More Goofiness for a Sunday

Whilst perusing the hagiography for a new saint to make fun of discuss the life story of, I came across the word "thaumaturge". At first, I thought, "Hey, that's a good, silly word." And then I learned what it meant, and I was like "Holy cats! I must use this word somewhere!"

Yes, in my mind, I say shit like "Holy cats!"

Thaumaturge: noun One who performs miracles, especially healing.

The derivation is from Greek, actually, and not Latin. Thaumat is the Greek word for "miracle" or "wonder" and "-urge" comes from ergon which means "work". It's been Anglicized a bit to get to the current ending you see before you.

I think this word will actually pop up a lot (despite the definite lack of Greeks in my story); I'm thinking of making it a title. I have a character named Brandon Voskuil who is one of the first to perform healings through magical powers. I know, I know, fantasy stories suck. You don't have to read it if you don't want to. Anyway, he'll eventually, as his healing powers become more widespread and better known, become Brandon the Thaumaturge.

Of course, religious references don't make any of the various thaumaturges have any magical powers, and so religious translations often translate "thaumaturge" as just "wonderworker." Boring. Bring on the magic, says I. Fuck, it's put a loaf of bread or two on J.K. Rowling's table.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Volume XXVII

Fear is a very natural human emotion. It's a basic necessity for survival, ranking right up there with food, water, shelter and sex. Basically, if it can kill you, you have instincts that tell you to run like hell from it. Otherwise, the tiger people would be ruling the earth, and we'd all be kibble.

Most people are afraid of spiders or heights or thunder or cougars or some other silly shit. Me? Well, I'm full-frontal awesome, so I'm not afraid of anything. Well, no, that's not exactly true. I'm afraid of shitty movies. Oh look, an ad for Year One. Run away, run away like a Frenchman!

Okay, I'm kidding. Except for that whole cheese-eating surrender monkey part. However, there is one thing that haunts my dreams and keeps me from sleeping soundly at night. It's a creature so vile, so putrid, so other-worldly terrifying that its very name sends shivers up and down your spine. It takes a wise man to admit when he's afraid, and I'll admit when I'm afraid in the only dead language that allows one to sound profound...even when your voice squeaks out of your throat like a little girl's.

"Nihil nisi caprimulgus timeo."
Pronounced: "Nee-heel nee-see cah-pree-mool-goose teem-aye-oh."

Translation in the hovertext!

TMI Thursday: Commando Operations

Ever since I've had my gall bladder removed, I've suffered from something that I refer to as "post rectal drip". See, sometimes, if I've had one of those shits where things have been good and loose, a couple hours later I'll develop that "not so fresh feeling" at the back door. I usually go, clean up, and then everything is okay for another couple of hours. The big problem is, when I can't get away, then the insides of my ass cheeks tend to chafe, which is an all new definition of the phrase "pain in the ass." Now, this also happens sometimes if I'm suffering from a good bout of ass sweat, but the ass sweat chafing pales in comparison to the post-rectal drip chafing.

So, about a year and a half ago, I decided that I was going to get healthy. I was going to shed some weight, increase my stamina (heh heh heh...), and overall have a more healthy body. The best way, I figured, was to take up jogging. Now, I love jogging/running. I really do. You wouldn't think it to look at me, but buried beneath the layers of blubber is a runner at heart. However, as it had been many moon since I had last endeavored to jog, I figured I should work into this. I'd start slow and hopefully be able to sustain some form of stamina that would let me jog with some regularity.

To that end, I started walking. During my lunch hour, I would walk a course by the lab building that was about two and a half miles. I could get it done in around 50 minutes, if I didn't drag my ass. As all good ideas of this ilk begin, I started this regimen in January.

Long about the end of April, I was getting pretty good at this. I had lost at least two belt sizes and I was slowly getting to the point where I felt comfortable with attempting to jog. However, I wasn't dressed properly, so I began bringing in shorts and a t-shirt that I could change into prior to exercising then change back out of in order to perform my usual daily work in the lab, hopefully sans the funk of a sweaty man hanging about me.

The other thing is that, toward the end of April, it was getting warm 'round these here parts. Now, the scene is set. One day, I was out doing my lunchtime walk when, around the one mile mark, I sense a little leakage in the outback. At this point, I was at the apogee of my daily route--that is, the furthest from the lab possible in my little walk. Sucking it up like a man, I tried to quicken my pace so that I could get back to the lab and change as soon as humanly possible. Unfortunately, this had a dual affect. One, it caused my ass cheeks to rub together moreso than they were before, thus heightening the chafing. Two, it caused me to sweat more, and I could feel the tortuous trickle between my cheeks. Essentially, it was a perfect storm of ass chafing.

Finally, after my grueling pace took me to the point where I just wanted to fall down on my face and weep, I returned to the lab. As proof that God does, in fact, love me, my labmates were at lunch at the time, and so I was able to slip into the office, grab my stuff, and not have to let them smell what must certainly have been a case of Swamp Ass to the Extreme. I gathered up my clothes and slipped down to the restroom to clean up and to change.

Once I got there and dropped trou, I discovered that my boxer-briefs had gone to the point of no return. What once had been turquoise was now rendered an unholy mahogany, featuring an aroma fresh from the very bowels of hell, such that my nose hairs singed, my eyes watered, and my throat seized closed. Despite the lack of fresh air, I managed to clean myself up. Now, I had a change of pants. I had a change of shirt. I did not have a change of underwear. And I certainly was not going to pull those back up around my nethers after having freshly cleaned them. What was I to do? The only course of action was to strip them off.

And so I did.

I was out there, Jerry, and I wasn't loving every minute of it!

Now, I realize that a number of you don't have scrotums. Let me just say that, for those of you without, the seams of blue jeans and the soft, velvety delicates of a man's anatomy are in no way compatible. The moment that I zipped, the joint where the legs of my pants and my crotch come together seized ahold of my wrinkly, crinkly bag of skin with the tenaciousness of a midwestern housewife on a Vera Bradley handbag. With my lower lip aquiver and unshed tears standing in my eyes, I now looked upon my soiled and defeated companion who had given his life so that my sack would not suffer the indignity of being cloven in twain by my pants. They say you never truly appreciate what you had until you lose it, and such it was with my underpants. Softly, I hummed taps in their memory.

But, what to do? I exited the stall, stiff-legged, and motored over to the wastebasket. Unfortunately, it was one of those wall units designed for the paper towels you use after you wash your hands. This was not a suitable final resting place for my knickers. So, I quickly washed my hands, rolled the fallen soldier up, and made my way back to the lab.

I thought briefly about stashing the underwear in my backpack, but I was afraid that the lingering air of Swamp Ass would give me away. I couldn't just drop them into a waste paper basket in either of the labs, as we tend to not throw much stuff away. So, I did the only thing I could possibly think to do: I slipped them into a plastic bag and hid them in one of the 55-gallon solid hazardous waste containers in the lab. I deftly moved a couple of bags of used filtering agents over the top of the bag containing my soiled smallclothes, put the lid on and sealed it.

I then tried to go about my normal daily routine. However, after about an hour, maybe two, of wandering around the lab and office with no underwear, I became painfully aware of the fact that my pants were trying their best to eat my balls, Chewbacca style. Finally, I could take no more and left early for the day. After a frantic ride home, I dashed upstairs, shed my pants, slipped on a fresh pair of boxer-briefs, and reveled in the wonderment of having my nuts cradled lovingly in the warm, accepting folds of gentle cotton. "I'll never underappreciate you again, underwear," I cooed down to them.

And I never have since. *pats self lovingly*


Does this not sate your thirst for awesome TMI stories? Then check out all the other glorious tales of things we probably shouldn't tell at LiLu's home for the staunchy raunchy, TMI Thursdays!

Monday, Monday, It Was All I Hoped It Would Be

Monday morning came early for me this week. About 4:30, I was rudely awakened by my wife, the buxom and comely and pneumonically flu-ridden Boudicca, hacking and coughing and whimpering that pathetic whimper of those who are deathly near shuffling off this mortal coil.

We discussed what to do about her disease-ridden state, which apparently sparked a bit of inspiration in my lower bowels, and I had to hurry to the bathroom. After finishing up in there--consider it my thinking spot--I proclaimed that I would shower, wake the daughter, get her ready for school, and we would go to the hospital. You can see that I had a pretty good think, think, think in that small, stuffy room.

After getting ready, I load my wife and daughter up into the car and we head down to the hospital where I drop my wife at the door and ride off into the sunset, cackling like a madman and screaming "Freedom! Free-he-he-hee-dom!" go find a parking space. I then gather up my daughter, Cookie, and we trudge into the ER.

Therein, we are met by the ghost of the Notorious R.I.P. B.I.G. and his girlfriend, whom I shall name the Psychotic Pstripper. At first glance, I thought, "Oh, hey, she's kind of cute" only to realize, after having sat down, that she had the face of a giraffe and was so full of drugs that she should have had her own MSDS sheet. Fortunately, Cookie brought a book with her to read, because the Notorious R.I.P. B.I.G. and the Psychotic Pstripper (who was wearing a sheer, white shirt, with one button fastened over what served as her cleavage, thus baring a majority of her disease-ridden torso along with some oh-so-sexy skin-tight jeans...rowr...someone call the Pussycat Dolls) were debating who gave whom what STD. I, myself, buried my attention in a one-page write-up about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I read about seventeen times until finally the happy couple went off to see a nurse...only to return a couple of seconds later. They sat uncomfortably close to us (that is how I knew that the Psychotic Pstripper had a face like a giraffe), which caused the security guard manning the metal-detector (ah, Durham, North Carolina, land of milk and honey) to hover near us with a rapt eye upon the happy couple while trying to pretend like she was watching the weather.

Finally, they took my wife to a bed, where they gave her tylenol. The time came for me to take my daughter to school, so we left my wife, I buzzed through Chick-Fil-A to get Cookie some breakfast (notice, I haven't eaten yet), and then off to the school. We arrived plenty early, but I finally got her delivered safely and began my return-flight to Durham. Upon arriving back at the hospital, I pulled into a spot and began dialing my boss to tell him I'd be in late this morning because I had to take my wife to the hospital. Just as I'm dialing, I notice movement out of the corner of my eye and see a Bag Lady trying to climb into the passenger seat of my car! I scream and reach for the locking mechanism. Too late! She's pried the door open! What do you want? A quarter? A cigarette? Just get out of here!

This woman, with her wild, untamed hair, her paint-encrusted yoga pants and black fleece, shambled along and had a look about her as if she hadn't slept at all the night before, like she had been up all night with a fever and a cough and--oh, shit, that's my wife.

Yeah.

So, as I calm down, I call into work and tell them that I had to run her to the hospital and my boss asks if everything is okay and I say, "Yeah, just a nasty fever and a spot of pneumonia" and he said to take my time coming in. My boss is pretty awesome like that (and no, he doesn't read this shit, which is exactly why I still have a job). Anyway, I hung up the phone and I was like, "Dammit! I should have told him you were mauled by a cougar!"

I then take my wife home, get some medicine into her, prop up her feet, tuck her in, help her to get warm, bring her some water and some Sunny D. However, I finally have to leave because, oh, hey, I have a physical at one o'clock. I have to pick my daughter up at three. This ought to be fun.

So, I buzz by work, check in with the boss, tell him I'm off to my physical and then to pick up Cookie and I'll see you guys tomorrow, hopefully with little to no virus bodies clinging to my personage. I'm off to my physical where I get run through the typical gamut of tests. I have to say, I was impressed that they only jabbed one needle into my arm in order to draw blood (normally, it takes three or so) and the doctor didn't jangle my nards or anything. Though, she did ask if I wanted her to help me with a testicular self-exam, and I was proud of myself for not saying "Do you take cash?"

Forty-five minutes later, I'm on my way to pick up Cookie, and since I've been proclaimed one healthy fat man, I decided to celebrate with a quick trip through McDonald's. Nothing says "I Just Passed My Physical" like sodium-encrusted cholesterol wedged between two stale buns.

I finally pick up Cookie, stop off to get my wife some more Tylenol, and head home. At this point, I'm exhausted, still a little hungry, and suffering from one wicked-ass caffeine headache, so I laid down for a little bit. I was awakened about thirty minutes later by Cookie at the side of my bed. "I have a 101.7 fever."

*sigh*

So finally, blissfully, I get everyone taken care of. My wife is medicined-up, my daughter is full to brimming with fever reducers, and I've inverted a bottle of tequila eaten a healthy dinner of left-overs. We all go to bed and we're sleeping somewhat soundly when I'm rudely awakened in the middle of the night by my wife shuffling around in the room. That's when I hear her click off the fan.

"Turn that thing back on or I'll slit your throat," I growl. Except, it came out something more like "I think it's time for you to take more medicine, dear." She curled up next to me, telling me how cold she was, and so we eventually fell into fitful slumber.

Finally, my alarm went off and I threw back the covers, sweaty and specked with the dying vestiges of my wife's diseases, never so happy to see Tuesday morning arrive.

Quarantine!

By the orders of the Center for Disease Control and the Government of These United States of America, this blog is quarantined until such time as it is deemed to no longer be a threat to the health of the general populace.

Be warned that, if you have had any contact with this blog in the past week, you could be exposed to the dangerous and highly-deadly H1N1 virus. Or, you might get the sniffles and a fever and a nasty cough that keeps your husband up all night.

Please refer to this site if you are unfamiliar with the symptoms of the Artist Formerly Known as the Swine Flu.

Thank you for your cooperation. Wash your hands. Jiggle it twice. Eet mor chikun.