Stonekettle Station, Greatest Hits

Some of you know about Jim Wright. About a year ago, he posted this...

Jim Wright, July 21, 2016...

I know.


After my summary of the first two days, you’re expecting something ... special ... for the final day of the Republican National Convention.


You’re in luck.


Let me tell you about my vasectomy.


After much … self examination … and for personal reasons that you don’t need to know anything about, my wife and I decided I should get a vasectomy. Or rather I suggested it as the best solution to our situation and my wife agreed.


We were living in California at the time and I got most of my medical work done in the United States Marine Corps Hospital at Camp Pendleton. Ooh Rah! I was assigned to a ship in San Diego, I saw my shipboard Chief Corpsman who thought it a spiffy idea for Warrant Officers not to breed and enthusiastically wrote me a referral and made the appointment with the Pendleton urology department. I talked to the doc and had the counselling and got a permission slip from my wife and left my dignity at the door.


A few days later I found myself on the table, shaved, with the appropriate organs protruding through a surgical sheet, under some incredibly bright lights, on display for the doctor and a bunch of medical students – because if you’re going to do it, you might as well invite everybody over to make comments and poke around and compare notes among themselves. And what the hell, I’m not shy. Come on in.


The doc jabbed me with a needle in a place I don’t want to EVER think about again and we all waited, chatting like people do when they’re lying on a table with their junk out in front of a bunch of urology interns, so hot enough for ya? How about those Mets? while we waited for the local anesthesia to do its thing to my thing.


The doc made the first cut, while I stared at the ceiling and sang Anchors Aweigh to myself to drown out his classroom lecture. See here? Scootch in a little closer. Everybody. Okay, after you make the incision you reach in with the pliers and grab this here little hose and ANCHORS AWEIGH MY BOYS ANCHORS AWEIGH! and pull that sucker right on out like a bird sucking a worm from the hole and STAND NAVY OUT TO SEA, FIGHT OUR BATTLE CRY! WE’LL NEVER CHANGE OUR COURSE SO VICIOUS FOES STEER SHY-Y-Y-Y! tie it in a square knot whoops that’s a slippery little devil isn’t it? You in back can you see okay or you want me to lift it up a bit … I think there’s enough slack … no? Okay so anyway next you gotta zap the tag end with some electricity ROLL OUT THE TNT ANCHORS AWEIGH! SAIL ON TO VICTORY AND SINK. THEIR. BONES. TO DAVY JONES. HOORAY!! and bzzzzzzp! bzzzzrpt! smells like burnt dog hair and that’s what we’re looking for, tuck that back in and give ‘er a stitch, here put your finger right there, hold, good! and who wants to do the other one? Hello you, with the crossed eyes and the palsy, it’s your lucky day, Bolter! ANCHORS AWEIGH MY BOYS ANCHORS AWEIGH! okay, don’t worry about that, that could happen to anybody FAREWELL TO FOREIGN SHORES! maybe somebody who isn’t hungover? WE SAIL AT BREAK OF DAY-Y-Y-YAAAAAAH! and there you go. Good as new.


They sent me home with a bottle of Motrin and an icepack in my pants and advised me to “take it easy for a few days.”


Instead, the next day I was headed out of the harbor for three days of sea trials.


Chief Warrant Officers are naturally well endowed and I’m pretty sure nobody noticed the ice packs. Or the fact that I spent three days clutching my self protectively as the ship lurched through the stormy waves. But somehow I survived and returned to land with everything mostly intact.


Thirty days passed.


I healed. I could walk without holding myself for fear of dropping anything out my pant leg. I could pee without screaming. My voice remained in its usual register. Everything seemed to work as usual.


And so it came time for the final test.


See, you have to produce a sample. And some poor bastard who thought he was signing up to fight commies and save lives and get a leg up on medical school and instead ended up as a lab tech at United State Marine Corps Camp Pendleton Hospital has to peer through a microscope all day at other people’s … well, anyway, let’s say I never wanted to be a lab tech.


So, I went in after the appropriate time had passed for the follow up.


The doc gave me a sample jar and told me I could either avail myself of a little room they had or I could go home and take care of business there.


The little room was a closet with a chair and some magazines that opened off a waiting room full of about 60 or 70 old veterans waiting to have their prostates palpitated. The TV was busted and all they for entertainment was to stare at that closet and dream of better days.


I’ll take Option B, I said to the doc.


I live right outside the back gate. I fully understand, said the doc, go home, do the thing and drop the sample off within 30 minutes to the volunteer at the Urology Desk. We’ll let you know the results in a day or so.


The next morning dawned bright and clear and beautiful as only Southern California can be and so I choose to drive the convertible – which would be a fine coda to an already great morning, sample wise, I mean. I rolled through the gate with the jar safely contained in a brown paper lunch bag on the passenger seat and returned the Marine sentry’s salute with an extra snap. Hell of a morning isn’t it, Sir? It is indeed, Marine, the best kind. I bounced up the steps of the hospital, saluted the guards there as they held the door open for me and proceeded jauntily toward Urology, bag in hand.


Fellas, I greeted the waiting room. How’s it hangin’ yuck yuck.


Brought you something, I said cheerfully to the old battle ax behind the window. I pulled out the sample jar and set it on the counter. Mission Aye-Complished as the Commander in Chiefs says. Follow up. Chief Warrant Officer Wright. Get that to the lab, Stat.


She looked at the cup.


She looked at me.


She looked at the cup.


And that’s when the day went all to hell.


“I don’t accept samples from off site.”


Beg pardon, Nurse Ratchet?


“I do not accept samples from off site.”


Well, get somebody else then, because I spoke to the doc and…


“The DOCTORS do NOT run this office. I do. And I do NOT accept samples from off site.”


I don’t honestly think it’s up to you. I’m in a hurry and that stuff has a shelf life. Let’s get this done. Where do I sign?


It was about then that I noticed every old regular in the waiting room was looking on in utter fascination.


Apparently one did not talk back to Nurse Ratchet.


They were all grinning at my impertinence, waiting for her to drop a hammer on me.


“You’ll have to get a new sample bottle from the lab and complete the process here.”


Why, you gonna help? I made the appropriate hand gesture.


The waiting room behind me gasped in horrified fascination.


“Young man, any more comments like that and I’ll have you escorted from the hospital.”


And that’s where my patience ended. Right there.


Listen, Ratchet, I said. You’re not in charge here. I’m a US Navy Chief Warrant Officer. This is a Marine Corps Hospital. You’re just some over zealous volunteer with an overinflated sense of your own importance. You can push these old geezers around all you like, but that shit doesn’t fly with me. I’m following the doctor’s direction and your job is to take care of it. You want polite respect, you should have started out on that foot. Now, either do it or find somebody who can.


I might have been somewhat … colorful … with my language.


By the time I was done, I was in full on Warrant Office mode and it’s likely the sentry at the gate two miles away could hear me. The place had gone dead silent. The old men had stopped grinning and were suddenly looking all kinds of awestruck and respectful, this was way better than TV and slightly better than speculating about what happened behind that closet door.


A Marine guard appeared (we were at war then, and Marines take security SERIOUSLY) but wisely made no move to interfere.


Ratchet crossed her arms stubbornly and refused to budge.


I was just about to yank her ass straight through the window when the doctor appeared.


Doctor. Chief Urologist. Navy Captain. That guy. And none too pleased was he.


What’s all the shouting out here?


Ratchet opened her mouth …


…and I shoved her foot into it. I explained to the doctor what the problem was and helpfully added how HE didn’t run his department, Ratchet did.


A number of old men in the chairs behind me offered to corroborate my version of things and we were suddenly all pals in the face of oppression and tyranny.


The doctor grew slowly more and more angry as the situation became apparent.


Take. The. Sample. And. Process. It. Per. Procedure. NOW. he said to Ratchet through gritted teeth.


I will not, she answered. That’s not how I run this office.


I looked at the doc.


The doc looked at me.


Ratchet’s pinched face was a study in defiant absolutism, like Saddam on the gallows. Unrepentant and convinced of his power and superiority to the bitter end.


The Marine guard stood by with a carefully neutral expression on his handsome chiseled face.


The old men cackled.


I looked at the doc.


The doctor, the Navy CAPTAIN, turned a smoldering red – the kind of color they paint danger signs in.


Take. The. Sample. NOW. And process it as directed or I will have that Marine right there throw your ass through the front door into the parking lot. You and I will talk before you leave tonight. Now do it, or clean out your desk.


Fine! Ratchet shouted. Fine! Why don’t we just let them all do what they want? You’ll see! You’ll see! There’s a system for a reason! Doctors. You don’t know ANYTHING! Fine! FINE! and she grabbed up my sample and waved it violently in the air. IT’S NOT SIGNED, she shouted, IT’S NOT SIGNED. HE’LL HAVE TO SIGN IT OR I WON’T DO IT!


And she slammed the sample cup down on the counter…


And the lid popped off…


And the contents of the container flew up and outward in a violent ejaculation...


And struck me directly in the face.


…


…


I’ll just pause for a moment so you can picture that…


…


…


Ready to go on?


I stood there, with the sample dripping down the front of my uniform like something out of a Ron Jeremy movie gone horribly wrong.


The old men were FINALLY stunned into aghast silence.


The Doctor, a man who’d spent his life stitching up Marines in various states of disassembly was frozen, unable to move, horrified.


The Marine’s face remained immobile, frozen like granite, wisely showing no emotion whatsoever, but his hand moved to unsnap his sidearm and I knew I could count on him if it came down to it.


You see? THAT’s why we have a system, said Ratchet primly.


And she handed me a tissue.


The doctor looked at me.


Get. The. Hospital. Commander. NOW. I said. And I could literally feel my pulse pounding in my ears and the blood moving in my veins. And the spunk dripping down my cheeks.


And a few minutes later half a dozen Navy Captains were apologizing profusely to me and nervously handing me Kleenexes while old men laughed uproariously in the background.


Ratchet was escorted from the office by Marines, I have no idea what happened to her and don’t care but it is my fervent hope that it involved something that required her to touch human shit with her bare hands for eight hours a day.


I was offered another, clean, sample cup and instructed to deliver it to the lab department commander who would personally see that it was properly taken care of.


All this while, goo was dripping down the front of my uniform.


I gathered what was left of my dignity and marched for the front door. The Marines there carefully avoided eye contact and their salutes were crisp and without fault as if they were rendering honors to God himself with their very souls on the line – and as well they might have been.


I marched down the steps, back straight, head up. Through the outdoor canteen area where families sat at little tables eating hotdogs. Stained uniform like a signal light for all to see. Sample cup labelled “SEMEN” held prominently in one hand. How you doing, Folks, hell of a day, right?


I got to the parking lot and just as I slid behind the wheel of the convertible…


… the skies opened and it began to rain.


…


…


And what does any of this have to do with the Republican National Convention?


Are you kidding? Dick jokes and eager young interns with their hands on your junk. Giggling impotent old men eager for a show. Inflexible self righteous authoritarianism. Anger. Shouting. Marines. Jerking off. Outrage. Violation. Embarrassment. Mortification. Forced to tough it out to the bitter end.


And finally you go home dirty and used, clothes ruined, dignity long fled, covered in sticky goo and shooting blanks.


In the rain.


Honestly, what DOESN’T it have to do with the Republican National Convention?


See you tomorrow, Folks. My regards to Mr. Trump.

Aaaand Thennnn... another one.

Jim Wright
July 19, 2016 ·
We had a cow once.


We lived on a YMCA Summer Camp. My dad ran the place as resident manager. And we had a cow.


The cow was an asshole. That's the nature of cows. Sooner or later they're going to get turned into steaks and chops and burger and they've got no incentive to cooperate. They know it. You know it. That's the nature of the beast.


This cow was stubborn as hell.


And you really haven't experienced stubborn until you've seen 1800 pounds of cow dig in its heels.


One day my dad was moving the cow from one pasture to another when it decided it didn't want to go any further.


And it just stopped and nothing we could do would move it.


It just stood there, dull and sullen in the middle of the road, chewing its cud and making cow pies, and it wouldn't goddamned move.


My dad tried everything. Nothing would move that cow.


It just chewed and shit and stared back with its dull cow eyes.


So dad called Old Man Mesic, the farmer who lived across the street. Mesic was this little old wizened guy, like Yoda carved from beef jerky and left to dry in the sun. He chewed and he spit and he swore and he was mean as a snake and he was long, long past the age he should have been farming but he couldn't stand being cooped up and so every day he'd drive his old tractor out in the fields and putter around out there until his wife called my dad to make sure he hadn't gone and killed himself in some creative way among the corn stalks.


Old Man Mesic looked at that cow standing there.


He chewed and considered.


The cow chewed and considered right back.


He spit.


The cow shit.


We waited.


Mesic chewed and spit some more.


The cow looked back, sullen, and chewed a bit more in return. It belched. It farted. Another cow patty appeared, the cow's way of saying screw you. What are you going to do, Yoda?


After a while, Old Man Mesic asked my dad for a rope and tied it into a slip knot.


He put the rope around the cow's neck and gave it a tug.


Nothing. The cow didn't even bother to look at us. Another cow patty appeared. More chewing.


Unperturbed Old Man Mesic smiled his mean little smile and chewed and spit in return.


Go git the tractor, he told my dad.


Mesic hitched the rope to the tractor and gave the stubborn beastie a good long moment to consider what was to come next.


The cow produced another pie from an apparently inexhaustible supply.


Mesic ordered my dad forward at low gear.


The rope slowly tightened. The cow remained steadfast.


Mesic spit.


As the rope tightened around the cow's neck my dad opened his mouth to protest. Mesic was having none of it. We watched in amazement as bovine determination fought against mechanical force.


The rope tightened.


The cow's eyes bulged.


The tractor growled and strained.


Mesic spit again. Keep going, he snarled.


We watched, my brother and I, in horrified fascination. Surely the cow would give up, what creature would be so stubborn that it wouldn't take a single step forward even to breathe? Surely the tractor would fail, the motor howled, the front tires bounced with the strain of 1800 pounds of meat pulling the mighty machine backward. Surely the rope would break. Surely Mesic's will would fail.


Something.


But the contest went on and on.


And on.


The cow's eyes bulged.


The tractor squalled.


Mesic spit furiously and then ...


... the cow's eyes rolled up in its head and it toppled over.


My dad mashed the clutch as Old Man Mesic spit in grim satisfaction and we all stood there staring down at the cow. I swear it had little cartoon X's for eyes and its legs were as stiff as the dead horse in Dean Wormer's Office in the movie Animal House and I was actually picturing that scene and expecting Old Man Mesic to demand a chainsaw next.


Goddamnit, John, my dad yelled, we've killed it!


Mesic bent down.


He sniffed.


He spit.


He loosened the rope.


Ain't dead, he pronounced.


Well Goddamnit, my dad yelled, it sure looks dead.


Mesic stared at my dad for a long moment. Then he spit. And walked around behind the beast where the pie making happened. And he reached down and grabbed the cow's tail in his beef jerky hands and he started CRANKING.


He cranked that tail like he was starting a Model-T (something, given his age, I'm pretty sure he had some experience with).


Nothing. The cow was dead.


My dad, well, my dad was a sailor. I learned some new words that day. Later in my own military career I used them to make Marines blush.


Mesic kept cranking like a kid winding the rubber band on a toy airplane.


My dad swore.


Mesic spit and gave the tail another crank.


Suddenly the cow's eyes popped open. SPROING!


My dad stopped swearing.


My brother and I boggled in fascination.


Mesic continued to crank and he cranked that cow right back up on its feet. Crank. The cow's eyes would go wider and it would rise another inch. Crank. Another inch. And pretty soon the cow was standing alert and eager on its feet. Mesic let go the tail and it, swear to God, spun like the propeller on that toy plane and I expected the cow to take off and fly around the field like a cartoon coyote.


Start the tractor, Mesic commanded.


And when my dad turned over the engine that cow walked forward and stood directly behind the hitch. It seems the cow had found Jesus. And from that day forward, wherever the tractor went, the cow went, eagerly and with great enthusiasm, its little crooked tail wiggling, trying to fly.


And thus, ends the second day of the Republican National Convention.

And this post completes the trilogy from the Republican National Convention.


Oh yeah. Good times.


Jim Wright
July 18, 2016


Back in my Navy days I was part of a mobile land based special intelligence outfit. It's not necessary for you to know our mission, this isn't about that.


This is about the toilet.


The toilet was something called an Incinolet which is a portmanteau of the words "incinerator" and "toilet."


And yes, it's just as horrible as it sounds.


We usually just called it "the atomic shitter."


The atomic shitter was a stainless steel monstrosity, a contraption of bowl, clamshell doors, shit collectors, ash pans, fans, blowers, vents, and various high voltage assemblies that you didn't want to think about while pissing on them -- in fact, you were advised NOT to piss on them because the supposed safety systems that kept you from being electrocuted through your urinary organs might or might not have been built by the government contractor who came in with the lowest bid by cutting corners on safety systems.


The incinolet was supposed be safe, effective, self contained and was allegedly designed to turn human waste into sanitary ash without the need for tanks and chemicals.


Basically the way this hideous throne was supposed to work was that you put a little paper bag in the bowl (yes, that's right, grab a bag, open it and put into the space where everybody else has been taking an MRE fueled dump, pat, pat, and don't worry, that's not even the most disgusting part of this evolution). Then you sat down and did your business, plop plop kaPLOOEY! (and if you've ever lived on a steady diet of bad coffee, beef jerky, and MREs for a couple of weeks you'll understand the KaPLOOEY part. The rest of you won't and good on you, let's just say you might need a couple of those little paper sacks and damned good sphincter control during the swap out). Now, understand, there's no water. There's no airflow. There's just you and a giant bag of steamers under your ass and the smell is beyond belief and a few inches away, on the other side of a flimsy and anything but soundproof partition there are four people eating and beyond them are bunks with six more people trying to sleep and they can all, each and every one, hear and smell everything you're doing in detail. And being sailors they're not above critiquing your technique and cheering your delivery. You're welcome.


When you've filled the bag, you STAND UP (this is very, very important). You clean up, dispose of your paper in the bowl. Zip up. Close the lid (this is very important) and step back as far as the tiny compartment will allow (this is very important) and push the foot pedal.


And the load in the bowl, in a safe and sanitary manner, drops though the clamshell into the incinerator compartment ...


Ha ha, no, that's not right. No typically what happens is FLAMES OF BURNING SHITBAGS SHOOT UP FROM HELL AND IF YOU WERE SITTING ON THE SEAT THEY'D LIGHT YOUR CROTCH HAIR ON FIRE AND COAT YOU IN THE STENCH OF BURNING SHIT. So good thing you stood up first. The bag jams halfway down and begins to burn, you frantically pump the pedal, but the pan below is full from the last guy because the fucking REMFs who designed the goddamned thing never visualized the 14 grown people eating MREs and living inside this greasy machine would have to shit pretty much constantly and the SMELL IS SO GODDAMNED BAD PIGS WOULD DIE PUKING THEIR GUTS OUT just get away from it. And now you've done it. The load was supposed to be quietly burned but the machine is jammed and fans wouldn't pull and the heating elements won't heat and there you are with a pan of hot bubbling liquid MRE shit ON FIRE and you have to pull it out and carry it through the living quarters which are the size of a closet packed with four people trying to eat and six people trying to sleep and down the connector into the other compartment where more people are sleeping and you'd better hurry up because THEY ALL HAVE TO SHIT TOO while trailing smoke and flames from the burning shit bucket that's now so fucking hot that your hands are melting off and finally outside where you ...


Well, anyway, that's what I thought of watching the first day of the Republican National Convention.

That right there is some funny shit, no pun intended.

I do love these bed-time stories!