WARNING: LOGIC AHEAD

WARNING: LOGIC AHEAD
Warning, Caution, Beware, Look Up, Look Down, Mind Your Step, Do Not Cross, Very Hot, Very Cold, Slippery When Wet, Danger, Slow Down, Stop.
Warning Signs, they are everywhere. I recommend we do away with the lot of them before the human race begins a descent into complacent stupidity. Replace the Warning Signs with a few standard signs like "Think" or "What is your common sense telling you right now Captain Obvious?"
Better yet have no signs at all
Our daily lives have been taken over with signs telling us what not to do and to be careful to the point of not doing anything. This is eroding our built in survival instinct. One of the very few things, besides opposable thumbs, that keep us at the top of the food chain.
Sure if there are no signs the stupid people of the world might injure, maim and kill themselves, but if they are daft enough to stick their head out of a moving train then I don’t think there's really much hope for them anyway. Say this out loud and tell me if you disagree. "I am happy to leave my small children in the care of someone who sticks their head out of a moving train" Ok, so we all agree, no big loss to the species.
One warning sign I did see was on a standard queens size bed electric blanket. The warning was about number seven in a list of ten things not to do with the blanket, including getting the blanket wet. If you still piss the bed you shouldn’t be lying on anything with the word "electric" in the title.
The instructions on how to use the blanket correctly were shorter than the list of warnings. The warning stated in bold font "DO NOT STICK PINS INTO BLANKET". Now I have slept in quite a few different beds of my own and in various places both here and overseas. From the expensive, hand folded down corners, with a mint chocolate on the pillow type of beds to the cheap as chips, is lucky if you don’t get scabies backpacker bunks. At no time I have ever come across a need to stick pins into the bed. So why is this warning required? It is required because some mental midget in a moment of what they thought was exceptional brilliance has stuck pins into the blanket and electrocuted himself or herself. The Company now has to place such a warning tag to prevent any further lawsuits against them. I think that person should have been grateful, as had they not been electrocuted they would have been stuck with pins during their sleep with no one to blame but themselves and more than likely pissed the bed as well.

Takeaway coffee is another one that has warnings that are just astounding to the average caffeine consumer. The lids now have either "CAUTION: HOT CONTENTS" or "CAUTION: CONTENTS MAY BE HOT" embossed on top. Now lets take a moment here. You have just stood in line at a crappy, little, trying to be oh so different café near your work because you were too lazy to make yourself a cup of coffee at home before you left. You have ordered a coffee so you would expect the contents to be hot. I will say repeat that just in case is was too simple a statement. You have ordered a coffee so you would expect the contents to be hot. You would be pissed off if it were cold. I fail to see the need for a warning. If you order a coffee and spill it on yourself resulting in scolds and burns then that will certainly serve as a reminder for next time, more so than any embossed warning message.


Another device with a warning tag that beggared belief was a Heat Gun I was using to strip paint off the side of a house. It is a hand held electric device that you plug into the 240volt socket and switch it on. (Numpties take note: there is that word "electric" again)
It heats up and blows excessively hot air in a measured flow. You hold this near the paint and as the paint bubbles you slide the paint scraper along and the paint comes off in one easy motion.
It has a warning tag "DO NOT USE AS A HAIR DRYER". This gadget melts bloody paint so why on earth would you stick it near you head? The person that did stick it in the direction of their cranium deserves the third degree burns and what small brains they had to be seeping out of their skull. They should maybe stick to collecting stamps and leave the house renovations to the Boy Scouts who probably have a patch advising that they are competent with said device.
So in summary we should remove all the Warning Signs and those of us who don’t have to buy a clue can get on with making this species great and those who can’t keep pace will fall by the wayside in a generation or two.
In 1859 Charles Darwin gave us his Theory of Natural Selection. Imagine how far ahead we could be if we didn’t stunt our growth with warning signs.

Saturday Sinning

Saturday Sinning
Most Saturday afternoons when I was a teenager meant having to make your own fun. Where I use to live there was two thirds of fuck all to do. There was a skate ramp/half pipe at the local oval but the council in their infinite wisdom soon moved that to an area that was pretty much inaccessible for people without cars. They may as well have just pulled the ramp down as none of us could get to it.
One Saturday afternoon a couple of mates that lived close by and myself decided to go and kick the footy at the park at the end of the street. We had done this many times before and used the park as a short cut to get to each other’s houses.
We were attempting to be football heroes as best we could when striding across the grass toward us came the Priest from the local church and school that back onto the park.
Now I thought Priests were supposed to be nice people. But after the waving of arms, finger pointing and crap about private property and trespassing I thought this guy was a total prick. It is not like there were any fences or signs.
So a game of cat and mouse ensued. We would walk off and he would walk in the opposite direction. Just as he almost at the church we would walk back on the grass, kick the footy, get chased off and so on.
I was pretty pissed off with this Priest and over the coming weeks we would skate through the Catholic school on our skateboards. With the money they had it was the smoothest concrete surface in the neighbourhood. It was actually more like a race than a cruisey skate. The slowest skater usually had to put up with the Fire and Brimstone lecture from the Priest while the rest of us laughed from a distance.
A friend of mine went to the school there and the Priest told his mother that he was one of the culprits. Upon hearing this, his mother grounded him. It would have been funnier if he actually did it. His mother wouldn’t believe all he did was skate past the school not through it. He wouldn’t skate through it. He was scared of the Priest.
Boredom and anger lead to thoughts of revenge.
A week later we were on our bikes circling the church and school with no apparent plot just a desire to stick it to the man. I don’t know where the idea came from but soon as I heard it I thought ‘shit yeah!"
Three of us broke away from the rest of the group and road into the school grounds. We saw our destiny before us. The side door to the church was open. I was the second through and was pumped on adrenalin and quite possibly a few swigs of Southern Comfort. We rode across the front aisle up onto the platform where the alter is. Then jumped the bikes off there and between the first row of pews and the altar. Turning down the main aisle my mate in front had to hit the brakes. This caused the gleaming red carpet to bunch up and the rest of us to slow down. The laughing and wolf howls began but stopped as quickly as they started. The Priest had come in through the other side door and he didn’t look like he was ready to "spread the good word". We took off as fast as our feet could peddle us towards the main entrance. I heard my mate close behind me yelling "Go, go, go" just as I was riding out the main door I heard him yell "Protestants one, Catholics nil!"
After a non stop power ride back to a safe house with the rest of the crew demanding to know what happened and what the rush to get out of there was. We collapsed in a puffing heap and told them of our close encounter with the Devil in God’s cloth.
We were on roll, we had to maintain the rage. Full of teen angst, bravado and more Southern Comfort we made a commando raid under the cover of darkness.
I wonder what went through the Priests mind that evening as he returned from his outing? His head lights came across the front yard as he pulled into his driveway to see three mysterious figures putting his three meter Cross in the ground…upside down!!
Thank God I am an atheist.

Yesterdays Heroes

Yesterdays Heroes

Playing the drums has always been a passion of mine. I started playing when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. There were plenty of other kids at school into music so getting a band together should have been easy. In my case it was made easier by the fact that there was only myself and one other drummer in the entire school. The advantage I had over the other drummer was that I learnt to read drum scores. Of course every guitarist wanted to be the cock rockin lead guitarist in any band that would have them. Usually the least talented guitarist would be relegated to playing bass and no one had the guts to sing.
In the last year I was at high school the music class from each year level would perform a song at the end of year school concert. These songs were always fucking painful. Dire Straits, Robert Palmer, Cindy Lauper and other parent friendly crap my memory has graciously deleted.
The music teacher, Mr. C, was a pretty cool bloke. Better then most teachers I had come across. He treated you as an equal not as a subordinate. Coming near the end of the school year he got a group of individuals from different year levels together for a chat.
"Look guys" he said "these end of year concerts really need a lift. All you guys have talent and don’t listen to mainstream music. I want you to use the rehearsal room every lunch time and come up with a cover song to end the night with a bang"
So the pressure was on. What song to do? Who will sing? We made the choice of vocalist pretty easy. "We aren’t playing any song with fucking keyboards in it" stated Leon. "Alright, fuck it, I will sing" announced Angus realizing that with no keyboards he had no place in the band. Now that’s band democracy at work. It turns out Angus had a top notch voice when it comes to screaming ! We were told by Mr. C that songs with explicit language wouldn’t be acceptable. Considering 90% of this make shift band were punks and metal-heads this left us pretty stumped for choices.
Seven lunchtimes later and a shitload of noise we still hadn’t progressed anywhere. Then the song fell right into our laps while playing a few tapes. "Fuck yeah" was the general consensus. We ran the song by Mr. C for censorship approval. OK the punk ethic says fuck censorship but to us it also meant fuck wasting time on a song we won’t get to finish playing anyway. With a sly grin that made him look craftier than a shithouse rat with a gold tooth, Mr. C said "Perfect guys, practice the hell out of it, nail it and I will put you on last"
So practice we did. We lived and breathed that song. As the two guitarists couldn’t decided who was going to play the lead solo we made the solo twice as long so they could each play it once. Now that’s cock rock !
The night of the concert was upon us. We managed to keep what we were doing a secret. Mr. C didn’t tell the principal anymore than "A surprise finish" The school assembly hall was filled with Mr. and Mrs. Average who had come to watch Son and Daughter Average butcher songs like never before then give a rousing applause at the end as convention dictates. I believe they were clapping the fact that the pain and humiliation was over. I was watching the audience from back stage. So many parents with fingers in their ears. Finally the sensory deprivation Music Classes ended and the curtains closed.
As we started setting up you could hear the murmurs and mumbles get curiously louder as the Marshall Amps and distortion pedals were plugged in and switched on.
Ready ! The curtain flies up. The twin guitars crank out the intro riff, the bass and drums thump in together as to the wall of school musical heresy begins. The hall filled with the blasting noise that is Black Sabbaths "Paranoid".
Parents were holding there children in fear of their safety. Angus was up front belting out the lyrics with veins in his neck and head about to burst, pointing an angry fist at the most vulnerable adults in the audience. We had created chaos, nothing was stopping us. We drove that song like there was no tomorrow. The guitars squealed through the solo’s and set chunky rhythms during the versus. Ending with a huge crash and bash open "E" full noise roar backed up with drum rolls. Kids yelling their heads off and parents looking around for a higher being to save them.
At the end of the song the Principal was virtually speechless at the microphone center stage. Mr. C was standing up behind the mixing desk with that big crafty smile giving us the two thumbs up sign. He came up to us while parents were still trying to regain their senses and control of their children and said "It sounded great, they might hate you but you will be the most remembered band of the night"
I went home that night feeling on top of the word. We had fucked the system and that’s what playing music should be all about.

Midlife

Midlife

I have been thinking seriously about having a midlife crisis.
Now I am talking about a ‘crisis’ here not a ‘breakdown’. A crisis where attempt to recapture your youth in a bizarre display of purchasing items you can’t afford to impress people you don’t like and sticking a middle finger up at mainstream society. As opposed to a breakdown where you flip out and decide that a loaded firearm is just what you need to get your point across to those ignorant work colleagues on a Monday morning.
It seems that it is mainly married men who have a midlife crisis so that is one box I don’t get to tick on my application. Will it affect my chances of having a successful crisis? Only time will tell.
Married guys usually send out early signals that they are on their way to midlife ridicule. They stand there with a Cascade Premium Light beer in hand, keep a straight face and tell you why going up to their eyeballs in debt to buy a two door European sports convertible was a good idea. That fact they have a wife, three kids and a Golden Retriever to be ferried around all becomes null and void once they are cruising with the roof down feeling the wind in their ever-thinning hair.
So being single I shouldn’t have any problems with thing like an immediate family getting in the way of my intended rebellion. I don’t want to do the sports car thing as my crisis may be mistaken for me just turning into a pretentious wanker. I have thought about the Kombi Van and surfboard combination but the last thing the general beach going public needs is seeing my blubber squeezed into a rubber suit and rolling around in the shallows like a clubbed seal. I don’t see taking up golf as having a crisis either. That is more a statement that your life is completely over and you are just waiting to die. I believe the word "Golf’ is Latin for "Dead Man Walking". Taking up cycling has been mentioned to me as an option but once again it doesn’t scream "up yours world, I am out of here". Sure it is your thing if you like shaving your legs, squeezing your lolly bag into some Lycra shorts, hanging around a café and swapping chaffing stories with your other delusional friends. But that’s just being pathetic not having a crisis.
My crisis needs a motto like "Born to Lose and Still Lose". I need to quit my job, buy a Harley Davidson Fat Boy, grow a pony tail and get a girlfriend half my age. But just as I think my days of being a loose cannon are about to come rushing back I hit a few hurdles. If I quit my job I won’t be able to afford the repayments on the Harley and the important fact I can’t ride a motorbike really puts the brakes on that idea. I have shaved my head ever since I was 16 so I don’t think I will be getting a pony tail anytime soon and let’s face it guys with long hair are, well, quite frankly, a little fruity. As for the girlfriend half my age, well that’s just ten kinds of creepy.
So where to now? I can’t even pull off a midlife crisis so what hope is there for me. I may not be able to ride a motorbike but I am more than capable around all types of semi and fully automatic firearms. Perhaps I am more suited to a breakdown? Monday at work is looking better already!

1999 - The Year My Arse Broke

1999 - The Year My Arse Broke.

The year was 1999 and Easter was approaching. Now Easter means two thirds of fuck all to me except getting a few public holidays and some paid time off work. I had some friends coming up to Sydney to visit from Melbourne. On the Monday before Good Friday I started feeling pretty crap in the guts and that night I enjoyed a profuse sweating and soaring fever. I enjoyed the same again Tuesday night with my guts hurting even more. By Wednesday I realized I hadn’t taken a shit for about 30 hours. Unusual for a guy who is pretty regular. "Bloody constipation" I thought. That’s what I wrote this episode off as even though I have never been constipated before I thought this is what it must feel like. So I took a few laxatives to get things moving again but to no avail. I blamed dodgey marketing for that.
Wednesday afternoon I rang the local Medical Clinic and said I want to see a Doctor pretty quick. I explained the pain I was in. I got in straight away as it was only 5 minutes down the road. I told the Doctor all the symptoms and where and how much it hurts. He scatched his head, takes my blood pressure, inserts a tongue depressor and made me say "UUAARRGGHH", Then he lay me down on the bed and pressed all over my guts while asking "does it hurt here?"
"YES",
"What about here?"
"YES"
"And here?"
"YES, YES, YES IT HURTS FUCKING ALL OVER THERE"
So his professional opinion was to give me some antibiotics and go home. All those years at Medical School and that’s the best he could do.
Wednesday night I had more fever, sweating and the occasional sharp stabbing pain in my guts. Thursday I left work early feeling destroyed. " I can’t get sick" I said to myself " I have a 4 day weekend ahead and friends coming up to get loaded" Thursday night involved being curled up in the fetal position in bed wishing I was dead and wondering when the fuck these antibiotics were going to start working and when I would shit again. I still put this down to guts being too sore to eat and constipation and the fact I didn’t want to be out of action for the Easter weekend.
Good Friday morning I got up at 6am. I took my antibiotics and more laxatives and got in the car to drive to Central Station to collect the crew who came up from Melbourne on the bus. I told them I was feeling like a science experiment gone wrong and they agreed I looked like one. Back at my place everyone crashed out after the over night bus trip and I went back to my bed and back into the fetal position. There were more sharp stabbing pains in the guts. "Fuck don’t tell me I’ve got an ulcer" I thought. That seemed like a better diagnosis than the Doctor’s
Good Friday afternoon saw everyone sitting around my living room drinking. I attempted a beer but can’t even finish it. Now I know I am sick!
Every time I was in extreme pain I would go upstairs to my room and curl up for a few minutes. I didn’t want people spoiling their weekends worrying about me.
Good Friday night I didn’t sleep. I groaned, moaned and writhed in pain. I sweated more than I ever had before, so much that you could see an outline of my body on the bed sheets.
Easter Saturday everyone is up early to go into the city. I said "Look guys I am going back to the Doctors. I will catch up with you in the City in a few hours." I called the Medical Clinic and tell them I need to see a Doctor straight away again. Three hours later I am lying there telling the Doctor, again, that it feels like I am being cut from within by a carving knife. He goes through his pointless routine of tortures, tongue depressors and prodding then contemplates my situation again and gives me 2 options.
Option 1: Change my antibiotics, go home and come and see him Monday…no wait Tuesday as the Clinic will be closed on Easter Monday.
Option 2: Send me to hospital overnight for a few tests.
"Well fuck it I thought" I have full private health cover through work and the antibiotics have been as productive as pissing into the wind. So he wrote me a referral to show the hospital when I get there. I drove home and packed a bag with a change of clothes and my toothbrush. I called my friends mobile phone and told them I won’t be meeting them in town as I am going into hospital overnight for a few tests .I let them know where they can find a key to let themselves in.
On Saturday afternoon I am in the car heading to the hospital. I can’t wear a seatbelt as my stomach can’t handle anything being pressed on it. I arrive at the hospital and can’t find any long term parking so I park at the Church next door. I figure that they will forgive me for parking there for so long and won’t tow my car.
Into casualty I walk feeling like the sword fight in my stomach is about to exit out of me. I show the nurse my referral. As she read it I tell her I feel like passing out. Next thing I know I am on a stretcher with nothing on but one of those highly attractive hospital gowns that shows your butt. A nurse says to me "Are you in any pain?"
" Well yeah I am in lots of it actually"
The nurse asks if I would like anything for the pain. "Hell yes" I replied
Now before she leaves to get me a pain killer she asks if I feel like vomiting. Now after being into hospitals before I know you can choke after eating if you go under anesthetic. So thinking I am being helpful I say "I could vomit."
She says "Ok" and walks off.
Now I know why I was asked that question. The nurse returns and asks me to roll over and face the other way.
"Rockin!!" I think. An injection. Super fast pain killer, bring it on.
Before I could even flinch she has parted my cheeks and shoved a suppository straight up my arse. It felt like a fucking golf ball had been belted up my rectum. "What the fuck…." Was all I managed to say before she said "Hey, if I told you what I was going to do you would have clenched up" Well no shit Sherlock. "I could have swallowed a tablet" I said.
"You said you could vomit" she replies. Shit she got me an a technicality.
Alright, round one to the nurse. Then this guy in a white coat comes to see me and introduces himself as Doctor Smart. "I fucking hope so" I thought. I asked if he was going to shove anything else up my poop shoot without warning. He laughs says he is a Surgeon and starts prodding all over my guts. "For fucks sake" I thought, I have been through this shit twice already and I still ain’t getting better. Within a few minutes he tells me that my appendix has burst and needed to be removed immediately. He also states that he doesn’t know what the problem is on the other side of my stomach so he is going to have a look. At least this Doctor seemed to know something.
Things get a little blurry from here but I remember being on the stretcher and getting wheeled into surgery. Why are these people always smiling and saying ‘Hello’? It isn’t a social call, meet and greet session. And before you know it someone has to ask the most stupid fucking question in the world. "How are you feeling?"
"Oh I feel a fucking million bucks that’s why I am here Einstein"
A mask then came down over my face. I turned my head and watch a needle go into my arm. "Oh yeaaaah now I am feeling good" I mumble through the mask.
"Count back from 10" the voice says.
I got to about 7…I think. Why do you have to count back? If you count forwards do you become more awake?
Easter Sunday I woke up numb all over. The pain inside my stomach was gone. There was pain on the outside though. In a morphine induced haze I try to work out just what these "tests" I was here for have done to me. I have a tube that goes up my nose and down my throat and into my stomach, a few tubes in my left hand and arm, all these little shiny silver things up my stomach and 2 bags hanging off my guts and a tube shoved down the eye of my dick.
My next conscious memory is when Doctor Smart was beside my bed telling me what happened. As they couldn’t work out why I had pain on the other side to my appendix they decided to open me up and go looking. They had opened me up from groin to sternum.
They found that my appendix had burst and got rid of the pointless organ straight away. No big deal there I didn’t eat grass anyway. After some searching they found a hole in the small part of my bowel. He said "When we opened you up you were septic". He stated I was being slowly poisoned from the inside and if I hadn’t made it in Easter Saturday I wouldn’t have made it until Easter Sunday. I made a mental note to ensure a life a misery for the Doctor at the clinic and his first year Med Student diagnosis.
The result of it all was they had removed one foot in length of my bowel and cut another hole in my stomach a few inches across from the naval and brought the bowel out there and slapped a colostomy bag over it. The other bag was a drain. The shiny silver things were the 37 staples they used to sew me back up.
The drips in my arm were feeding me fluids and giving me doses of morphine. The tube up my nose and down my throat I never worked out but it fucking hurt, especially when they pull it out through your nose and you feel it slide all they way from your stomach. The tube in my dick was a catheter so I could piss in a bag.
My first question was "Is this colostomy bag permanent?"
"No, you will have it for a few months then we will cut you open again and put your bowel back together" Doctor Smart informed me.
That made it a little easier to deal with. I have a friend who I have know since the age of 8 who has had his entire large intestine removed and after seeing what he has been through I didn’t know if I could handle that.
All I was permitted to eat for the next seven days was crushed ice. Plain crushed ice. Not even any flavouring allowed. I had the morphine connected to this little button and anytime I was in pain I pushed the button and off with the pixies I went. I had people come to visit but I was asleep most of the day and awake most nights. I thank the nurse who would come in on her break and watch the soccer with me instead of telling me to turn the T.V. off. The Ward Nurse’s were wonderful. They do a great job with very little credit and even less pay.
On day 8 a few of the tubes were removed. On day nine the staples were removed with little popping sounds and after 11 days I was on my way home.
Now dealing with a disposable colostomy bag isn’t so bad once you get use to it. They don’t smell. The charcoal filters take care of that. I got to the stage where I only needed to change it once every 24 hours.
Once I was able to travel my parents drove me 1000 kilometers back to Melbourne to be around family and friends. Of course my friends were full of smart arse comments as their way of saying "we care" They say that laughter is the best medicine.
"Now you have the bag all you need is the matching shoes.
"Now you can go to the football and never have to get up to go to the toilet."
"I always said you were a sack of shit Mick"
But having a bag can bring you some interesting times. My mother had come over and driven me to the shops so I could do some banking as I was unable to drive for a few months after surgery.
As we were waiting to cross the road I started to laugh.
"What’s so funny she asks?"
"Nothing" I replied "Just having a dump!"
The next few months consisted of doing not a hell of a lot besides sleeping and learning what foods not to eat with a colostomy bag. Mexican is bad news all round. I thought the bag wasn’t going to be big enough for that pay load. Peanuts just plain hurt on the way out.
Melbourne became boring after a while. I wanted my own big queen size bed, not the tiny little single size excuse I was using. I wanted to be around my music, my sofa, my computer, my TV.
A number of weeks had passed and I decided to head back to Sydney.
There was more lying around doing nothing but at least I had my records and other material possessions.
I used to get my colostomy bags home delivered. Now that’s service! I even became a member of the Colostomy Association of New South Wales.
About 2 weeks before the 4 months since my first operation was up I went to see Dr Smart. It was x-ray time again. I had to prepare for these x-rays. I went home with a kit containing Epsom Salts and Barium Drinks, Enemas and an instruction booklet.
The x-rays were to be at 10:00am on the next Wednesday. But I had to stop eating at 5:00pm Monday afternoon. All I was allowed was what was in the Kit and water. Nothing else. Now I like my food so this was a test. I soon worked out that the purpose of the contents in the kit where to flush me clean so nothing would block the x-rays. The problem I had here was I was going through bags like there was no tomorrow. I decided to have a shower. This is usually the best time to change the bag. So I was in the shower and everything I have put into my body starts to kick in. Now having no sphincter because my arse exits through my abdomen means I have no control over stopping what comes out and how fast it moves. Well I felt the pressure build up and before I knew it I resembled a Police Water Cannon. Looking down and seeing water fly out from your belly just has to be one of life’s amazing wonders and highly entertaining. The more I laughed, the more pressure was on my stomach, the more water squirted out. Once I was sure there was nothing left in me a slapped on a large bag and fell into bed.
I was sure I was delerious from not eating.
It was x-ray day. Now I was pretty damn hungry by this stage and my sense of humour hadn’t clocked in that morning. I was concerned that they would find something wrong and the bag wouldn’t be removed. Once again I was stripped down and put in one of those fashion conscious butt showing gowns. I lay down on a steel table. A really fucking cold steel table. Now they had to fill me up with a blue dye so everything would show up on the x-rays, so that meant one tube up my butt and the other into my temporary butt in my abdomen . Let me tell you this for free. When you have part of your bowel removed they also take your dignity. And don’t think you get it back anytime soon.
So the tubes are slid into place and they began to fill me up with blue dye. I groaned in pain. The nurse said "is it a little uncomfortable? "
"Have you ever had tubes stuck up your bum" I reply. It looks like her sense of humour had a day off also.
Anyway the news was good. Everything had healed well and another stay in hospital was booked in for Dr Smart and Crew to cut me open again and sew my arse back together.
I checked in and was wheeled off to surgery.
When I woke up it was pretty much the same deal. A few less bags but another 37 staples and self administering Pethadiene instead of Morphine
I have been asked one question a few times after coming that close to dying. "Did I find God?" The answer once and for all is NO!! Religion has never played a big part in my life and if I did find God I would have swung an almighty left hook into him and called him a prick for letting this happen to me in the first place. I did find the animated version of Alice in Wonderland while on Morphine fucking frightening though!
Is coming that close to dying scary? Absolutely, but you don’t know it at the time. I knew I was ill but didn’t know I was dying. The human brain has an incredible coping mechanism I believe that almost puts you on autopilot. I only found out how close to death I was when told me after the operation. What happened was no fault of my own. It wasn’t caused by me being stupid or reckless. Which I admit surprised me. It was just one of those things. A possible cause could have been some thing I ate by accident like a small chicken bone. But going through this you do realize you are not here forever and that you can check out at anytime.
So I did reassess my life in a few of the following ways.
Spend less time working and do a job I enjoy, or at least less time at a job I hate. Spend more time living for today and doing the things I want.
I laugh about it a lot these days and have a great thick scar from my groin to my sternum to show at parties. One thing I did notice about this whole saga is when talking about it to people is their reaction to the words "colostomy bag". Tell people you have one or have had one and the look of horror and disgust in their eyes never ceases to amazes me. It is about this time I lift my shirt and show them the scars. "This is where my arse was for 4 months" I tell them as I point to the second large scar next to be belly button. I may as well have the bubonic plague.
Within 4 months of the second operation I was back doing everything I use to do and anything I wanted. Life goes on.
Message to everyone who reads this. Always get a second opinion
It is scary that Doctors call what they do…. Practice!

When something "Tastes Like Chicken"...

Just what kinda of chicken is it being compared too?
Is it a live wild chicken?
A grain fed barn chicken?
A steriod filled factory chicken?

Or is it referring to the way cooked chickens taste?

If so how was it cooked?
Poached, deep fried, BBQ, charcol slow cook, steamed, grilled?

Does it have 11 heabs and spices to be compared to?
Tandoori chicken prehaps?
Chicken Masala?
Moroccan Chicken?
Cajun Chicken?

So many unanswered questions could be the reason why everything 'tastes like chicken'!!!!

The Next President...

Why does the media feel the need to say "who could be America's first Black President" in relation in Obama in every news bulliten?Shouldn't they just be stating "who could be America's next President"?Whilst it may be historical in terms of race, skin colour etc, shouldn't that all really be irrelevant in this day and age?I am not trying to be overtly PC but you don't here John McCain being referred to as he "who could be the 44th White American President" do you?