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JAN 30 , 2007
FRIDAY
I WORK KHAKIS
Oh, you don’t want to know. Floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, and
other
natural disasters
of the extremely localized variety. Hollywood
disaster movies have nothing on the special effects created in real
life, at
least in my real life, the past month.
Things were fine, things were great,
things were calm and
subdued and peachy. All was quiet on the
southern front — few low rumblings or violent outbursts; a truce of
sorts had
taken hold. And then: Murphy’s Law.
Or maybe a bout of the norovirus. The doctor didn’t know what it was, which is
always so reassuring. Maybe a Crohn’s
flare-up, maybe a virus, maybe something else.
I don’t want to over-state the
situation, because it really
wasn’t that bad. I was fine as long as I
didn’t move. When I was asleep, I felt
great. Lying down, that was OK, too.
I spent more time on my throne in the
course of three days
than some monarchs spend on theirs in a lifetime. I
stayed seated as the hours passed, along
with the entire liquefied contents of my body. At
one point, I felt my spleen go, or maybe it was
my appendix. I began to empathize with
Prometheus, though
really, that wimp had nothing on me. Liver
pecked out once a day? That’s
all you can handle, Prommie?! Whatever,
dude — my entire body leaks out,
constantly. At least I have modern-day
painkillers, I suppose.
I’ve heard that you don’t know what
rain is really like
until you’ve experienced a monsoon in India. But those storms have nothing on me during
those three days; not a second passed without tremendous downpour. You’ll recall, perhaps, that there’s more
than one hole in my proverbial bucket, and, well, it’s hard to stop the
flow
when there are so many leaks. Not like you can
just break out the duct tape or spray some caulking in there.
Sorry. That was
pushing the bounds of decency even for an inherently scatological blog. But really. I
couldn’t move. I
don’t know why
I’m telling you this; I don’t actually want to disgust or frighten
anyone (or
scare off potential dates who Google me and happen upon this — Hello!). I just want to let
the record show that I could not
move.
And so I did the obvious: I went on
vacation to a small
island where I know no one. A remote
small island, accessible by puddle-jumper airplanes, the kind where
you’re
practically seated in your neighbor’s lap and, needless to say, the
kind
without bathrooms.
Pepto-Bismol owes me something, because I
accounted for a
large portion of their sales for a few days there — in hopes of
salvaging my
already-paid-for vacation, I essentially ODed on the pink stuff, in
both liquid
and chewable forms. I chugged Gatorade
like an ultramarathoner in the desert and washed it down with a Pepto
chaser. Rice, toast, and bananas
constituted
my entire diet.
I’m not sure I believe in miracles,
but I believe in the
healing powers of modern pharmaceuticals, tropical breezes and sheer
will
power. Mind over matter or Pepto shots
over gastro shocks — I don’t know what happened, but I dried up. I managed to have a good time; I managed,
against all odds, to not inadvertently give the TSA their banned 4-plus
ounces
of liquids. And I managed to have a good
time in Key West. Not an absurdly good time — no closing down
bars, no victories in Key Lime pie-eating contests.
But I wasn’t stuck in the hotel room.
And then I got home, and the rains
resumed. No movement allowed; I was a
prisoner in my
own bathroom for another two days. I
began waiting for my entire ass to come unhinged, to flap open like a
trap
door. Monsoons, floods, sprinklers,
choose your metaphor. You get the
idea.
Enter Remicade, conqueror of demons,
slayer of internal
dragons, parter of Red Seas,
the elixir of life. Remicade plus a
continued diet of Petpo and rice and bananas and more Pepto.
And so it was that a week after
Remicade coursed through my
veins like the holiest of holy waters, I wore khakis.
Ten days prior, I would have guessed
that I would spend the
rest of my days in Depends and rubber pants, but on Friday I wore
khakis. And a belt. Light-colored,
lightweight trousers, with a
gut-constrictor noosing my
hips. No worries, just confidence.
I cannot begin to express the quiet,
personal triumph of
wearing khakis. To work.
And on the bus. And
while walking around downtown Minneapolis
on my lunch hour, without my magical bag
of insurance, that being the bag I had been carrying everywhere,
the bag
with the full change of clothes, just in case.
Remember that famous Gap ad with the
swing dancers in
khakis? Remember how joyful they looked,
full of life, elated to be frolicking about in their tan slacks? I always thought it was kind of inane, to be
honest, somehow equating a particular material in a certain shade with
youth and
vigor and energy, as though the secret to life itself was contained
within the
weave of the cotton. But now I think I
get it.
And now, for those of you
who have made it all the way to the bottom of this — Why? This is not a good use of your time!
— I present a
special bonus blog post. What happens when you combine Crohn's
with dating? Mirth! Laughter! Merry mayhem!
Chuckles galore! Just don't call it dry humor. More.
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