it Secretary of State. Now Republicans are left with Mitt Romney, a guy whose first name makes everyone think of frostbitten fingers. That’s why I’ve got twenty bucks on Obama being a two term President.
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Tuesday, 01 May 2012 14:17 |
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WINDOW CRUSHES HOME MAINTENANCE DREAMS
by Mark Hunter
Some things are way funnier in entertainment than in real life.
Ever seen the TV show Home Improvement? The main character, a tool loving cable TV star, just doesn’t get how very bad he is at his job. Really, the only difference between him and me is that I know I’m mechanically incompetent.
I had time to think about him as my fingers healed. Boy, sure wish I was kidding about that.
My task was not to rewire the house, re-plumb the plumbing, or do a speck of spackling. No, I had only to remove my home’s storm windows. It doesn’t even count as maintenance. It’s more like dusting, another thing I only deal with twice a year.
Still, it’s a challenge, as no one is still alive from when my windows were installed. That’s why the spring mechanism that keeps most of them up failed long ago.
Remember that detail.
In some windows, I had to physically install screens. The front door screen is held in by five screws: four Phillips head, one regular head. Never mind the obvious question of why anyone thought two kinds of screws were a good idea to begin with, but at what point did that switch get made?
It’s not easy for me to find screwdrivers: My main tool kit consists of a hammer, a butter knife, a roll of duct tape, and a credit card. An old credit card, which can do things like open locked doors. If I can’t fix something with those tools, I’m better off calling someone who can.
Now the door is held in by three screws, plus two others that are stripped and holding nothing in, but look good. Maybe I should have used a smaller butter knife.
On the back porch I have to loosen four latches, remove the window, put the screen in, and tighten the latches. Except one latch wouldn’t loosen. Well, when you can’t turn something with your fingers, what do you do? That’s right: Bring in a completely inappropriate tool assist. Pliers should do it.
Pliers did, indeed, twist off the screw that held the latches in. Just the top of the screw – the rest stayed in the hole, while I stood there holding the now unattached latch.
Redundancy becomes very important in my home “repair” work. Four latches are great, but three will hold the window in. Five screws are better, but three will do the job. I didn’t even have to use the duct tape.
In the kitchen there’s a crank. But enough about me in the morning; I’m talking about the crank that opens the kitchen window. For the first time since I bought the house, I couldn’t get the crank to turn. So, continuing the theme of applying inappropriate force, I cranked harder.
With one of those noises that makes anyone wince, like Rosanne Barr’s voice, the crank turned. But the window didn’t open. That’s when I remembered that the previous fall I painted the woodworking on the outside of that window.
You guessed it: I painted the window shut. Now I had two broken-down cranks in the kitchen.
Much to my surprise nothing went wrong with the window in the bathroom, although I had to prop it open with a stick due to the fact that the window is older than the plumbing … and the plumbing is labeled “experimental.”
How does one celebrate a modestly successful home maintenance task? Why, by showering off all that dust and sweat, of course. So I undressed, then realized I’d left the curtain on that bathroom window open to let the warm air in. Granted that only my head would be visible from outside, but the least I could do for my long-suffering neighbors was muffle the sound of my shower singing.
So I stepped into the bathtub, reached out to the curtain, gave it a pull, and –
BAM!!!!!
Have you ever seen one of those “hilarious” TV or movie scenes where a window comes down on someone’s hands? Not nearly as funny in real life.
Apparently the curtain pulled out that stick (okay, it was a paint stirrer), which brought the window down on my right hand. I put that all together later. In that instant I knew only blinding pain, then I instinctively yanked my hand back, which didn’t work because my two middle fingers were crushed between the window and the casing. I said … well, never mind what I said, but I assure you all my neighbors could quote me verbatim.
The fingers refused to come free, and all the F-bombs I dropped made absolutely no difference. I couldn’t get the leverage to do anything with my left hand. I was trapped, in agony, standing alone in the bathtub … and stark naked.
The naked part made me decide I had to find a way out myself. I don’t have much pride, but still. So, using the adrenalin now pumping through me, I slammed my left fist upward against the window until – finally – it gave way.
I was left with some missing skin, and dents a third of the way into my fingers, embedded with white paint that I’d applied just the previous autumn. My fingers were – and I’m sure you’ll be as surprised as I was – not broken, which isn’t to say they were pleased with the day’s work.
They still hurt, whereas my pride is pretty much used to it.
The moral of this story? I guess it’s that there should be only two tools in my toolbox: A phone book, and a new credit card. by Mark Hunter Some things are way funnier in entertainment than in real life. Ever seen the TV show Home Improvement? The main character, a tool loving cable TV star, just doesn’t get how very bad he is at his job. Really, the only difference between him and me is that I know I’m mechanically incompetent. I had time to think about him as my fingers healed. Boy, sure wish I was kidding about that. My task was not to rewire the house, re-plumb the plumbing, or do a speck of spackling. No, I had only to remove my home’s storm windows. It doesn’t even count as maintenance. It’s more like dusting, another thing I only deal with twice a year. Still, it’s a challenge, as no one is still alive from when my windows were installed. That’s why the spring mechanism that keeps most of them up failed long ago. Remember that detail.
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Wednesday, 25 April 2012 14:20 |
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by Mark Hunter
This might come out a bit more disjointed than usual, and not as funny, as I’ve just been through something of a rough week.
What’s that, you say? I’m always disjointed and not as funny? Clearly you’ve never read the side-splitting account of my prostate exam, which never fails to clear the room.
There are ways one can deal with medical problems: laugh, cry, or stoically carry on, for instance. I whine … but I channel it into a job. This makes me the Woody Allen of my block, complete with a much younger wife but without the movie credits.
This all segues nicely into the story of my fiancée-wife, who I’ll refer to for the next year as my fiancée even though she’s kind of my wife. Segues aren’t just for riding around in malls anymore. (You have read my previous column explaining this, yes? Shame on you.)
Humor at the expense of my own problems is stock-in-trade and expected, but when the medical problems are hers it’s harder for me to find the funny. That, plus the fact that we’re still going through it and I’m writing this almost literally at the last minute (and I don’t take the term literally lightly, figuratively speaking), make this column difficult.
I wanted to explain why I’ve been largely absent from many areas of my life and why I was often an emotional bear (and you don’t want to mess with emotional bears), and above all, to say I’m sorry for using all these parenthesis. It’s also an emotion dump for me.
Many weeks ago, Emily (my fiancée-wife – seriously, read my columns) started having trouble with abdominal pain and other symptoms. Various medical people poked and prodded and said “Hm …” in their most professional manner while Emily, who’s had various medical problems all her life, did the stoic thing. I was, of course, confident, encouraging, lighthearted, and absolutely certain everything would be okay.
Only later did I find out I was fooling no one. So much for all that acting experience in high school drama club.
Dr. Miller, a lady-parts doctor, sat us down to go over options. Well, I’d already collapsed into a chair, but never mind. The options: We could do nothing and see if the pain would go away. (It had been, what – three months at this point?) We could put her on birth control pills to see if controlling her raging hormones might help. (Emily’s raging hormones, that is – Dr. Miller is a male lady-parts doctor. This is where you make the joke of your choice.)
(By the way, I was really worried at this point that the raging hormones thing would result in objects in our house being demolished, and by objects I mean my head.)
I’m really, really sorry about the parenthesis.
Or, we could go in for laparoscopic surgery, which basically means the doc uses a tiny camera to go Indiana Jonesing around the body, overwhelmed with curiosity and looking for trouble with such joy that he might as well be named Doctor Who. If only it could be done in a less invasive way, say with a sonic screwdriver, which is not a drink they serve at Sonic. More’s the pity.
I knew it was time for the surgery when Emily, who I sometimes call Miss 4.0, expressed a complete lack of interest in her college course load. It was like Hugh Hefner saying he wasn’t interested in women.
I took a whole rotation off from my work (my full time job, that is – don’t worry, I’ll keep up on my newspaper writing), anticipating she might need some nursing after the surgery.
Boy, was I ever right. I hate being right. I’m only right when it’s a bad thing.
I told my relatives that they didn’t need to come wait with me, under the theory that if I kept busy with writing, reading, or other work in the waiting room I wouldn’t worry, which is pretty much total bull and was roundly ignored by my mother. Other friends and relatives were flocking toward the hospital like politicians jumping on a photo op, until Emily came out of the operating room so quickly that I turned them all around, thinking it was all over but the shouting.
By the way, I want to take a moment to talk about Parkview Noble Hospital. This “Band-Aid station,” often put down for being a small town nothing that ships all its patients elsewhere, is where Emily had the operation. It’s also where one of my grandsons was admitted for an illness and where, in its previous location, both my daughter and I were born.
Are they going to do emergency brain surgery there? No. But the staff was competent, friendly, helpful, encouraging, caring – all those other good “ing’s.” She was in and out of surgery so quickly that when the doc stepped into the waiting room I figured it was to tell me there was a delay, and he hadn’t even started yet. At no point did anyone rush to get rid of us, or fail to answer questions or address concerns.
So if you put down a small town hospital as being worthless in front of me, those are fighting words. Or, well, very strong glare words.
The diagnosis: Endometriosis. This condition happens when cells that are supposed to stay in the reproductive system break out and have a party in other parts of the abdomen, with pain caused by their head banging music, littering of red cups still partially full of beer, and wet t-shirt contests.
I’m kidding – the wet t-shirt contests cause no harm.
While looking around with his spy cam the doc called in the pelvic police and had the party shut down. Not to go into too much detail, but the end result was a lot of pain, and medications junkies can only dream of. Yes, I did spend the next week nursing Emily back to health. No, she did not starve or get dropped down a staircase. Yes, I did come out of it sleep deprived. It’s 5:30 in the morning as I write this, five days later. She’s stretched out on the couch across the room, and I’m meeting deadline. (Note to editor: I’ll have my other news stuff to you after a nap. Also, I appreciate your note about using too many parentheses.)
I should note that during her convalescence: One contractor finished replacing my roof, I had to empty everything out of our kitchen so another could replace the ceiling and lighting fixtures, and my furnace stopped working. Life goes on, and there’ll always be something to write about. I’d just prefer, in the future, if it didn’t involve bad things happening to my loved ones. by Mark Hunter This might come out a bit more disjointed than usual, and not as funny, as I’ve just been through something of a rough week. What’s that, you say? I’m always disjointed and not as funny? Clearly you’ve never read the side-splitting account of my prostate exam, which never fails to clear the room. There are ways one can deal with medical problems: laugh, cry, or stoically carry on, for instance. I whine … but I channel it into a job. This makes me the Woody Allen of my block, complete with a much younger wife but without the movie credits. This all segues nicely into the story of my fiancée-wife, who I’ll refer to for the next year as my fiancée even though she’s kind of my wife. Segues aren’t just for riding around in malls anymore. (You have read my previous column explaining this, yes? Shame on you.)
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