Death Pool

 

Our backyard in Tinley Park, 1970.

Yesterday, late in the day after all the doctors had gone home, I went into the bathroom and urinated. Something was very wrong. My urine was dark, very dark. As a cancer survivor, I of course panicked. Bladder cancer? Kidneys failing? Every known bit of my inner plumbing came under scrutiny. I had a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. Could the cheese have had orange food dye in it? Seriously, I started thinking that whoever had me in the family death pool was going to win. I knew that I would have to call my doctor first thing when he opened in the morning. Then I remembered the new modern way to figure out such emergencies. Google! I would Google 'Dark Urine', which I did. Talk about scary shit. There were all sorts of horrendous possibilities that could kill me if I didn't run to the doctor right away. Some of the possibilities weren't curable. I was in a sweat and a bit scared. Then I saw it. Down at the bottom of the 'What to do if your urine is dark' page that I had Googled, it mentioned a laxative. It said that sometimes when you take a certain laxative, your urine will turn dark the next day. I had taken a laxative the night before, for that gentle overnight relief they advertise. When I Googled the brand of laxative I had used with the added words, 'Dark Urine', Google came back with what I wanted to see. Yes, that brand does turn your urine dark. I am not going to die. I will live another day, maybe another year. "May turn your urine dark" should be printed in giant letters on the front of the package. Finally, as for the family death pool, it doesn't really exist. But it might not be such a bad idea. Eleven siblings, all of us aging rapidly, it might take the sting out of losing a loved one.

Effedex

 

I drove a delivery van for five years back in the 1970s. It was a very easy job and my all time favorite job. Although I eventually regretted giving it up, I wanted to move on. The man I worked for was generous and pretty much let me be myself on the job. Oh, and he let me use the delivery van as my own vehicle when I wasn't working. Five years of not worrying about car payments or insurance. Why did I quit such a cushy job? California was calling me, but that's another story.

Yesterday, Sunday, I got a delivery from a Fedex truck. There are four basic delivery options that deliver to my house. Amazon is probably the best. The drivers are courteous, always leave the package inside the front door of our building, and park their trucks in legal parking spaces. Also, they send me a snapshot of my package in the vestibule. Second is UPS. Their drivers are usually pretty friendly, generally deliver the packages to the correct address, and look hot in their summer shorts. Third delivery option is the United States Post Office. They don't leave a snapshot of the package in my email, but they almost always get the address right. At least within sight of my house so they're easy to track down. At the bottom of the list of delivery companies, is Fedex. I'm sure there are some fine people who work there, but I've seen the crazy shit. Often Fedex drivers do not pull over into a parking space, even if the street is full of empty spaces. No, they like to stop in the middle of the street and turn on their blinkers. On more than one occasion I've seen a Fedex driver get into an argument with drivers they've blocked. Man, this is Chicago. People carry guns in their cars so you should never get into an argument, or cut somebody off on Lake Shore Drive. That thought alone is enough to make me a very courteous driver. Now to the reason I'm bitching about Fedex. I got a delivery yesterday. It was Sunday and the item being delivered really didn't need to be delivered on a weekend day, but it was. I saw the big Fedex van pull up in front of the house, in the middle of the street with blinkers on. What I didn't hear was the front door to our building vestibule open and close or my doorbell, nor did I see the top of the delivery man's head pop up by the front window. He simply tossed it onto the porch, turned and ran back to his truck. On a wet, sloppy day, he left the package outside on the porch. He was so stealthy that Scout didn't even bark. Like I said, I was a delivery guy back in the 1970s. It's not a hard job.

Vacation

 

I've been converting my dad's 8mm home movies to digital files over the last few months. His 8mm movie period covered around fifteen years starting when I was already fifteen years old. So only the years between 1965 and the advent of video tape are covered. There are no moving pictures of us before 1965. Anyway, I am now up to the year 1973 and I have discovered some things that I found surprising. Having removed myself from the family home by 1970, I kind of ignored what was going on back there. What I've found on these later home movies is that the younger six siblings seem to have had a wholly different experience than the five older brothers and sisters. Last week I came across one of Dad's home movies titled 'Anaheim'. When I played that movie, I was shocked. Dad had taken Mom and six children on an airplane to California. They went to Knott's Berry Farm, Disneyland, Lion Country Safari, and Hollywood. WTF? I had no idea that Dad had come into some money back then. We had never gone on such an extravagant trip when I was a kid. No, it was shove the kids into a hot station wagon and take us to some small lake where we would all have to share beds and cots in a rundown cottage. I remember those long rides to Wisconsin, or Michigan, or Indiana. Hours and hours of riding in that car, not stopping for food or water. I do remember one time Mom packed a can of shoestring potatoes for us to snack on. Salty fried potato strips in a sharp edged can. It not only made me very thirsty, but I cut my finger on that can. Cut to the movie of 1973. There are my youngest sisters having fun on a big airplane, drinking free soda, eating snacks. All of them in big comfy seats and listening to music with those old tubular headphones. I didn't fly on an airplane until I was twenty two years old, and that was from Rock Island to Chicago on a DC3 that made two stops in between. I'm sure the younger kids had a wonderful time in California, but I'll always remember the fun we had rowing boats on a small lake, swimming through seaweed, and sleeping in a bed along with a few pounds of sand.

ENIPS

 

One thing about old people. We go to doctors a lot. I have a general practitioner, podiatrist, ophthalmologist, and orthopedic surgeon. Four doctors, all good doctors. I have no favorites. However, my new orthopedic surgeon might be in the running for the most interesting doctor on that list. The day before Christmas, I was sitting in a chair and when I stood up intense pain blasted my right knee. Son of a bitch, I thought, I've finally gone cripple. The next day I made it out to my sister's house for Christmas, still in much pain. I had made kolachkis, and if I didn't deliver them I would have ended up eating them all myself. That would have negated a year of very careful dietary discipline and I'd get fat... well, fatter. Also, two of my sisters are nurses so I kind of knew I'd get some free medical advice. Which I did. An ice pack, and two Advil pills. That helped some, but my knee was still hurting over a week later. I decided to go see the orthopedic surgeon about it. This is why I find the guy so interesting. After stabbing me with a needle full of cortisone, he goes into his comedy club act. Seriously, he tells a whole bunch of rapid fire jokes, Rodney Dangerfield style. You are completely disarmed and forget all about that long needle that he just stabbed into your knee. My favorite joke was his closer. Not a verbal joke, but one he wrote out on a piece of paper. He handed me the paper and asked me to rearrange the letters he had written down so that they spelled a human body part. It looked like this, "enips". Easy, right? So now I have it straight from the doctor's mouth. I have a dirty mind.