The Lesson From The Lava Lamp

Greg Marshall is a friend of this blog. I think I can say, with all Christian charity, that Greg is clinically insane. They haven't quite invented the medicine to treat Greg yet.

Greg is the only person I know that has seen Elvis (Yes, that one!) without having to pay for a ticket. Greg also bumped into Jimmy Buffett before Jimmy Buffett became incorporated. I know about 400 hundred people that have bumped into Jimmy Buffett somewhere. I can only imagine the conversation Jimmy Buffett had with Greg.

Jimmy: "Are you still in school?"

Greg: "My last final is Friday, so come Monday, it's gonna be all right. Boy, I wish I had a mustache, pencil thin, like Boston Blackie. Have you seen my lost shaker of salt?"

Greg is one of the only people I have heard of (Al Gore is the other, which I'm sure pleases Greg) that knows how to hypnotize a chicken. He (Greg-not Al Gore) is proud of this ability. I'm certain it is on his resume (Greg's-not Al Gore's but I would suggest that the former Vice President add it. It couldn't hurt).

Vice President of A Large Corporation: "I see your resume notes that you know how to hypnotize a chicken. Would you be willing to travel, overnight, and teach this skill to our chicken handling employees?"

I met Greg when we started attending Roswell Street Baptist Church. My son was six years old at the time and my wife and I wanted him to be involved in the programs of the church. It was important to us because our son had announced, on a couple of different occasions, that he wished we were Jewish (long story).

Greg was in charge of a program called "The Royal Ambassadors" which is "a missions discipleship organization for boys in grades 1-6 through hands-on activities that encourage spiritual growth, games and sports, and mentoring relationships". I can honestly say looking at it years later that our son's spiritual growth was encourage by games, sports, and mentoring relationships. It was also encouraged by Greg drinking a Lava Lamp.

For those of you that don't know, a Lava Lamp is a "novelty" lamp that "contains blobs of colored wax inside a glass vessel filled with clear or translucent liquid". The wax blob raises and falls either through the heating of the incandescent light bulb at the bottom of the lamp or by magic, I don't know which. Originally, way back in the groovy 60's, the blobs were colored red and it "looked" like lava. It was really far out. I guess you had to be there.

Greg was always telling the kids that he was going to drink a Lava Lamp. How he came up with that, I have no earthly idea. I'm still trying to figure out why you would want to hypnotize a chicken.

Of course, boys in grades 1-6 are not the sharpest knives in the population drawer. They'd tell him, "No way, you'd die". Greg would tell them he's done it before and somehow lived through the ordeal.

So one day, Greg announces that if the kids met this certain goal, he would drink a Lava Lamp. That's all of the incentive the kids needed.  They met their goal and Greg announced he would drink a Lava Lamp at the next Royal Ambassadors meeting.

I cannot accurately describe the reaction of the boys. They went absolutely, and I say this with great love and Baptist censorship, totally Ape Poop Bat Guano Crazy.

The big day finally came for Greg to drink The Lava Lamp. Of course, Greg had to involve me in his presentation. This was his plan. He had two Lava Lamps. One was your average groovy Lava Lamp and the other was empty. He put biscuit dough in the empty Lava Lamp and filled it with blue Powerade. He was going to give a brief little talk before he drank from the Lava Lamp. But when he said a certain word (the cue) he wanted me to turn the lights off so he could switch the Lava Lamp with the Power Aide Lava Lamp and drink from the Powerade Lava Lamp.

The boys came into the chapel for the Greg Will Drink From A Lava Lamp event.  It had to be like how it was at The Ed Sullivan Show during The Beatles first show. The kids were in a total frenzy.  It was pandemonium, Baptist style.

Greg starts his talk and the kids are hanging on his every word. Then, Greg says the cue. Bam! I hit the lights.

The problem: We hadn't rehearsed this and the chapel was not completely dark. Some of the older kids (5th graders) saw Greg switch the Lava Lamps. Immediately, I heard "He switched 'em! He switched  'em!  Chaos reigns again. It was like a soccer game in Ireland. I thought the kids were going to riot.

Greg drinks from the faux Lava Lamp and makes faces that I'm sure he got from years of watching Red Skelton. The dads in the crowd were laughing. Some kids were pouting. Others were still saying "He switched 'em!'. The rest were looking at Greg with their mouths open.

Greg admitted to the kids that he didn't drink from the Lava Lamp. "I knew it! He switched 'em!"  Then he said, "I didn't drink from the Lava Lamp because that would be a pretty stupid thing to do".

That was a good thing to tell the young boys. Boys grow into guys who generally do stupid things. Guys who think they can drink an adult beverage and then drive. Guys who think they can still date other women while they are married. You can tell a guy until you are blue in the face that something is bad, harmful, etc, and they will go ahead and do it. Tell them it is stupid and show them how stupid it is, and generally they won't.

I have kept up with most of these boys over the years. None of them have done anything stupid or drank from a Lava Lamp.

Bossy Boots

In case you missed it last week, several extremely wealthy women have decided to boss the rest of us around by advocating the banning of the word "bossy" in reference to little girls.

The idea behind "Ban Bossy" is to address the pressing issue of girls not seeking "leadership roles" out of the fear of being labeled "bossy". You mean, that's all we had to do with Hillary Clinton? Call her "bossy" and she would have demurely walked away? I wished we had known that sooner.

The COO of  Facebok, Sheryl Sandberg, has teamed up with the Girl Scouts to launch a campaign, complete with commercials, urging us to ban the word "bossy" from our vocabularies.

The commercials feature celebrities like pop singer Beyonce Knowles.

I find it interesting that Beyonce is concerned about the power of words considering her husband Jay-Z, has become a millionaire and a very important person by referring to women as "bitches" and "hoes".  I assume that is not a compliment.

Beyonce has a new song out and supposedly it empowers women, which is a big thing in pop music.

When I was a teenager, the song "I Am Woman" came out. It said "I am woman, hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore". Women were soon empowered all of the place, mainly by wearing halter tops. At least they were in East Cobb, where I grew up.

Here are some lyrics from Beyonce's new song,  "Partition". It makes "Afternoon Delight" sound like a Shakespearean sonnet.



Took 45 minutes to get all dressed up
We ain't even gonna make it to this club
Now my mascara running, red lipstick smudged
Oh he so horny, he want to ****
He bucked all my buttons, he ripped my blouse
He Monica Lewinski all on my gown

Yep, that's the kind of person you want determining what words to use.

It is not clear how this word will be banned or what the punishment will be if someone utters this "B-word" to a little girl. I have a feeling shaming will be involved. Someone in the future will be "written up" and given a good scolding.  They haven't even come up with a word to replace "bossy". Do we say, "Stop being so assertive"?

You'll probably see articles in The Huffington Post stating if only Eva Braun was bossy, maybe Hitler wouldn't have killed so many people. There will be tweets on Twitter noting that Rosa Parks was bossy and it freed her people.   The possibilities are endless because while this generation can't change a flat tire, we sure can come up with new ways of condemning people.

When I started my working life, I worked with people that smoked at their desks, like they do on Mad Men.  Then, they were told that they could only smoke at the loading dock. (By the way, this was where all of the great office rumors were shared.) Soon some companies stated that you couldn't smoke at work at all.  It is like Cedric The Entertainer's line about "You can't smoke on Earth, no more" was proven true. All that happened within 25 years. So culture can be changed.

At least in the smoking situation, you can make a compelling argument there was a health risk involve. Here it just seems like people not liking a word which before last week seemed to be just another adjective. Yet, the entertainers are okay with 506 F-bombs dropped in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Peggy Young Nance said, "They rail against patriarchy and claim women and men are the same, and yet they seem cowed by an innocuous word".

Sometime when it comes to our culture, I wish I could roll up the partition.

Lewis Grizzard Is Dead (And I Don't Feel So Good Myself)

Has it really been twenty years since Lewis Grizzard died?

He died in just the second year of  President Bill Clinton and before a Representative from Cobb County became The Speaker of House.

He missed Monica Lewinsky. He would have made a killing off of that. He missed Al Gore getting all prissy about "Global Warming" . He missed "The Macarena". He missed the Internet. He missed cell phones. He missed iPods, Gangsta Rap, and  Freaknik.

He missed The Atlanta Braves winning The World Series. He missed The Atlanta Falcons going to The Super Bowl. He missed the last Super Bowl in Atlanta and Ray Lewis. He missed the O.J. Simpson trial.

What would he have said about The 1996 Olympics? 9/11? The Second Iraq War?

What would he have made of George W. Bush? Dick Cheney? Sarah Palin?  What would he have said about Barack Obama? The Affordable Health Care Act?  Pick-up trucks with seat warmers?

I'm telling you, the columns would have written themselves.

There was a time when Grizzard was The King of Atlanta. Everybody loved or had a run in with Lewis Grizzard at one time or another. Everybody my age and older knows at least one woman Lewis either: 1) went to bed with or 2) tried to go to bed with.  The man was a hound.

I started reading Grizzard when he came back from Atlanta in 1977. It was just after his second divorce. He ended up being married four time before he died. He used to say, "Instead of getting married again, I'm just going to find a woman I don't like and give her a house."

 He introduced us to all of his friends, like Dorsey Hill, (a real person) who said the three most over-rated things in life are Home Cooking, Extra-marital sex and Rock City.

Who could forget Cordie Mae Poovey. If you grew up in the South, you know at least four Cordie Mae Pooveys.  Her polar opposite was the unforgettable Kathy Sue Loudermilk. Grizzard described her wearing a dress so tight "it looked like one hundred pounds of potatoes was stuffed in a fifty pound bag".

One of my favorite characters was "Wayman C. Wannamaker, Jr., a great American".  Imagine this Grizzard book title:  Wayman C. Wannamaker, Jr.,  A Great American, Will NOT Press One For English.

Who could forget his books? If Love Were Oil, I'd Be A Quart Low. Shoot Low Boys, They're Riding Shetland Ponies. If I Ever Get Back To Georgia, I'm Going to Nail My Feet To The Ground. They Took My Heart And Stomped That Sucker Flat. The man was a writing machine on a little device known as a typewriter.

For all of his fame, adulation, and attention, I've heard from more than one person that Grizzard was one of the most miserable individuals you'd ever want to meet. Some of it had to do with the booze, of course. Some of it had to do with the pressure of writing a column at least four days a week (Grizzard complained "Being a newspaper columnist is like being married to a nymphomaniac. It's great for the first two weeks.")

But a lot of it was "daddy issues" that he detailed in My Pappy Was A Pistol And I'm A Son of A Gun. Today, we would say Grizzard's father had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Back then, they would just say he wasn't the same when he got back from Korea.

I read Grizzard constantly back then. I wanted to write like Grizzard. He seemed like he understood the same people I understood. So, I began to write. It is tough to write when you can't spell or know the basic rules of grammar.

In the mid 80's Lewis began to diversify. He developed a stand up act that closed with these words of wisdom: "Life is like a dog sled. Unless you're the lead dog, the scenery never changes". He appeared on Johnny Carson. He acted on Designing Women. With the diversification, Lewis began to get a little bit formulatic. While I still read Lewis, I found a new hero: Dave Barry. I started to try to write like him.

Then one day, Lewis was gone.

No longer would there be a voice for the good old Southern boys. The boys whose dads worked on the graveyard shift at Lockheed and did not get invited into the country clubs or the fraternities.  The boys who have to work through college. The boys that go into HVAC.  People get nervous when the lower class white boys start wanting a voice. They think we're going to stand in the school house door and keep our women barefoot and pregnant. A lot of people speak about us and at us, but nobody really speaks for us.

Sometimes, I'll have a person tell me that my blog posts remind them of Grizzard. It is very flattering, but its like saying someone singing in the shower sounds like Pavarotti George Jones.

Rules For Christian Baking

We now have an answer to the question, "What would Jesus do?"  The answer: bake a cake.

In case you have missed all of the excitement, there have been several laws proposed in several states as a reaction against cases in Washington, Colorado, and New Mexico where a florist, a baker, and a photographer have been sued because they refused to perform those services at  same-sex weddings.

The most logical reaction would be this: if somebody refuses to work for you, you find somebody else that would do the work for you and pay them the money. But there are scores to be settled and people to belittle so lets take them to court!

What has been interesting to me is some of the reaction to this from my fellow Evangelicals.

Kristen Powers wrote an Op-ed piece for USA TODAY titled "Jim Crow Laws For Gays and Lesbians".  In it, Powers makes some assertions that I found rather surprising.  She says, "Whether Christians have the legal right to discriminate should be a moot point because Christianity doesn't prohibit serving a gay couple getting married".  She adds, "Jesus calls his followers to be servants to all. Nor does the Bible call service to another an affirmation."

Well. We get everything we know about Jesus and Christianity from this book called The Bible. Perhaps you have heard about it. Just reading what it says about Sodom and Gomorrah, what it says in Leviticus and what it says in the Pauline epistles,  one doesn't get the idea that it is for same-sex marriage. Maybe I missed something.

Look, I know Powers is a "young Christian" (you might even say that she is a "Babe in Christ-sorry I couldn't resist), but this is just semantically silliness. Powers also says, "Christians serve unrepentant murderers through prison ministry. So why can't they provide a service for a same-sex marriage?

                                                  A Babe In Christ

Apparently, Powers believes the florists and bakers are in the ministry and not business. Prison ministries serve to try to get the "unrepentant murderers" to repent. Is this really that difficult to understand?

As long as we're saying catering a same-sex wedding is not "an affirmation", I guess we can say that catering the AVN  (Adult Video News) Awards would not be "an affirmation" either.  How about a gathering of Neo-Nazis? Or people that like to be cruel to puppies?  Those folks like their cake and eat it too.

However, the goofiest quote in the Op-ed came from Andy Stanley, who is the pastor of The North Point Church in Alpharetta and is a big deal church-wise. Stanley is quoted as saying, "Serving people we don't see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity. Jesus died for a world with which he didn't see eye to eye. If a bakery doesn't want to sell its products to a gay couple, it's their business. Literally. But leave Jesus out of it." 

So what other business decisions does Stanley want to "leave Jesus out of " ?  Is Stanley saying that Christians cannot come to any other conclusion than his?

One of the problems with this topic is that there is a "cool" side and a "not so cool" side. The cool side is to be hip and with it and assert that Jesus is not only The Good Shepherd but also The Great Caterer. The not so cool side are those that have such quaint views that marriage is between a man and a woman. Those people have become the new Bull Connors. Peggy Noonan put it best in her piece: "The political-media complex is bravely coming down on florists with unfashionable views."

                                  This is the new face of Jim Crow


Noonan goes on to say, "On Twitter, the freedom-fighter who tweets as @FriedrichHayek asked: "Can the government compel a Jewish baker to deliver a wedding cake on a Saturday? If not why not." Why not indeed. Because the truly tolerant give each other a little space?"

Oh Lord. You can't do that. It used to be the Libertarian ideal was "live and let live". Now,  it's "bake them a cake" or you are a sinful person that probably is really gay in your spare time. Not that there's anything wrong with that. You can even bake yourself a cake.

President Anybody

It is usually around this time I start thinking about the next Presidential election. I know, I know. I'm weird.

In 2006, in my other award winning blog (Alan's Alley), I pointed out that the young Senator from Illinois that introduced Wilco at Farm Aid, just might win the Democratic Party's nomination.  We know what happened after that.

In 2010, I pointed out that Mitt Romney could defeat President Obama and become President Romney. Ok, I'm not  Nostradomus. Evidently, this was a very influential post because Romney thought he could be elected President even after it was learned that Romney might or might not have cut the hair of somebody he went to high school with that could have, maybe, possibly had been Gay.

What is interesting this time around is that the Democrats and Republicans have flipped.

The one quote of Bill Clinton's that I totally believe is historically accurate is "Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line". At least in the recent past, it seems that the Republicans have selected as their nominee the guy that came in second the last go around. That's why Republican candidates have had slogans like: "Nixon, I Guess", "Might as Well Be Bush", and "Dole Will Do".

Democrats, on the other hand, like to be swept off their feet by someone "new". At one time, that was Jimmy Carter, which shows you how easy Democrats are.

This time, it is reversed. Former Secretary of State Former First Lady Senator Hillary Clinton appears to the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee. The Republicans do not even have a front runner yet. However, I have taken it upon myself to give a brief synopsis of possible Democratic and Republican candidates. I may just win a genius grant for this.

Hillary Clinton (D) -Strengths: Instant name recognition and many different pantsuit combinations
                                 Weakness: Melts when you throw water on her.

Chris Christie (R) -Strengths:  Governor of a "blue state" and appeals to people that own Bruce Springsteen albums.
                               Weakness:  He is really, really, really, really, really, really fat. According to the latest Gallup Poll, 62% of all Americans would not want Gov. Christie to sit on their lawn furniture.

Jeb Bush (R) -Strengths :  Former Governor of a large state. Exchanged business cards with my wife's boss.
                        Weakness:  Name. Would be the front runner if his last name was "Tush" instead of "Bush", plus he could have gotten ZZ Top to sing his campaign song.

Ted Cruz (R) -Strengths:  Very smart and very principled.
                        Weakness: Everybody hates him.

Rand Paul (R) -Strengths:  Looks like one of my brother in laws. He's a physician so Democrats can't say he is dumb.
                         Weakness: Dear old dad

Paul Walker (R) -Strengths: Governor of another Blue State. Stood up to the Public Employee Unions
                             Weakness: Breath smells like cheese.
         

    

Don't Start Me Talkin'

"We talk real funny down here"
                                                   ~ Randy Newman, "Good Old Boys"

Recently, an article was brought to my attention about "Southern Sayings".

Any good Southern born and corn bread-chicken fried humorist has a stock pile of "Southern Sayings" because it can make a person rich and famous and living in Johns Creek (Jeff Foxworthy). We have our "own way of talking" as Tom Petty said.

However, this article by Christina Sterbernz and Rylan Miller in the October 31, 2013 edition of Business Insider titled 13 Southern Sayings That The Rest of America Would Not Understand is an insult, but I can't quite figure out who they are insulting.

Sterbernz and Miller begin the article: "Language discrepancies naturally arise in different geographic regions, like the raging 'pop' versus 'soda' debate".  I know I'm out of it, but I didn't know there was a debate. You refer to the name of the soft drink by its brand name. For example, if you want a Sprite, you say "I want a Sprite". Not a "pop" or a "soda". Geez, are we going to have to start putting directions on toilet paper?

One time I was at a collegiate Evangelical conference and I was walking around drinking a can of  Sprite. A guy came up to me and said, "Where'd you'd find yer pop?" I just looked at him. Then he pointed at my can of Sprite. We were both the same age raised in the same country, but obviously not the same world.

Sterbernz and Miller take the article down Yahoo creek: "But the South undoubtedly takes the cake". Then they proceed  with 13 wacky Southern sayings and they mustard up all their grey matter to explain these sayings. Number one was, get ready cause this one is wild and mysterious and almost Southern gothic, "We're living in high cotton".

Really, America? You can't understand this saying?  The country that invented "LOL" and "Old School" can not understand "Living in high cotton" without a tutorial?

It doesn't get any better. Number two was "Madder Than a Wet Hen".  Would this really stump a person from Wisconsin if  I told the story about when my mother got madder than a wet hen at me because I didn't do my homework?  Wouldn't they kind of figure it out?

Back when the world and the universe was being introduced to the phenomenon known as Bill Clinton, one of my customers, from Framingham, Massachusetts asked me, in all seriousness, "What's a Bubba?"  I told him it meant "brother". I  really didn't know. I've only known one "Bubba" in my life and I was born on the second floor of Kennestone Hospital.

My problem with the article is that it doesn't really deal with the truly odd Southern sayings. For example, my mother always said, "I swanne to Pete". What's a "swanne" and what does Pete have to do with it?

Simple. Nice women were not suppose to "swear". "Pete" is Saint Peter. Therefore, Southern women would "Swanne" instead of "swear" to "Pete" instead of Saint Peter. It makes all of the sense in the world.

Another thing my mother did was say "Scat" when somebody sneezes. It is not as spiritual as saying "Bless You", but it at least it acknowledges your sneeze. (Why do we have to acknowledge a sneezes anyway?)

At least, Sterbernz and Miller end their list with a truly odd Southern saying: "Catawampus". This is so Southern that a person raised in Marietta, Georgia and vacationed in such garden spots as Johnson City, Tennessee and Grenada, Mississippi never heard it until he started dating his wife, who was born in...Marietta, Georgia.

Something was always "catawampus","wobbyjawed" or "out of whack" at my wife's house. Her dad didn't have colds, he had "the epizootics".  It was like I had parachuted into another country where they looked like me but I didn't know the language.

Of course, an article about Southern language and ways wouldn't be complete without mentioning, as Sternzbernz and Miller did that "bless your heart" is the ultimate Southern passive-aggressive phase. "Why I declare, that Alan is such a slow fellow. Bless his heart. How'd he evah ended up with that cute lil' wife of his, I'll never know. Bless his heart".

I do agree that there are some Southern ladies that are genteel. I call them "Not my relatives". One common trait of all of my relatives is that they believe that their opinion is so correct that you need to be aware of it. The earlier the better. Otherwise, you may not be aware of this great wisdom. Like what my grandmother told my mom after she married my dad, "Well, you went through the forest and picked up a stick." My grandmother felt my mom needed her critique. It is amazing I'm not from a family of bank robbers.

Bless my heart.

Here's a link to the article.http://www.businessinsider.com/southern-sayings-2013-10

The Heart Of The Matter

Like all things in a healthy happy marriage, it started with a suggestion from my wife. "You need to start getting physicals so you won't die", is what I think she said. It was a while ago, after I had turned forty. I didn't argue because I believe the key to any healthy happy marriage is for a husband to obey his wife.


As with most men, I had studiously avoided the doctor for years. It seemed every time I went to the doctor I heard things like "I'm sure you've heard about the grapefruit sized scrotums".  Um, no, I hadn't heard about any organ being measured by any citrus fruit, much less that one.


So, I started going to the doctor for my annual physical. Along with hypertension, high cholesterol, and a really, really, really personal non-life threating medical condition, my doctor found I had an irregular EKG. He asked all of the standard questions about chest pains, shortness of breath and fatigue. I had none of those symptoms. He said we would watch it.


Every year, I would have my physical. Every year he mention my irregular EKG. Chest pains, shortness of breath, yadda, yadda. Nope. I feel fine.


Then one year he wants to refer me for a Cardiac Stress Test. I tell him that I feel fine. He still wants me to go. So I went for my Cardiac Stress Test.


I thought I passed the Cardiac Stress Test with flying colors. However, I got a call from the doctor's office. The test showed signs of Ischemia. Ischemia is not something you want to hear because it can cause you to walk and talk with Jesus. It is the most common cause of death in Western nations. From there, I was referred to a cardiologist.


It is important to note: I felt fine.


I went to see the cardiologist. He asked about chest pains. Nope. Shortness of breath? Nope. Fatigued? Nope. Tingling? Only when my wife wears her Friday Night Sexy Shirt. Exercise? Yes, I exercise at least five days a week.


While he was talking to me, he was looking at my chart. He said, "I don't know. The stress test shows Ischemia. It is right 75% of the time. I'm going to have to do a Cardiac Catheterization". He told me not to exercise "strenuously" because he didn't want me to have an heart attack.


It is important to note: I felt fine.


I went home and did what I usually do when I am confronted with something serious. I started thinking about my own mortality and how unfair it was to be dying of something that didn't even make me feel bad. I remembered my primary care physican saying I had a "wonk wonk wonk wonk" (sometimes I hear the adult from the Charlie Brown cartoons when I don't understand something) that probably caused the irregular EKG. It sounded serious when he told me about it five years earlier. So serious I couldn't even remember what I had. There I was dying from something I didn't even know what it was called. I had images of the coroner standing over the late me and telling his assistants "This man had the worse case of wonk wonk wonk wonk I have ever seen".

While researching Cardiac Catheterizations on the internet, I ran across many articles that were difficult to read mainly because they were written by smart people for smart people.  However, one article said that patients with a "Right Bundle Branch Block" can cause false positives for Ischemia 25% of the time. Although it sounds serious, particularly due to the word "block", it is an electrical defect of the heart and does not decrease life expectancy. It is good to use for getting out of things you don't want to do. "Oh, I would love to help you dig that ditch, but my Right Bundle Branch Block has been acting up again." That's when I remembered that "wonk wonk wonk wonk" was Right Bundle Branch Block. That gave me a 25% chance of not having Ischemia.


Only Could Happen to Alan

The Mayo Clinic describes a Cardiac catheterization as "A long thin tube..inserted in an artery or vein in your groin, neck or arm and threaded..to your heart". Guess where my catheter was inserted?


That's right; it was inserted south of the border. However, before the insertion, that area had to be "prepped", which is medical jargon for "shaved".  This is where the story turns into the alley way of "This could only happen to Alan".


I went into a little room. A nurse told me to remove all my clothing, put on a hospital gown and lie in bed. She handed me a "privacy cloth" that I should place over what clinicians call "Private Parts". She turned around to give me some privacy. She asked if I was covered. I said I was and with that she pulled out industrial sized clippers that they must use to shear sheep when they're not prepping for Heart catheterizations.


She started the prepping and probably in order to help me relax, we started to have a nice little conversation. However, soon we were talking about Tiger Woods and his escapades (this was 2009). Let's just say that she did not take Tiger's side in this incident and I became acutely aware of a woman, with clippers, near the private parts. She stopped for a moment to call for assistance.


In walked the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and I went to Wheeler High School in the 70's.  This nurse was Beyond Hot. The nurse with the clippers said "Help me with this" and pointed to the private parts (Yes, that's what she said.)


I need to emphasize that I am crazy in love with my wife and have been faithful to her and our vows during the 27 years of our marriage. However, I started thinking about something that is inappropriate to think about especially when you just have on a privacy cloth. I tried my best to NOT to think about this beautiful nurse.


I really didn't need to worry because whatever lustful, lascivious thought I had was soon replaced by pain because the IV Nurse came in. She taped something on my arm and said "You'll feel a little bee sting". The "bee sting" felt like it was from a bee as big as a horse. It didn't work. "You have small veins." She tried again. Another bee sting from a horse sized bee. She announced she was going to try the other arm. Same thing happened.


Here's the scene: One nurse is mad about Tiger Woods and men in general is shaving me with industrial sized clippers. The pretty nurse is making sure I don't become another statistic. The IV nurse is killing me with bee stings. In walks  The Nurse In Charge of Getting Information. She has one of those comical Southern accents.


It is here I need to remind you of the correct pronunciation of my name: "MAY-nis". It is not "MAN-is" although that's the way it is spelled. To save time, I answer to both pronunciations. This nurse ignored these two pronunciations and came up with her own: "Maine-Ass". Over the buzz of the clippers and the poking of the IV nurse, I hear "ARE YEW ALAN MAINE-ASS?" "Yes". NOW MASTER MAINE-ASS, YEW GONNA HAVE A CARDIAC CATHETERIZATION?"  "Yes".


She asks me a lot of questions. "CHAST PAINS?"  "No." "DAZZINESS?"  "No" FATIGUE,YEW KNOW, FEELIN' TARED?" "No". "NOW WHAY ARE YOU...OH MAH GAH! YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE HAS SPAKED TO OVER 160!"  It was then I made a comment about the clippers and private parts. It made everyone laugh. I was serious.


Through some sort of medical miracle (they left the room) my blood pressure returned to normal. My wife was brought into the room and asked why all of the nurses were laughing. I told her about the pretty nurse because I didn't want that hanging over my head. As usual, my wife was more than understanding about the situation and attributed it to my nerves. She told me that she (the nurse- not my wife) sees hundreds of private parts a day and that mine was just another one. That was supposed to make me feel better.


I finally made it to the Cardiac Cath  Lab and it was cold as ice. I see my doctor washing his hands. A nurse gave me the sedation and asked me if I liked Harry Connick, Jr. The doctor begins the procedure. It seems like it takes minutes. He pronounces me "clear". No Ischemia, just the Right Bundle Branch Block. No need to come in for another appointment. He told me to take Fish Oil pills. Even if I had Ischemia, he would have put in a stent and I would have been fine.


My family was overjoyed. I could go back to living without the fear of dying from something that didn't make me feel bad. It was as close as I've ever come to walking through the Valley of Death until I started taking the Fish Oil pills. Those things will kill you.