It Was a Dark and Dreary Night

I'm going to tell you a story...a true story that I think will shock you. You will gasp in horror as the story unfolds. Because the story is so unbelieveable, I'm going to change the name of the main character...a handsome man, in his fifties...a man whom I will call Kevin Stook.
You had better take a seat, perhaps place a cold compress to your forehead, because the gruesome story is being told with no holds barred. Every miserable word is true. Here goes my story...are you ready?
Kevin Stook had to spend the night at his mother's house. It was because he worked out of town and it was cheaper to stay at his mother's house than at a hotel...a whole lot cheaper.
Kevin arrived at his mother's house at about 7:00 PM. He ate dinner. His mother loved to cook. You're such a good cook, people would tell her, that's why your name is Stook. She would laugh. Kevin never thought it very funny.
Anyway, Kevin ate his meal and in order to avoid conversation...Kevin hated conversation...he went upstairs to the guest room to watch television. Kevin lay on the bed. He grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. The TV came on to the local channel showing Jeopardy. Because the twelve-year-olders were no longer on, Kevin was unable to answer any questions. So, he thought, I'll see what's on the cable. He pushed the "up channel" button. It went right to the local NBC channel. Kevin froze in fear.
"What's the matter?" he shrieked. His mother came running, as well as she could run. "What's wrong?" she asked nervously. She had never heard such anguish in another human. She may have thought it sounded like the howl of a werewolf as the silver stake was buried into its heart. Kevin didn't ask her if it sounded like that, but he hoped it did.
"What's wrong?" he asked somewhat sarcastically, as if his mother had asked, "Why are there two holes in your nose?"
"What's wrong?" he repeated. "Only that the cable is not working."
"Oh, I took it out," his mother said. Kevin thought, with utter contempt, that she sounded almost happy to have removed the cable. "There's nothing but filth on there anyway," she said.
His mother loved the word filth. She said it with such disdain it was as if she had literally spit a wad of letters out of her mouth that when they tumbled to the floor, fell into a pattern that spelled "F I L T H." She used the word to describe every show on TV except Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. In years past she wouldn't apply the word to Dateline either, but since they got hooked on pedophilia, that had changed. "There's nothing worth watching anymore," she said. "Except Vanna."
Kevin had heard some tales about Vanna, but he didn't want to burst his mom's bubble. Down deep, he was a good son.
"But there's nothing on," Kevin wailed. He briefly considered throwing a tantrum, but thought that might bring on vertigo and he'd just end up throwing up.
"Calm down," his mother said. "You can watch King of Queens."
For a brief moment Kevin cheered up, then he remembered that King of Queens wouldn't be back on until mid-season. But, he thought, I can watch that new CBS comedy. What was it called? The Class?
So, Kevin stopped whimpering, wiped his, by now, fogged up glasses on his necktie and lay back down. He was ready to be entertained. He was ready for a good CBS comedy. Yes, he was still vulnerable, due to the shocking discovery that his mother no longer had cable, but he thought that if the rest of the evening went smoothly, he'd be okay.
It was 8:00 PM. Time for The Class. Then the real horror began. The terror he had felt previously, compared with this new terror, was only like the terror you get when you realize that you've come back into the office, from the restroom, without remembering to zip. The terror Kevin felt now was unlike any he'd ever encountered before in his life.
If one could take terror and roll it up into a ball and examine it under a light, Kevin would have been too afraid to do that to this particular ball of terror...it was that bad.
"We interrupt tonight's regularly scheduled program...." the voice on the TV said, "to bring you this special programming."
Kevin thought at first that maybe it was a ball game, but, no, that wouldn't make sense. The voice continued:
"This is the final in a series of debates between George Allen and Jim Webb. Blah blah blah blah blah blah..." the voice continued.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!" Kevin screamed, reaching for the remote. He turned to channel 12. The same voice was speaking, "Your host for tonight's debate is blah blah blah blah blah."
This was like a scene right out of The Outer Limits. They've taken over the TV Kevin thought. Maybe this is Armageddon. Kevin brightened up for a moment. But it wasn't. This was a real, live debate between Allen and Webb. And here was Kevin, forced to watch it. He felt his head going numb. His ears began to tingle. Either blood was gushing out of his mouth, or he was drooling. He started to wipe his mouth to find out. At this point Kevin lost consciousness. I'll tell you the rest, as soon as Kevin comes to.

Bed Panned

It seems as if my health has become the number one topic in my life and I'm sure that delights you no end. There's nothing I enjoy more than listening to someone complain about how poorly he feels. Actually, for someone in so miserable a shape as I am, I feel pretty good...most of the time.
Saturday night was an exception to that. I was getting ready for bed and my heart started pounding. At first I thought that was because I had a new pair of Superman Returns pajamas with footies. But by the time I got into bed, my heart was racing so rapidly that I felt I was about to pass out. This happened just a few weeks ago. I finally told my wife...well, I didn't actually tell her. I clutched at my heart and began to moan. Within thirty minutes she got the picture.
When I explained what was happening, she lovingly said, "We can't afford to be taking you to the emergency room every time you feel a little faint." Well, she didn't actually say those exact words, but I could tell that's what she was thinking. Anyway, I finally crawled back to the closet, took my Supermans off and redressed.
I get to the hospital, and after they do an EKG, they put me in one of those little gurney beds in the emergency room. They hooked me up to a monitoring device, stuck a needle in my hand, just to be sticking something somewhere, and abandoned me.
I lay there for the next 4 hours waiting. They did leave the TV on, but by this time of night, all that was on were infomercials. I kept trying to get someone's attention because after the first hour, nature began to call, first softly, then louder and louder. Finally, I was able to grab hold of the side railing of the bed with one hand and lean over, suspending my body in mid-air, while I reached for the call button. I couldn't reach it, but I could jab at it, which started the button swaying on the cord. Acrobatically, I finally got it to swing to within my grasp. After I had punched the button, I waited no more than another half hour until a nurse comes in my room to see why I was interrupting their card game.
"Can you unhook me so I can use the restroom," I asked with about the same meekness Oliver Twist displayed in asking for more gruel. The woman leaves the room, as if she needs to get permission for me to go to the bathroom. She comes back with a plastic pitcher. I was hoping that wouldn't happen. I had a gown on, about 20 wires attached to various parts of my body, a plastic tumbler, hooked to a needle sticking out of my arm, and a blood pressure cuff sliding down the other arm. And, they expect me to use this little narrow-mouth pitcher? Since I had been feeling the urge for over an hour, I used the pitcher.
I got back into bed, readjusted all my wires and watched my heart rate on the monitor, only because that was more interesting than the infomercial for a course in stock trading. And I waited...and waited...and waited. Finally the doctor came in and said the heart doctor wanted to see me before they would release me. So I waited some more. I tried to sleep but the nurses (male and female) were having such a rollicking good time out in the hall that I couldn't fall asleep. I've been in quieter pool halls than this emergency room.
Finally, at about three-thirty Sunday morning I decided I had to get out of there. It wasn't a matter of wanting to leave. I had to. I really thought I was going to have some sort of panic attack. I pulled one of the wires off my chest. That started the bell ringing. I figured when a nurse responded to the ringing, I'd tell her I wanted to leave. No one ever came. I guess they figured that if I were dead, there was nothing they could do anyway, and if a wire were just loose, it was no cause for alarm.
I don't know why the nurses didn't get tired of the ringing. Maybe the clanking of glasses as they toasted one another drowned out the noise of my alarm bell. So, I pulled off another wire, and then another, until, before long, like Eric Clapton, I was unplugged.
I removed the little clip from my finger and the cuff from my arm. Still no one showed up. The only thing that stood between me and freedom was this needle sticking out of my hand. I started peeling off the bandages, and then grabbed the needle and ripped it from my flesh. Sure, I bled profusely, but it felt so good to be free. I put my clothes on and scurried out the door. I cleverly skulked down the hall, and out of the building. My wife was waiting outside, and in a scene that would remind one of the raid on Entebbe, I was gone.
I giggled like a teenager. Sometimes doing something daring and bold is refreshing. The cool thing is that my heart didn't skip a beat through the entire escape. Actually, I felt better than I had in years.
My wife thinks I'm crazy. I say, go ahead put me in an asylum. Lock me up in a straight jacket. I'm ready for my next great escape.