The Liquor Talking

Yesterday sucked. Normally, Mondays do not chew the mighty root for me. I’m one of these weird people that actually enjoys my work and aside from a couple extra days of log files to parse, Monday’s aren’t very different than any other work day.

Yesterday however, spewed butt nuggets and I am glad to be done with it.

Today will be awesome, even if just by comparison.

I used to have a bit of a reputation for “pulling a cork” now and again. The 16 months I spent sentenced to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey was pretty much a string of 3 – 5 day benders, interrupted only for so long as necessary to perform (to varying degrees) my assigned duties.

To this day, I long to know the name and address of the assmunch at Randolph AFB (home of the Air Force Personnel Center) who decided to uproot me from an assignment I kinda liked and send me to a place where you actually placed bets on how many drunks you’d have on shift with you.

When I was within a month of rotating back to the world, my roommate and a couple of buddies held what was later to become known as an “intervention.”

It was my roommate Andy who did most of the talking. He and my compadres had decided that I could not be allowed to return stateside as a stinking drunk. I think mostly that they wanted to watch me go through withdrawal and detoxification. That, plus according to Andy, I was becoming something of a “first-class prick” to be around when under the influence.

To my knowledge, there was only that one incident following a minor misunderstanding at the NCO club. I had just prevailed in a friendly hand throwing contest against a loud mouth CE troop when the cops arrived. Normally, I would have permitted them to cuff, search and haul me to the hoosegow for the night, there to wait for the 1st Sergeant to come and yell at me while hung over. It had become something of a routine.

However this night, the desk sergeant had sent a trio of scrawny, pimply-faced airmen to bring me in. Somehow, the mental image of the notorious “Big Rich” being led out by three kids out past their bedtime, just didn’t sit right in my. Granted, they were fellow cops and the polite thing to do would have been to allow them to link me up, then roundly cuss and threaten them all the way to the lockup. It was an unspoken protocol of sorts.

Tonight however, good old tequila logic was in charge. In my mind, it was my duty, as an NCO to make sure these youngsters would be up to the task once my DEROS (Date Expected Return from Overseas) arrived. More than once, I myself had been dispatched to this very club to assist other cops who were having a rough go of things. Who would they summon when my aid was happily back in the states?

I don’t remember a lot of details. I do remember taking away someone’s night stick and using it to chase a number of patrons from the establishment. I don’t recall who maced me (that’s with military grade mace, not this sissy pepper spray used today) but it is an experience that I, drunk or sober would not seek to repeat. Once on the ground, screaming and trying to claw my eyes out, the three pups regrouped and threw yours truly a pretty decent beating.

Things threatened to re-erupt in the ER when the one being treated for a dislocated shoulder proceeded to issue me a ration of lip. However, since I was cuffed to a bed, a bed attended by a rather large and inexplicably hostile ER tech, things calmed down quickly.

So yeah, there was that one time.

That’s how I spent the entire month of June, 1985 without so much as having a single beer.

It probably saved my life and my marriage to boot. I’m fairly convinced that my beloved wife would not long abide such drunken escapades.

Within 24 hours of returning home, I puked up blood. I recall my wife being a good deal more alarmed than I was, but with her being a nurse, I was in a poor position to argue against a trip to the ER at FE Warren.

Going to an emergency sober is a very different experience than drunk. For one thing, when your wife tells the intake tech “He’s been throwing up blood.” The place becomes a beehive of activity. For the record, I felt absolutely fine. While it is true that I had in fact been “throwing up blood,” her way of saying it made it sound like I had done so well in excess of thrice and in quantities well in excess of the perhaps 3 or four cups worth.

The doctor arrived, ordered some test, one of which was to draw out a half a pint of blood. How taking blood from someone can be used to determine if they’re loosing blood remains a mystery to me, but arguing with them, especially with my wife allied with them was pointless.

The test all confirmed what the wife had said. “Yep, you’ve been throwing up blood.” I was ordered (military doctors can actually ORDER you to do things) to see the gastro-something-or-other-ist at 0700 the next morning.

I arrived at the prescribed time, in perhaps the most foul mood in the history of foul moods. Included in the ER doctor’s orders were that I could have naught but water to drink, no food, no smoking (two pack a day habit at the time) and no sex.

I tried to explain that I had just returned from 16 months of abject celibacy and was very much interested in making up for lost time, but according to the doc, this might upset the tests I would endure the next day. I personally think he was just being a jackass, but he would not revoke this particular imposition. The wife (medical people are all in cahoots against me) agreed with the doc.

Thus my overall discontent.

The Air Force likes to have you arrive for appointments 15 minutes early. This is necessary for some medical reason that I’ve yet to discern. I arrived 20 minutes early, checked in, sat down and waited. At 0705, I arose and confronted the airman at the desk. He of course apologized, claiming they were running a bit late. At 0710, the airman and I went in search of his supervisor. We found him in the snack bar, enjoying a hot cup of coffee.

At 0715, I was waiting in the doctor’s office with the airman’s supervisor keeping me company. He was generally displeased that he was made to drink his coffee with more haste than he liked, but I was in no mood for whining or for having any of my leave being thusly wasted.

The doctor arrived at 0720. I released the supervisor to go change out of his coffee stained whites and the doc and I got down to business.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had something called an “Upper GI” exam, but should your doctor ever desire such a thing, do what you can to render him/her unconscious and flee.

Basically the procedure involves drinking copious quantities of a substance called barium. They then take X rays of your innards. This would be enormously less torturous sans this substance.

It’s deceptive. The X ray tech will ask you to pick a flavor, chocolate, strawberry or vanilla and will before your eyes prepare what appears to be a frothy, frosty shake. Having not eaten, smoked or had sex for the previous night, you will crave this shake.

The radiologist told me to take up a big mouthful and swallow it when he said. The idea being that he can snap a shot while the barium is being swallowed. Greedily, I slurped up a huge mouthful, only to find that the X ray tech misheard me say “chocolate” and instead mixed up a large cup of liquid chalk.

The X ray tech had obviously made this mistake before and was fast enough to make good his escape with only a little spewed on his departing back.

Once the threats and swearing had died down the doctor explained that ” chocolate, strawberry or vanilla” only indicated the color of the barium, not its flavor. The flavor was and would always be, straight up chalk. There seemed to be no method known to modern medicine to make it taste otherwise. I personally contend that it’s possible, providing someone is willing to administer the necessary beatings.

I endured the barium and more or less learned how to swallow it on cue. Upon conclusion, the radiologist proclaimed that I was the proud owner of a herd of ulcers, some of which were bleeding. The gastro-whatever-ologist prescribed some pills and gave me a list foods to avoid.

But the barium wasn’t done with me yet. Despite my drinking gallons of water, it managed to become concrete. I’m told the human body has some 80 feet on intestines. I felt the barium bricks winding their way through every inch. When they at last reached the terminal end… Well, suffice it to say that I know what it must feel like to poop pine cones.

I have since made it a point to do nothing to aggravate the ulcers. I think they finally got bored and left.

That’s it for today. Have a fantastic Tuesday. Tune in tomorrow for Reader Mail! There’s still time to get your pearls in front of the swine by posting comments about this blog to the FaceBook site about it People Who Love elimtevir.com, or by sending your email(s) to: , or by just clicking on the “Comment” button below.