On the way up I striped off my shirt, shoes and socks and pretended to be either Thelma or Louise.   Who ever I wasn’t my best friend Ernie was.  A “chick flick” for guys I have been told since I never did see the damn thing.

Ernie and I were driving with the top down, bare-chested, hotly pumped from one of our insanely intense workouts, and it felt like the summer of ’76 all over again. 

I planted my feet on his dashboard, stretched my pecs and took my Ativan and Percocet right on schedule.  Ern and I talked, teased and flirted in the comfort of being head over heals in love with our husbands.  I felt safely wicked.

A little over an hour later Ern flipped through a magazine and I flipped on my left side. A needle skillfully amusingly slides into a vein, and I note the blood flash backed. Home run. As the Valium jigged and displaced the blood and fluid with drug I heard the guy talking.  Being professional as fuck as my brains scrambled

As he washed his hands and sincerely, smiled in all the right places he told me I needed to take off my pants and underwear.

As tossed my pants to a chair I told him I did not OWN any underwear. 

You don’t own underwear?

I figured standing there bare assed should have confirmed any doubt.

Nope, not a pair.  Saved my mother hours of anguish of envisioning me half dead with dirty shorts after being hit by a car.  

As he stared at me in the eyes seating for any fragments of my sanity I did the very guy thing of making sure my dick was hanging manly.

He splayed his hands, smiled and nodded me to the exam table.

Let the hunt begin, he said. 

 I noted it was a hard thing to argue with my dick hanging out and the Valium giving me he cosmic insight that that Glee really sucks.

You are gong to feel a little pressure and maybe a slight pinch he cautioned wisely. 

Really, I though doubtfully.  I would be taking bets that I would not be standing naked with a tray full of shinny instruments glaring at me if I had been a little more circumspect about what had gone up my ass previously.

Just try to relax and think of England.

I tried not to feel like Donna Reed and failed.

 Twist, turn, pump.

Bingo! He muttered upon finding what he was looking for.

 More twists, more turns, more pumps.

B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, and BINGO was his name O! He hummed quietly.

Snip, clip, and plop

 I am sorry if that hurt at all.

Rattle, bunch, and pull. 

Fine by me except I am calling a 75/25 reward split if there is a sighting of Jimmy Hoffa.

Fair enough.

Forceps, pull, yank , clip, more snips and, of course, England 

Hoffa remains not found, he informed gravely.

I should alert the media anyway I thought.

However, I did large visualized jumble of angry tissue.  The jumble, he explains, is a contortion of blood vessels that are likely acting like a food supply system.

My grandmother’s wisdom not withstanding I concluded all the warnings of swallowed watermelon seeds had not formed into a reality.

I sit my naked butt down on the exam table.  Between the jests, jabs, and juice I am not even remotely away of still being half naked.  However, I do hear what he is NOT saying.  A food supply system is needed for something to grow.

We will talk in a week.   He pauses.  There is a about a 70% cure rate.

Why did I need know a cure rate with butt tissue still floating in a limbo of gel? 

I do the math in reverse.  Cure rate about 70%; non-cure rate about thirty percent.

Okay what happen now? I ask for the sake of need to fill the void.

 Life goes on.  Your tissue goes to the lab, you go back to your clinic, and I assume you hit the gym big time.

I nod. Makes sense to me.

Ern and I get back in the car. Talk laugh and play.  Shirts off again, feet (mine anyway) on dashboard.  He smiles, says he loves me, and drops me home. 

Jim comes home.  I smile, we talk, I fade.  I feel something shift my guts and decidedly decide to ignore it.   

Jim and I do not live in the wreckage of the future when possible.

Given the Valium, sun, and probing we both feel out of sorts.  I pray to Saint Anthony not to crap the bed tonight.

Jim holds me and I sleep.  St Anthony listens and I do not crap the bed. As I drift off to sleep I think I really need to figure out what the fuck St Anthony patrons.

Forty-nine and a half hours post procedure I am standing in my bathroom.  The house is being cleaned.  I can see the contractor carefully apply white paint to clapboard

I smile and wonder how long will the damn Valium linger in me.  Fun was fun.  But now I am being taken down. 

I feel the lower half of my guts pull.  Without any fanfare my manipulated gut cuts loose and I am standing in a puddle of my own making. 

My chemically induced bravado has evacuated along with my guts, and I am scared.

I call Jim and with the ease that can only be shared between couples, I leave a message and tell him what has happen.  I wonder what he is doing as I silently clean up. 

There is an Ativan left and now seems like a dandy time to use my back up.  I go la y down.

Just as about the Ativan lulls me into forgetting Jim quietly walks through the bedroom door and lies with me; takes me in his arms 

I am sure I tried to say something, but what was there to say really.  Actions trump words any day and semantics is a language for fools.

Rocks, paper, scissors.

I fall back into Jim knowing I am protected. 

One, two, three , shoot.  Paper covers rock.  Rock breaks scissors; scissors cut paper.  I can’t remember.

Jim gently spoons me and I sleep