No More Sausage…

Star Date 12092016

The legs on link number 4 are quite pasty…almost translucent. Disturbing. …and has nothing to do with today. For the younger readers who should not go see the new movie, Sausage Party, I went with a more G rated version. Why is sausage the subject? Solid question…or at least sausage is made from mostly solids. BTW, for those of you in the Pitts area…and those just interested in the best place to obtain phenomenal sausage (teehee). Any guesses? Herb Brittner’s? Nope. Great guess and their sausage is tasty; however, hands down the best kielbasa or kielbasi as it is called by most in these parts, is from Ricci’s Italian Sausage. It’s run by Ernie and family and has been since 1945. Three generations now. Sidebar. 10 lb sausage rope is 44 bucks. Good times. I go for the kielbasi. A tasty little number, plain or with stadium mustard or spicy brown. Quite good on the grill. None of this is important or pertains to today either. It just got me to thinkin. If anyone is interested, I can send your way. You won’t find better. Once you put Ernie’s sausage in your mouth, you won’t want any other. I could go on and on. So…why sausage? Great question. I went in for all my pre-op stuff. I got to do a head CT, ECG, blood work, peepee in a cup…my favorite…stop mid-stream…really? This is not normal…and thus I do not stop. I’ve never been told to re-catch my urine. Just sayin. Chest x-ray. All good stuff. But wait…First I have to register. All my little visits to the Wexford Wellness Pavillion…stupid, stupid name. For you West coasters, I would liken it to the Kaiser system…which is still head and shoulders above this circus. Sidebar. I see a table being set up between the North and South wings…right outside the registration area. This is my reminder to come back to this. Charlie don’t fail me now. I am invited in to the registration area by an older gent…at least older than me…and considerably more gay…in both the happy and not straight versions of the word. It is early and I have had zero coffee. Not because of not wanting any or being told not to have any…no time before leaving the house. Norm just wants to hear about the Sausage…stick with me…not to me. Gent asks for my ID and insurance card. I comply. I got no warning for the next….you guessed it…Charlie v. ATOI. I am sitting there waiting for the regular questions. Name…which he can see and read off his computer screen…along with the answers to all the questions he is going to ask. BTW. If I was someone else…of all the things to impersonate or steal as an identity, why on earth would I want to be someone else for a doctor’s appointment. Play this out…..

registration person – Mr. Sky-less is it?

me – yes.

reg – Can you tell me your full name and DOB?

me – yes.

reg – no…can you tell me now?

me – (smiling) yes.

reg – (impatiently waiting)

me – Kevin …blah blah blah

reg – Do you know what time your appointment is for?

me – yes. 915.

reg – it says here it is for a colonoscopy. Were you aware of that?

me – I am now. I gotta go.

See? Makes no sense to steal someone’s identity at the doctor’s office…or at least the well-oiled machine that is the WWP. Back to me and the gent.

Gent – Mr. Skylees?

me – yes.

gent – DOB and name?

me – Kevin Skiles 02201969

gent – um…are you aware your licence does not match your address of record? Would you please verify which is correct?

me – the one on your screen, not on my license. We just moved (like three months ago almost)

gent – Yes. Could you tell me what that address is?

me – 7927 etc etc

gent – Do you know what time your appointment is for?

me – I believe 915.

gent – Yes. That will be for a CT. Were you a…(stops)

me – (I have been playing Angry Birds Transformers the whole time, but now look up)

gent – OMG. Are you okay?

me – yes, why?

gent – you have a brain tumour.

me – (Look on my face…What the? No, I don’t.)

gent – I am so sorry.

me – (what I want to say is, “why, did you put it there?”…which would only lead me farther down the rabbit hole. …gent offering to push in my stool…that sort of thing…I hope he washes his hands first.)

me – (for reals, yo) Yep. You wanna see it? I have pictures.

Gent – Seriously?

me – (looking as serious as possible) Yep. (show him Charlie)

Gent – OMG….OMG. Are you really okay? Is someone here with you?

me – No. I’m just doing pre-op labs and the CT. I shouldn’t need a driver.

gent – oh. well if you’re sure you’re okay.

me – I am and I very much appreciate you asking.

Now…we all know me well enough to know that I really do not appreciate him asking…but this is one of my improvement areas I have been told to work on. Front of the class for this cowboy. Charlie 9. ATOI 2.

Back to sausage. Norm…wake up. I go to the MRI and CT area and …yep…check in again. Same info. Unbelievable, really. Same computer system. I sit down after being told I only have the prescription for the CT and blood work. I’m not gonna argue at this point…I’ll go see my buddy down in registration when I finish here. I sit. As I am waiting, a co-worker to the two geniuses I just dealt with, comes up and starts talking about her weekend and how she tried to get hold of the female she was talking with behind the desk…LIAR. Claiming to the lady that she thought she hit send for the text…but noticed …this morning, that she hadn’t. LIAR. Guy co-worker chimes in thanking the woman for the sausage. And it went like this:

guy – Cathy, thank you for the sausage. It was great. I made stuffed banana peppers.

Cathy – oh you are so welcome. I am so tired of sausage.

lady at desk – I am too. I have had way too much sausage lately. I’m over it.

Cathy – I know what you mean. I am tired of looking at it.

Yes. I am 15. If anyone walked in on just the female part of this conversation…All I could do was sit there and laugh…well…and play Angry Birds Transformers. Long story to go nowhere except laugh at dumbasses.

I complete this portion of my visit. There were three people sitting in the tech room whilst my head was being scanned. Is it wrong for me to just want to laugh at them for looking so concerned? They look at me as if I don’t know that Charlie is ever-present. Shock and awe. One tech comes in and helps me to my feet. I am become an invalid. Not in-vuh-lid…but INVALID. Both Charlie and I are over this. Some might ask…and rightfully so…they are just concerned or being concerned. Yes. Why? is my question. Because they weren’t before they saw the tumour in my head. Why the special treatment now? And this is why I am not a fan of the general pubic…er public. I meander down the stairs back to registration. Rememer the table being set up? Charlie does. I avoid it…as any logical person would do. Why? Because I know they want something from me…likely money. The two women sitting there are clearly talking about whatever, but as soon as they see me, they call out.

Women – Sir, would you like to come over and dedicate a butterfly to the remembrance of someone special.

me – (from a distance) A butterfly for…?

woman (singular) – (holding up a 3″x 3” laminated, blue butterfly) Would you like to dedicate a butterfly to the remembrance of someone?

me – To support what cause?

woman – For anyone you’ve lost that you were close to.

me – What kind of butterfly is this? I’ve never seen one like this.

woman – (perplexed and clearly not ready to field this question…smiling nervously as she is about to lose this sale) – I am really unsure.

me – what is the “donation” going toward?

woman – (relieved I am still interested) support groups for…

me – (cutting her off). Gotcha. I’m good. Are there a certain number of butterflies you are expected to sell?

woman (nervous again) – well…not expected to sell.

me – Here is a 10 dollar donation. (For those who do not know this about me, I hate, hate, hate ten dollar bills…so I hide them in my car. This one happened to be in my pocket, as I had forgotten to hide prior to de-carring).

women (plural and in unison) – Thank you so much.

me – no worries. Thank you.

women – Did you want to write a name on a butterfly?

me – (smiling) Oh yes. Absolutely. …scribble, scribble, scribble. CHARLES FOXTROT SKEELAYS (Jon Z gets credit for middle name). Charlie Foxtrot …double entendre.

women – thank you so very much.

me – you bet.

Here’s the thing. Why is it necessary to say, “thank you so very much?” Why not just a thank you or thank you very much or thank you so much. I ponder this at length when I hear it. I am baffled by my own stupidity in this place. Then I smile to myself and realize I am not (entirely) the stupid one.

I was able to deal with someone else at registration…fortunately and unfortunately. All tests were completed in a single visit. As hoped. Results for some and or all, tomorrow with my new family doc. …general practitioner…whatever the term jew door is…due jawr….du jour. Hey ma…look at me. I speak French…kiss. In my head, when this appointment was made, I was looking for say someone younger than Hippocrates (first medical doctor of record…thus…Hippocratic Oath. Not enough? Hippo dude is way old and dead, and my previous doctor of record looked about the same. In fact he looked like this:

(ref to Doc Hollywood). The previous general cracktitioner is the one who misdiagnosed both my foot and hand. Idiot. So…tomorrow I meet the new guy. This appointment was set up prior to knowledge of Charlie, and thus was to be a meet and greet. Little does new doc know, that I have secretly replaced original doc with new…He never has a second doc at home (ref to Yuban coffee…search yuban commercial…transport yourself back to the 70s during a Lawrence Welk show…BTW. Lawrence Welk was German, and therefore in no way had Lawrence Welk as his real name…Likely a Nazi…especially since he was born in North Dakota…don cha know, der?

If you were born in to my family…this show was the only show we were allowed to watch on a Saturday. …followed by immediate bedtime. 730 pm….regardless of time of year. Bedtime. Child abuse is more like it. So new doc is expecting to just meet and greet…instead, he gets to take out the stitches of Ben finger, chat about results of pre-op testing, and approve my brain surgery…trifecta. I’m gonna buy a lottery ticket…can’t play if you don’t win…er something. Yes…I will give doctor Larry…hmmmm…Larry….Lawrence…potato, tomato. Same same. Bug….bug…is there a similarity there? Reference to???

Uncle Buck…Classic. Don’t just rent it…own it. This movie has great lines. Including the entire scene with the principal…I believe this to be very pertinent to Charlie…I urge you to watch:

Good shite, right there.

Rewind. Song of the day…well…here’s the thing. I have the tune and I literally sent it via the microphone portion of my IPhone texting thingy, to my daughters. I whistled and hummed it to Sound Hound. To no avail. It is a man and a woman duo and has the words, “It’s like.” …and there is some line about the weather. Charlie sucks in this and all moments.

I am tired. Charlie is allowing my head to feel his pulse. My day is over…less the four emails for work I should take a looksee at. So. Spotlight friend is Brian B. I do not know who whetherman889 is, so am making an assumption that as I have only added three peeps in last week, It is likely Brian B.

Brian and met at Valley Christian HS. Brian married his HS sweetheart and they have a good life together in the central valley of CA. Aside from Scott and Steve on the guy friend side of things and church side of things, Brian was my go to at school. We both got injured playing HS football, which meant we were both in the trainer’s room for whatever, in lieu of actual practice. Brian liked football, yet was unlike the rest of the HS lads who play football. Brian was and is just a guy. A genuinely good man. I believe it was our sophomore year when Brian picked up a sweet ride. A late 70’s Camaro. Black with light interior, if Charlie serves. Good times. Brian and I had a few classes together, but more importantly, Brian and I had a connection…something I didn’t have with anyone other than Scott, at school. A lot of sh** went down our senior year of HS, and Brian never once joined the masses of idiots that literally wanted to kill me. Fast forward. I got on something called Facebook, a few years back. I was on it for about 20 minutes when the second person to find me was Brian. I was on the FB for about a day. No thank you. It is a white person’s app. Sorry Scott. Maybe it’s just not a brown/yellow person’s thing. Brian and I have kept in contact since. I have seen no one or talked to anyone from my actual school other than Scott and Brian…almost 30 years ago. No desire.

Final thought. Once the doc appointment is over, life can creep forward till Charlie goes away. I miss my girls and have been texting them today. I wish so much that they lived a drive a way instead of a fly away. Seems like such a long time ago since I got to hold my baby.