What... the title didn't dissuade you from reading?
We decided to stay another day and get a few extra tasks done. It rained most of the day and there was no temptation to hit the beach, so we got everything we wanted to do done. We're happy with that. But staying an extra day meant pounding the highway so I could be back at work this morning. The way we do it, it's a twelve hour drive home. And by "the way we do it" I mean we stop for any reason whatsoever...
Eat,
Drink,
Refuel,
Potty,
See the world's largest accumulation of ear wax.
But the stops are forced mostly to keep me from wetting my pants.
We start the drive with a cooler full of bottled water in the back seat, a thermos full of black coffee on the right rear floorboard, and a 16 oz. insulated mug of iced tea between my legs. Yesterday we also stopped at a "Krystal" store to buy 20 of my favorite hamburgers, and we bought a large diet Coke to accompany them. At the end of the drive the diet Coke had been shared, my iced tea was history, and the quart thermos of coffee had found its way through my kidneys and bladder. There was a time long ago when I could make note of the pressure beginning to build against my bladder and continue to drive for half an hour or so before having to stop...
No longer. My slightly enlarged prostate serves notice that when I begin to be uncomfortable I had better make plans for a stop pretty quickly, and I don't mean "We'll wait for the next rest area".
I've got about ten minutes, then things can get embarrassing.
Yeah, I know...
"Doctor it hurts when I do this."
"Don't do that!"
Obviously, one thing I could do is lay off the fluids. But old habits are hard to break. And the coffee is an absolute necessity during the last few hours of the drive. For a guy it's not so bad...
We simply pull off the road and discretely take care of business. There are plenty of places to do that on this drive.
If we start taking more trips across the desert where there is less cover I'll have to reconsider the fluid intake or carry a "Porta- John"...
Or buy a box of Depends.
3 comments:
On a drive through a provincial park recently we came upon a couple of moose on the left, with the usual gaggle of tourists taking pictures. On the right was one guy looking the opposite way. The ladies in the car asked "what is he doing on that side?" Um, yeah.
Those symptoms and a couple of others quite possibly saved my husband's life. He had been doctoring for his enlarged prostate for a few years when his PSA level started going nuts when it turned cancerous. If not for the symptoms, it would have been late--maybe too late--for a cure. He's now been cancer-free for eight years.
If the feeling strikes and there is no cover "Improvise, Adapt, Survive".......
Got trapped on the freeway to LA., traffic is a parking lot. There is no cover, no embankment, only a wide swath of cinder block wall that turns the freeway into what looks like a cattle chute.
I pull the truck over, pop the hood and run to the front of the truck and poke my head into the engine compartment as though there is something wrong. If a passing motorist were to glance over they would only see a man with his head under the hood witnessing a horrific leak coming from his radiator.......
Just a suggestion.
Post a Comment