This originally was written on my Facebook page on Sunday, July 13, 2008
“I have to go to the bathroom”
Those were the words that came out of my mouth. They were nothing too absurd or out of the ordinary. Hell, everyone has made that same statement at least once a day for the past however many years they have been alive. What was absurd about it however, was the fact that I was under the influence of anesthesia and was out of my fucking mind. As the story was relayed to me by my mother and sister, I followed that statement by drunkenly motioning to take off my pants. It was lucky for everyone that I had no god damned motor skills at the time.
Yes, folks, that was indeed part of the post wisdom teeth extraction aftermath. It was a wonderful time full of incoherent babbling, stumbling, and black out fun. Truth be told, I can't recall much of anything I am about to share with you. It is bit hazy with only a few highlights that I can actually playback in my head. Okay, so I am not playing them back exactly as they happened, but in a more faint and fragmented version of the truth. Lucky for us, my mother and sister filled me in on all the shenanigans.
I wasn't initially going to take the knock out gas because I thought I might have to pay up front. However, since one tooth was all impacted and such, I was able to pay for it later. Now, after everyone has done everything in their power to make me scared shitless of the surgery, I was quite open to the idea. I was like, “knock me out, doc, because all my friends tell me this is gonna suck balls”. So, it was on like Donkey Kong. They put the gas mask on me to get me relaxed, put a rubber stop in my mouth to keep it open, and then jabbed me with an IV. Seconds later...
....Well, it was virtually seconds later when I woke up more disoriented than a hooker in a confessional booth. I couldn't believe it was over, but I was totally fine with the fact that it was. I remember looking around, seeing the family nearby, and immediately announcing what we were gonna do next,
“Okay, it's time to go get my new TV!” I exclaimed like a child chasing an ice cream truck.
“I don't think you'll be doing much of anything,” the doctor responded. He clearly didn't know who the fuck he was talking to and what the fuck he was talking about. My new TV was in the works for weeks My sister was helping me buy it because I gave her my old computer. There was no way that this wasn't going to happen.
If I recall correctly, I responded along the lines of, “Oh, we'll see about that now, won't we?” I am fairly certain that the doctor didn't really give a shit as long as I wasn't fucking up my mouth on his watch. He also probably wanted to avoid arguing with a drunk man.
Yep. Drunk. That is the best that I can explain the state that I was in. I don't know what being drunk is really like, so I can only assume that this was it. I was conscious, yet I felt like an observer in my own body. It was as if I had tunnel vision and could only focus on the world directly in front of me, and concentrate on one thing at a time. Also, I don't think I had a lick of judgment going for me since I seemed to be reacting on the first thought that popped into my head. In retrospect, I believe I sat there thinking “gee, that wasn't right, but okay, its cool.” Everything I was about to do, I was fine with, no matter how ridiculous I got.
Truth be told, it took all of 0.0002 seconds for me to disregard what the doctor said entirely. I wanted an HD fucking TV and there was no stopping me. It was time to get my ass out of that damn dental chair. So, I spun my feet off the end of the chair and-
Oops, that shit was good. Almost took a digger there. Apparently my motor skills really were shit right from the get go. I was more stumble prone than my friend Justine after one drink (which to her can include the contents of an entire pitcher of a mixed drink). It was a good thing that the nurses were there to save me from face planting.
However, I wasn't convinced that I was really in that bad of shape. Had I taken a dive, I might have reconsidered, but since I was in one piece, I felt like as giddy as Paula Abdul after a trip to the pharmacy. The nurses rolled in the wheelchair they are legally required to put me in and wheel me to the door. I wasn't having it. I argued for a minute or two insisting that I was just fine and could walk out of there with pride. They got me to get in the damn thing somehow. According to my sister, somewhere amidst the madness I managed some minor sexual harassment as I informed a nurse she was good looking. Upon hearing this, I couldn't help but wonder which one I offended. When I went back the following week for a follow up, I took a good look at all of the ladies in the office. No, not to see if I could remember the face I referred to, but to see which one of them was staring daggers into me for acting a mess.
Somehow, the folks at Aurora Baycare managed to wheel me to my mother's car without incident. I cannot remember how, nor was exactly informed how this all went down. The account of the events from my sister seemed to indicate this is where I indicated that I needed to go to the bathroom. I apparently didn't specify if it was a number one or a number too, but if I were to guess, I would say a number two. That is just a guess however. Number two would just have been more interesting. Of course, I was a really just a bold faced liar. I didn't have to go to the bathroom. If memory serves me correctly, I didn't use the facilities until hours later. Yes, that could have been because even I knew trying to stand in front of a toilet was a liability, but it is more likely that I was just trying to be an attention whore.
Really though, I kind of failed at that. If I really wanted attention, I might as well have just pulled down my pants and left a steaming surprise right there on the chair. Why? What do you mean, why? Because that is honestly the one of the rare times in life where you can get away with dropping your trousers and plopping a deuce right in front of complete strangers without anyone being able to judge you. It wasn't my fault that their anesthesia or laughing gas made me more interesting that I will ever be again. They probably bought the stuff from K-mart, so they should have known it was the bad shit. Anyway, had I actually laid a poo or streamed some pee, everyone at that office would have just had a great story to tell when they got home from work. They probably would have been secretly thanking me for making their job legitimately interesting for the first time in their life. I could have been a legend that went down in office lore. They would have warned future patients about the potential side effects.
“Well, you might feel a little funny when the anesthesia wears off. It happens all the time. One time a guy dropped a shit brick in the parking lot, so if you feel like starting a giggling fit, we'd consider that to be quite normal,” they would say to every patient from there on out. Alas, I didn't do anything to that extent, but I couldn't help but feel like I did when I went into the office for that follow-up. I think there was a lot of whispering and pointing going on with a lot of “there he is. That guy was a complete ass hat.”
So, there I was, at the car. As I was getting in, I nearly knocked my own head off because of another “oops” moment. Depth perception is allegedly affected when you are under the influence as well. On the bright side, it didn't hurt when I hit my head on the roof of the car. I couldn't feel shit and I was fine with that. I was on cloud nine feeling as great as I ever had. That was something that I felt needed to be shared, so I pulled out my cell phone.
At this point, there was no legitimate logical structure to my decisions. I needed someone to dial and unfortunately it happened to be the first and only people I seemed to even remember knowing. With that, I dialed the lovely Jennifer Schaar to tell her how everything went. Never mind the fact that I hadn't really had a phone conversation with Jen in a couple months, nor did she even know I was going in to get the wisdom teeth extracted. That didn't stop me since I felt pretty fucking justified in calling her. She did, after all, leave me a message on my facebook wall earlier that day. Basically, it was her own fucking fault for giving me a reason to remember she was a good friend.
It would have been much more harmless had Jen's voice mail just picked up. Oh, but she answered, and almost immediately I think. She was probably wondering why I was randomly calling her in the middle of the day on a Thursday. Even better, she was probably wondering what the fuck I was saying. My mouth was full of gauze, so I can only assume that I sounded like Kirstie Alley pouncing on a wedding cake. I can't recall exactly what I was telling her, but I do know that I managed to inform her that I was going to melt her face (only Jen knows what I really “said”). That much was understood without saying though. Everyone wants to melt a wonderful face like Jen's. That understanding aside, Jen still was confused as all hell when I got off the phone with her. She then called Jason to ask if I had my wisdom teeth pulled or something. She was on to something there as we both had a great idea. I was calling Jason as well.
I got his voice mail, which I didn't mind because I was high as a fucking kite. I managed to mumble to him that everything went fine and I feel good. At this point I realized that I felt better than fine. I was really liking whatever was happening to me. To that regard I informed Jason's voice mail, “this stuff is great. I am seeing things that I have never seen before”. Later that night, I checked my call log and couldn't seem to find the call I made to Jason. He never did really confirm to me that he got the voice mail, so I am not even sure I was really talking to anything. I was probably just hearing things that weren't there, which goes nicely with the things I hadn't ever seen before.
It was at that point that I decided to call my brother, Nathan, but the mother and sister scolded me and made me put my phone away. However, my brother still got a call, but from my sister. She needed to inform him of how much of an ass I was being. It was fine though, because it was funny. The trip across Green Bay continued with me gazing aimlessly out the window.
Eventually we stopped at Walgreens a block from my house. It was a good thing that my mother used the drive through because I was ready to get out and get my own prescription for hydrocodine. While that was being taken care of, we drove over to Culvers to get a bunch of food that I couldn't eat. I was a little pissed off about that. There was pissing and moaning when I got home. That didn't last long however because I remembered again that I needed to go get my new TV. Mom and Tiffany reminded me again that I was in no shape to get a TV. I said “Sure I am!” and then proceeded to demonstrate by doing the Ric Flair strut towards the couch, which I stumbled onto and stayed for the next two hours.
By that point the good stuff had worn off and I was back to the confines of reality. That fucking sucked.
And that was that. There was a happy ending though, since I did get to go buy the new TV. It is a beautiful 32 inch Samsung LCD. TV shows broadcast in HD look so fucking amazing that I don't even care what I am watching. The next day after the operation I found myself mesmerized by the “Pooh and Tigger” show on the Dinsey HD channel and some really silly show on Discovery HD where they just show you the sun rising in random parts of the world. Sure, it was boring as fuck, but god damn it looked better than real life.
Holy shit! I somehow managed to write 2,000 words about my ridiculous day of surgery. How the hell did that happen? That is cool and all, but now I am getting a little tired.
