Dad here; I dug through the archives in search of the original story, but either A: mom destroyed it, or B: it was written before Charlie started the blog, and it was nowhere to be found. Technically, that lets me off of the hook, but I’m a man of my word, so as Doc Holliday said in Tombstone, “I have not yet begun to defile myself”; but I’m fixing to…
Jo Ann tells me that they gave me explicit directions before releasing me from the hospital concerning the care and feeding of Rollo the Plastic Remora, a friendly if somewhat clingy colostomy bag, but I was so far up the the river of De Nile that I don’t remember a word of it. All I knew is that I was going home with a wound still partially open, a piece of of intestine where a piece of intestine should never be, OUTSIDE MY GUTS!!!, and this plastic abomination hanging off my side, allowing me an up close, second look at the biscuit that I had so recently enjoyed.
Mom would come in all chipper from work, and say “how was your day?” “Oh, just heavenly, considering I’ve been sitting here in this recliner pooping into a Glad Bag all day, but thanks for asking”. The one thing that kept me going was the prayer that a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses would show up at my front door one day, and I was going to give them a reason to run screaming for their bicycles. And no, you do NOT want to know what I had in mind; some things are much better left unsaid.
My first day home, a shower was in order if for no other reason than to establish some sense of normalcy; well, I soon figured out that THAT train had already left the station. I had been told I could remove Rollo to shower, but they neglected to tell me that I needed to put him back on ASAP. As I hadn’t eaten any breakfast, I thought I was safe from any disturbances in the force, or that I would at least receive some warning of an impending movement, and I’m not talking Beethoven’s fifth.
This was to be Winingar’s Second, if you know what I’m saying.
So there I was, not a stitch of clothes and shaving cream on my face, and I literally heard a tiny “poink”. Before I go any further, two things must be made clear. First is the location of the stoma, where Rollo hung out; in my case, it was on my left lower abdomen. The second thing is that in my younger days, I was a very good at footbag, also known as Hackey Sack. So when the “poink” announced the arrival of a tiny turd, old habits die hard and my first response was to catch it on my left foot. Before I could get my mind wrapped around this development, here comes turd number one’s twin brother, which I also deftly snag, this time with my right foot.
So now what? Mom’s just on the other side of the door in the bedroom, but I’m not about to call her for assistance; who wants their spouse to see them looking like a buck naked Karate Kid with shaving cream on his face with a turd on each foot? And what did I expect her to do except have a heart attack laughing, and I was in no condition to perform CPR? Besides, I quickly realized if there were any future little bundles of joy to be dealt with, I was out of feet and I had to act fast. So I goosestepped like some sort of deranged Nazi stormtrooper over to the toilet and booted the offending articles into the abyss.
I do believe that was the lowest I have ever been in my life; I remember standing there and thinking “it cannot get any worse than this”; of course, this was before I knew about a thing called a barium enema, but that’s another story. I swore to myself that I would never speak of this whole sorry affair to anyone, that no one needed to know of my abject humiliation.
Then I thought, “Marty would crack up if he knew about this”, and knew that I just had to tell him. That’s when I knew I was doomed, that before it was all said and done, I would be yelling at complete strangers at the mall, “hey, wanna hear a funny poop story?”
Our misfortunes are not our own to hold tight in the darkness; sometimes the only way to get a wound to heal is to rip off the bandage and expose it to the fresh air and sunshine. Then others can learn from our experiences, or in my case, walk away shaking their heads, eternally thankful and thinking,
“At least I don’t have HIS problems”
Stay tuned for The Re-attachment, or I Had Forgotten That Porcelain Could Feel So Good”.
