In Which We Give Thanks

I hate to be the one to break it to our dear friends on the East Coast who sound like they’re suffering through a winter that still resembles the freezer door being left open too long, but the weather this afternoon here was glorious, sunny and warm, balmy in fact, perfect for lazing around and glorying in the fact that one no longer has medical apparatuses dangling out from or off of one’s bits.

Yes, chickens, mrpeenee paid a visit to the urologist today (and let me just mention how all specialists’ offices smell very particular according to their specialty.  Pedicatricians smell like baby powder and puke, oncologists smell like hard candy from the enormous bowls of the stuff they have lying around for patients suffering from chemo-induced nausea, and urologists do not smell like pee, don’t be vulgar, they smell like old guys, a stinky stew of Old Spice deodorant and all the things it fails to deodorize.) to get his catheter out. Outoutout.

I was careful to phrase all my answers in the form of a statement that included the words “Take the catheter out.”

• yes, and take the catheter out.
• no, but take the catheter out.
• maybe, or take the catheter out.
• I don’t know, just take the fucking catheter out.

Finally we got past negotiating and he announced he would fill my bladder with a sterile liquid (like we haven’t all heard that old chestnut before) and if I could piss it out, he wouldn’t have to replace the catheter.  He went over these points five times, like they were some complicated party game and he wasn’t sure I was a bright enough guest to pick up the finer points.  He then filled me up to the brim and discreetly excused himself, leaving me staring at a steel bucket and willing the pee to come.

I wasn’t praying, but I wasn’t not praying either, looking into the depths of the bucket and thinking about faith when I remembered a charming bit of doggerel Mitzi from Clutter from the Gutter shared with us on a long gone post when I was nattering on about saints:

Something’s lost and can’t be found
Please St Anthony look around.

As soon as it finished echoing around in my empty little brain, well, they weren’t flood gates, I am an old man, after all, but gates, nevertheless opened.  Never have I been so glad to see anybody’s urine.

Praise lord and all the saints! Let your shouts be manifold!  Give thanks unto the heavens and especially Mitzi, the old darling.

Saint Anthony of All American Guys