Possumblog

It's SUPER FUN HAPPY JOKEY TUESDAY!

Yes, I know two posts in two days is pushing it as far as non-blogging goes, but sometimes I just crack me up. (And yes, that is an homage to Alf.)

ANYway, Reba just called a few minutes ago.

She had gone with her dad to take her mom to the doctor's office this morning for some non-jokey invasive testing and prior to leaving their house, Mominlaw got all doped up with Darvocet and Valium. Being that she doesn't usually start the morning with a narcotic toddy, she pretty much had to be scooped out of the car with a spatula when they got to the parking deck at the hospital.

They wheeled her upstairs, waited to be called back, and then wheeled her into the procedure room. Now, since she was looser than a handful of BBs, she wasn't going to be much help when it came time to get her prepared, so Reba went back to help the technician get her up on the table and disrobed.

Did I mention it's cold today?

It is.

Oh, it's not Yukon cold, or lake-effects Chitown cold, or even Kentucky ice-storm cold, but your normal 30 degree Fahrenheit Alabama February day. But Grandmom, being of always-prepared, better-safe-than-sorry, strong-minded country stock, was apparently set to accompany Admiral Byrd to the South Pole.

Reba recounted (with some mild irritation) about struggling to help the tech ladle Mom up onto the table, then the arduous task of skinning her of layers of clothing, all the while said mama was swaying to and fro in the warm embrace of Lethe.

"...so we had to hoist her on the table and then I started helping her off with her clothes and do you know she had on FIVE! layers of stuff--she had her BIG COAT, and a SWEATER!, and then her BLOUSE!, and then a CAMISOLE!! under that, and THEN her bra! And it got to where the technician had to take off her lab coat because she was getting hot and we didn't think we were EVER going to get her all unwrapped from all those layers and layers of stuff and..."

"Reba--REBA!" I simply had to interrupt.

"What?"

"It's okay, Reba--I mean, after all, she IS your mummy."

BADUMP-BUMP-TSSHHHHHH!

I'm here all week--be sure to tip your server and have a safe drive home!

Anyway, Reba thought it was funny, too.

[And for those who are concerned (as I should be, if I could stop my non-stop comic brain from working for just two seconds) about Reba's mom's condition--right now we don't really know a lot. Today's test was a biopsy, and hopefully what they were sampling will turn out to be benign. Keep her in your prayers, please. UPDATE 2-6-09 All clear!]

NOW THEN--not content to allow your funny bone to rest, ANOTHER story, this time from the wonderful world of construction!

Was at a meeting this morning and before we got started the superintendent got to talking about other jobs he'd done close by, and mentioned that he'd been the superintendent on the construction of a new columbarium for a nearby church.

The construction part apparently wasn't too difficult, but the reason it was being built in the first place was to have a place to put people whose remains had been interred in scattered places all around the church, and so part of his job was to disinter various urns and other ash repositories so they could be properly reinterred in the new place.

He was carefully watched over in his task by the architect, and he recounted that one day near lunchtime he was hand-excavating around the site of an urn, and had encountered a piece of a small concrete vault that held the earthly remains of one of the venerable ladies of the church. As usual, the architect was right at his shoulder as he got down and began delicately chipped away at the concrete to get to the contents.

As he worked, a small piece of concrete broke off and laying there inside was, of all things, a cigarette butt!

He looked over his shoulder at the architect and quietly asked her--with a certain amount of black humor--"I wonder if she smoked?"

Without missing a beat, she solemnly whispered back, "She probably did when they cremated her."




I am a bad person for laughing so hard at that one.

But still, I hope you have enjoyed SUPER FUN HAPPY JOKEY TUESDAY!

Posted by Terry Oglesby at February 3, 2009 01:16 PM