President Me (23 page)

This is another quick fix my Health and Human Services secretary can make—from now on we will have crocheted body-fluid-container cozies. I really don't need to see the shit leaking out of my decrepit dad into crystal-clear Tupperware.

I held my dad's hand, kissed him on the forehead, freed the family moths that had for years been trapped in his wallet, and made my peace with it. Eventually the bleak prognosis gave way to cautious optimism and then to hope. They began moving my father progressively into less and less important rooms—from the ICU to the recovery unit to a regular room. Eventually he was in a van in the parking lot.

This all took place at a high-end hospital in Pasadena, California. I'm convinced that in a lesser facility he would have died. From the outside this place looks like a luxury resort. Which makes the next part all the more tragic.

After being led to the elevator by Grandpa Walton, I pressed the button for my dad's floor and looked up at the digital readout and this is what I saw.

Some shithead gangbanger had taken a drywall screw and carved his gang signs into the smoked Plexiglas cover. This is why L.A. is the most depressing place in the world. Again, this is not County USC hospital in downtown L.A., this was a nice hospital in Pasadena.

Then when I got upstairs I had to use the bathroom. The toilet-paper dispenser, paper-towel dispenser, the toilet seat, and even the underside of toilet seat were all carved up. This cholo assholo took the time to lift the toilet seat just in case someone from a rival gang wanted to claim the underside of the shitter saddle.

Where is the humanity? Where is the decency? The people are using this bathroom because someone they love is down the hall clinging to life. When they're not wringing their hands they're sanitizing their hands. But fear not, that dispenser has been tagged up too.

When I went to visit my dad a few days later, I was in the same tagged-up elevator with a Mexican gangbanger—maybe the cousin of the guy who scratched it up. He was wearing baggy pants and a tight wife-beater which exposed a shoulder tattoo of a bandito pointing a six-shooter at me. You've got people in extreme stress at hospitals. Why is this guy allowed to further traumatize people with his shoulder tats? What if you walked by a room with a mom inside who was watching her kid, just nailed in a drive-by, cling to life?

This is what you wear to the hospital to visit your beloved relative or homie? Is nowhere sacred? Do we not have a dress code anymore? Can you wrap your junk in foil? Cover your cock and balls in a Crown Royal sack? Is that acceptable attire? Have we fallen this far? This is not the Black Hole in Raider Nation or an airport in Haiti with a chicken running around. This is a hospital where people go to say good-bye to their elderly loved ones and to read to their seven-year-olds with leukemia.

When I got off the elevator on my dad's floor, I needed a hit off the drinking fountain. (On the drive to the hospital that day I was sipping a Starbucks and had a little coffee mouth going.) As I leaned down into the drinking fountain I took an inhale before I started sipping and smelled something I haven't smelled since my high school baseball-playing days—a large wad of Copenhagen chewing tobacco in the drain.

This was four and half feet from the men's room containing a toilet and garbage can. Yet some dick decided to deposit his chaw here instead.

This is the height of narcissism. We don't recognize the existence of other human beings. The only thought is “I have tobacco in my mouth and I need to get rid of it.” In fact, they probably think they are giving you a gift. That tobacco came from His Royal Highness's jowls, and you should be honored to whiff it when you attempt to drink from the fountain. Do you think the animal that committed this atrocity would do it in his own home? Of course not. In my America we will check the security-camera footage and find this asshole. If he was there visiting a relative who was on life support, we're pulling the plug. Say good-bye to Nana. You blew it, fucko.

It's not just the patients at the hospital that need a little decorum coaching. The nurses and doctors could use a refresher course on bedside manner. They're all a little too casual lately.

I had to get a physical to renew my vintage racing license a year or two ago and that involved a urine specimen. The nurse was very casually handling the cup of my frothy wiz and was making small talk while she dunked test strips and separated it into other containers. I know she does this on a regular basis, but I'm not really used to people playing with my piss.

The fact that she was attractive didn't help. If she had twenty more years and forty more pounds on her, it might be fine, but the fact that she was young and hot made it uncomfortable and semi-erotic for me. I'm positive there are Japanese businessmen that would pay for this service. I wanted to say, “You're too good-looking for this. Send it to the squatty Guatemalan chick in the lab.”

It was nice when she was done and dumped it down the sink, thus vindicating my much-questioned practice of pissing in the sink at home. See, honey? I told you it was okay.

Another incident was when I had arthroscopic knee surgery in 2011. I had a torn meniscus that needed to be repaired, so before the surgery I needed a(nother) general physical.

I was sitting on the edge of the table with butcher paper, filling out the health questionnaire with my doctor. She was asking me all the questions about history of heart disease, hepatitis, traumatic brain injury, etc. Then she got to the part about drinking. She asked, “Do you drink?” I replied yes. She asked how often. I stammered for a bit: “Hmm, let's see, it's Tuesday now, so . . . um, every day.” That got a look followed by, “How much?” I told her two glasses of wine a night. (Replace “glass” with “Viking helmet.”)

Then she moved on to ask, “Do you smoke?” I replied. “No. Well, not really. Only when I drink.”

As she started to lecture me about how I should cut back, I noticed I was staring at this:

The picture on her wall was of the world's most famous alcoholic holding a drink and a cigar. Of course I had to comment on it. She confirmed my crazy hypervigilance by saying, “I've had that picture up for eight years and no one has ever said a word about it.”

Then I noticed that on the adjoining wall was a similar caricature picture of the Marx Brothers. I said to her, “Why don't you switch them so as you berate people about booze and cigarettes, they're not staring at a guy who smoked like a chimney and has a nice gin blossom on his nose.” Her reply to that question was even more confounding than the previous one. She said, “Well, the Marx Brothers one is on that wall because that's the direction people face when I'm giving the rectal exam,” then after a quick pause adding, “They seem to enjoy it.”

I assured her that no one enjoys anything while they're getting a digit dropped in them. There has never been a person who was thinking, “Gee, that Harpo sure was funny in
Duck Soup
” while you're cramming your index finger in their ass.

Ugh. I've just recently hit the age where the prostate exam is required. This has provided ample opportunity for the doctor to be supercasual in what is a very sensitive moment. At my first prostate exam the doctor said, “Now it's time to drop the shorts and bend over the table,” followed by, “I know you know how this goes.” No. No I don't. I'm a straight male and I've done no time in the joint. I do not know how having something shoved up my ass feels. And why the small talk? There is no patter that is going to make this moment any less uncomfortable and traumatic to me. There is nothing you can say to prepare me for this. In fact, if you could just hit me in the back of the skull with a sock full of nickels and wake me up when it's over, that'd be great.

This brings me to dentistry . . .

DENTAL HEALTH IS RUINING
MY MENTAL HEALTH

I'd prefer to be knocked out for any and all dentistry. In fact, if you could knock me out for the week leading up to it, that would be awesome. And I will make my Department of Health and Human Services make this a reality. It's necessary.

The evolution of anesthesia in dentistry has gone from “here's a rag soaked in rum, suck on it” to a Novocain shot that hurts worse than the procedure, to “laughing gas which keeps you awake but fucked up enough that we could pull the teeth and molest you a little bit and you'd be cool with it.” But the next step is darting people without them knowing it. The “dread the whole week before the root canal on Friday” is the worst part. I want to make it possible so that while you're out to dinner with the wife, enjoying Red Lobster, you just feel a quick sting in your neck, pass out in your bisque, and wake up with gauze in your mouth and someone informs you that your wisdom teeth are now removed.

I do love me some nitrous, though. Me and Vin Diesel are the two greatest consumers of noz. I was at the dentist and asked for the nitrous and the dick said, “You don't really need it.” I replied, “Yeah, but I want it.” He then doubled down on the dickitude, saying, “I had an eight-year-old girl in this chair doing the same procedure and she didn't need it.” To this I replied, “Good for her. She's a hero. Now hit me.” Nitrous is yummy. It makes you feel good, but it can fuck with you if you get caught in the wrong circumstance. I had a root canal once and needed the nitrous. This dentist had the CD player and headphone set up so you could listen to music while he did the procedure. Unfortunately his selection was a little thin. I ended up having to listen to the Manhattan Transfer Christmas album. This was in Burbank, in August. It's beyond weird listening to Christmas music when it's 109 degrees out and you're high as a kite on N
₂
O.

I also want to force a change in the novelty tooth-polish flavors. Getting your teeth cleaned at the dentist is essentially having an air compressor running a minisander rubbing pumice into your teeth. It sounds like hell and makes my hair stand up on end. Why do you think the fact that wild-mountain-berry flavor toothpaste is going to make it okay? Shouldn't it just be toothpaste-flavored? And don't give me that shit where “a lot of people like that.” They just say that because you're holding a sharp electric instrument in their mouth. Unless they want to reenact the scene from
Marathon Man
, they're going to tell you what you want to hear.