You Know What Really Sticks in My Craw?

(Warning: This was written yesterday, while still under the effects of "twilight" anesthesia.)

Be careful 'cuz I am now bugged. I'm wired for sound. In fact, this post is probably being recorded as I type, so comment at your own risk. Oh, I'm also still doped up on funny juice, so forgive the flrb mmrshn grm.

This morning, I had a "procedure" foisted upon me called the "Bravo pH Test" and boy, is my larynx tired. It's part of the endless barrage of tests invented by doctors to frighten, humiliate and, ultimately, relieve me of the spawnages' college money.

The Old Lady and I drove to the "surgery center" at the crackhole of dawn, I filled out some paperwork absolving everyone in the state of Michigan of my inevitable death, and then I was told to strip down to the waist, slip into a backwards shirt and put a shower cap on. It was nice to have a nurse order me to do that instead of the Old Lady, for a change.

Then they jabbed a needle in my hand (my hand!), rolled me into the surgery room and put what I think was a ball-gag in my mouth. Those stomach doctors are are some kinky-ass mofos (they put the "enter" in gastroenterology). Then a guy who looked a lot like Joe from the Three Stooges came in and told me what kind of roofies he was going to slip into my drip and it was off to fairyville.

When I woke up, one second later, I was in a different room, the Old Lady was standing over me with that "How did my life become this?" look I've grown to know so well, the ball-gag was gone and someone had drawn a Rollie Fingers mustache on my face in permanent Sharpie. Oh, and it felt like a homunculus was inside my esophagus, pinching the fuck out of it.

Basically, they snaked a tube down my throat (not a euphemism) and attached a small(ish) capsule to the wall of my esophagus that transmits a (most-likely lethal) signal to a little (genitalia sterilizing) receiver I have to wear around my neck that makes me look like a low-rent Darth Vader. There are three buttons on the receiver that I'm supposed to press whenever I have a specific sensation. There's one for "reflux," one for "regurgitation" and I think the third one dispenses a Pez out of my throat.

I'm supposed to wear the monitor for 24 hours and then turn it back in to the doc's office. Then, apparently, the capsule is supposed to release its death-grip and detach from my throat in "7 to 10 days." Seven to ten days?! I'll never fucking make it. I'll die from "pinched esophagus syndrome" by day three. No, if it doesn't detach after 48 hours, I'm grabbing the tongs off our barbecue and extracting that fucker myself.

Eating has been fairly brutal. Toast was a bad idea. Chips? No fucking way. Even chicken noodle soup felt like I was swallowing chicken-flavored fiberglass. So far, the only thing I can eat without wincing is ice cream so, fuck it, 48 hours of ice cream it'll have to be.

Five bucks says I gain 40 pounds and end up with "the diabeetus."

Mr. Commode's Wild Ride

The Old Lady found a frog on the toilet seat in our bathroom. The bathroom off of our bedroom. On the second story of our house. A frog.

What the shit, indeed.

There are many theories as to just how the fuck this wily amphibian made its way onto our crapper...

• It secreted itself inside either my, or the Old Lady's, asshole whilst we weren't paying attention. Say, when I was bending over and reaching into the garden to pick a plump tomato, or when the Old Lady crouched down on the sidewalk to retrieve a quarter. Then, while we were getting ready for bed, it hopped out of one of its sphincter-y sanctuaries and onto its toilet-y perch.
• While we were walking the dog, our froggy fugitive climbed aboard the dog's back and traveled, rodeo-style, into the house, up the stairs and lassoed itself onto the shitter.
• It hopped into my mouth while I was sleeping, survived a nightmarish rollercoaster ride through my colon, was blasted into the toilet bowl during my morning constitutional, then dredged itself up out of the muck and collapsed on the seat.
• It got washed down a sewer drain, swam upstream, weaving in and out of rocketing turdpedoes, into our sump pump, where it then crawled, Andy Dufresne-style, up the plumbing pipes and onto the throne.
• It's always been there and we just never noticed it.

I'm leaning toward the second theory because I just like the image of a frog riding a dog. Maybe I should make a little saddle for the pup and strap it onto his back before his walks. I could fashion it out of a piece of twine and a Pringle. We could get a whole stable of rodeo frogs, nay, Todeo frogs. We could charge admission and I could make the spawnage dress up as clowns and hide behind big barrels as the dog rocketed around the yard, desperately trying to eat both the frog and the Pringle off of his back.

This might just be the retirement opportunity I've been waiting for. To the pond!!!

The Log Days of Summer...

Question of the Day: Is there a dignified way to extricate a turd that's fused to your dog's ass-hairs, while he's yelping every time you tug on it and desperately trying to bite it off himself?

Answer of the Day: Nope.

To better illustrate the futility of such a task, let me relate it to you with a timely summer metaphor...

Imagine you're at the state fair, snacking on a delicious salted nut roll. While the salt is helping to replenish the precious electrolytes you've lost touring the sweltering fair grounds, you now crave something sweeter. You spy a cotton candy vendor and sidle up to the cart to watch a fresh batch being flossed into existence. As you peer into the giant silver reservoir, you lose your grip on your now-sweaty nut log and watch it tumble, headlong into the spinning candy webbery. By the time the vendor shuts off the machine, your nut-studded nugget is interwoven in a dense plexus of sticky candy reticula. Any attempt to remove the bolus from the hive's center will result in the vicious tearing of the delicate sugar-lattice and render both delicious treats completely inedible.

Such was my dilemma. (Although my goal was not to eat the dog's turd or ass-hairs, so i guess that's where the comparison falls apart.) So how did I resolve this doo-doo dilemma? I chased him around the backyard, hoping his spirited loping would help knock hunks of the fastened feces off his fanny, which it actually did, a bit. Then I got the hose out, switched the nozzle to "crappé" and blasted the remaining bits to kingdung come.

Mission Asscomplished.

Radon, It's a Crazy Feelin'...

Well, the verdict is in and, unfortunately, my basement is Radon free.

What does that mean? It means I have to find something else to blame my debilitating feebleness on, that's what it means. And I was really hoping to be dying of Radon poisoning, too. It's so mysterious and fancy.

CONCERNED PERSON 1: How did Crabbydad die?

CONCERNED PERSON 2: I heard it was... (whispering) radon poisoning.

CONCERNED PERSON 1: Oh man, that sounds horrific! What were his symptoms?

CONCERNED PERSON 2: Tiredness... occasional wheeziness... lack of desire to do anything substantial with his life... oh, and of course the chronic crabbiness.

CONCERNED PERSON 1: He must have been very brave.

CONCERNED PERSON2: Hm... no, not really.

So that basically leaves "being old" as the cause of all my symptomology. I'm tired because I'm old. My lung capacity is down because I'm old. I have a pulsing flesh-nubbin jutting out of my armpit because I'm old. I can't start or end my day until I make a nice B.M. because I'm old. I can't drink more than a glass and a half of wine without drying up into a dessicated husk overnight because I'm old. I don't have eyebrows anymore because I'm old. I constantly trip over my pendulous scrote that's dangling down around my ankles because I'm old. FINE! I GET IT!

It would've been a fuck of a lot easier to have had radon-poisoning, though.

Homeward Bound... and Gagged

Back from Portland and I have to say that I never truly comprehend just what a worthless shit-hole of a town I live in until I travel. Holy fuckstain. Every goddamn block in that town is an embarrassment of riches -- restaurants, food trucks, galleries, book stores, gluten-free bakeries, hemp refineries, hair salons specifically catering to rich white kids with dreadlocks, there's a patchouli river that courses through the city, and there are vegan gumdrops made with unbleached spelt and sweetened with agave nectar that rain down from the skies.

Here, we have Old Country Barfet.

I'm ready to move. My bag is packed. (Also, my luggage is filled with my belongings. Hello.) All we need is for a professorin' gig to open up at Portland State and we're there. Sure, the spawnage flip their collective lid every time we mention moving, but they'll get over it. Moving never killed anybody. You know who moved a lot as a child, according to Google? Tupac Shakur. And look how he turned out. Shit, he just performed at a concert as a hologram! The spawnage love holograms!

Anywhich, the trip was great. I don't feel like blathering on about all that we did, so I'll sum it all up in three bullet points:

• We went here.
  
• I got Chicken 'n' Waffles from a food cart.
  
• Miss O almost sharted at an outdoor festival.
  

Now if that's not a successful vacation, then I don't know what is. Of course, we fucked it all up by taking the brown-eye home on Monday morning. Or is that the "red-eye"? Whatever it is, it sure felt like the brown-eye. And now it's all just a distant memory... like "The Wire" or "my eyebrows."

Five bucks says I could even buy a set of goat hair eyebrow merkins from one of the many Alternative Body Hair Toupee vendors roaming the streets of Portland. Stupid Portland.