September 20, 2004
Part Three of Husband's Bizarre Illness: Robohusband
So I get Husband home, and the poor guy is understandably jones-ing for the shower that is five days overdue. But he can't shower because he has scary wounds on each arm - one, the lanced bite; the other, a stint. So it must be an improvised shower-bath for Stigmata Boy. However, we have neither drain plug (we're shower people) nor shower hose (because I'm a Hello Kitty! vibrator person).
Ah ha! But Mom has both those things! Let's go there! Now, I gotta tell ya, I was a bit wary of taking my bleeding, bruised, woozy husband to The Shower Stall of Death. This is the shower that attacked my mother in her most vulnerable state.
She had just gotten home from the hospital after a hysterectomy. And this was back in the day before "bikini" incisions, so she was stapled closed navel to pubes. Now, my parents have an old house with one of those freestanding, cast iron, tiger-claw-foot bathtubs. To facilitate showering, they have a shower curtain rod suspended from the ceiling. So Frankenbelly steps into the shower, turns on the water, and for the one and only time before or since, the entire contraption falls, leaving my mother wet, naked, barely able to stand up, covered in shower curtains. What are the odds?!
My fears turned out to be groundless, as they so often do, but you can see how the similarities between the two situations would cause me to eye the shower curtain rod suspiciously, can't you? Can't you? Oh, just humor me, people, it's not hard.
As I said, the bath was uneventful, except for Husband being deliriously happy (or perhaps that was the Darvoset?). And don't go getting any ideas that me bathing Husband was erotic or sensual or anything. It was kinda like hosing down the Bionic Man. Don't get water in his circuits!
Once home and settled in, Husband was still feeling pretty blah, so I tried to check on him frequently and keep him company. Mr. Type A wasn't happy about not going to work and not painting the chimney and not competing in the Iron Man. So it was up to me to keep him happily sedentary.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll find a way to keep him happy," quipped Heather, in that said-the-actress-to-the-bishop way usually used by men.
And normally I'd laugh, but I was like, "There is no way I'm having sex with Picky McStinterson. It's just too creepy."
Seriously. The man is a cyborg. It's only a matter of time before the implanted gadgetry takes over his thought process and he attempts to assimilate me. Hey, I saw "First Contact"! And when that happens - as it will, my friends, mark my word - the last place I want to be is pinned under him.