Bloody Karma

So, I'm playing basketball tonight and I feel the need to pee. A strange, burning need. Like the kind where your pee is brownish-orange and comes out in forced squirts.

I tell the guys I'll be back. I'm not looking forward to this, because it feels like it's going to hurt. And it does.

I look down. Nothing but pure blood. I go back out and all the guys are picking on me for walking slow.

"Hey, old man, let's go."

"Are you a few pounds lighter, there?"

I start playing again, and I'm just kind of wandering around -- not because of the pain but because that's ... just ... really ... weird.

Then the pain really sets in. I'm out. Take my place.

I'm peeing blood.

Wife, help me out.

---

My wife has a strange way of bringing up the dog and karma when a person is pissing blood.

She has a sense of compassion. She's far more understanding and empathetic of other people's suffering than I am. She helps me when I'm sick. Usually. At least better than I do for just about anybody other than myself.

Yet, sometimes she'll turn on me. You know, mock me.

This most notably occurred late one night when I came back from basketball with an absolutely DESTROYED ankle ...




What I left out of that rumination on pain those many months ago is what my wife said to me when I got home that night:

"Hey. Wake up. Do you know where the crutches are?"

"I don't knowwwww. I think in the garage. I'm not getting up and getting them for you."

"OK, just go back to sleep."

Never wake her up. Even if you're hopping around in excruciating pain in a dark garage with slippery floors.

(Oh, and neither of us will forget our first few weeks together those years ago back in college. The night I thought I could pop the cork on a bottle of wine with a Swiss Army knife with no lock-blade. She passed out and me and my squirting index finger and pale face drove a stick-shift to the Food Lion for some bandages).

Tonight, though, felt like it would be different. She offered to wake up early and call the doctor for me. And she (once again) secured my blessing to venture into the evil proprietor of corporate slavery, Wal-Mart, to get me some pee-pee anesthetic (which, in a curiously fascinating turn, turns your pee orange).

My wife has had her fair share of bladder infections.

So has our dog.

---

For weeks, she had been peeing on the carpet (the dog, not my wife). The veterinarian told us our dog needed a shave-down, because she's got a lot of hair and the fur around her ass was causing her to have matted cakes of shit hair.

Never one to pay $60 for something I can do with a beer and a pair of scissors, I took the dog out in the garage and did it myself.

My dog: I don't really like her. I think I love her. But it's hard to say I like her. She's fiercely loyal, but doesn't listen. She's not good with the kids. Her redeeming quality is her ability to scare people away and have an unabashed affection for someone who doesn't hold her in the same regard.

(I know, call me a cold-blooded asshole. Don't worry, everybody else in the house who's allowed to say such things does so from time to time).

I'm trimming the dog, saving the ass pelt for last. Because, you know, that's just really not the part any of us would look forward to the most.

But the time comes. I'm clipping the hair and she starts to freak out. She bites me.

Needless to say, I express my displeasure with a kick to the ass. And I'm done with the whole clipping-ass-hair thing.

She goes to the vet some days later and they diagnose her with a bladder infection. The too-hairy thing had a part in that. That explained the carpet wetting. And the biting.

And they ended up shaving her anyway.

Yee-haw.

---

I can't really stand up. It hurts. Burns. Feels like someone's pumping hot gas fumes up my pee hole.

My wife comes back from Wal-Mart.

"This might turn your pee orange."

"Great. How many do I take?"

"Two. With lots of water."

"Thanks for doing that for me."

The night has set in. Crap. If I can just get to sleep, the next day will be sure to bring relief.

I step outside to throw my sweaty basketball shoes on the porch. As I come back in, my wife poses a question:

"So, I was thinking about karma. If I started trimming your ass hair right now, do you think you would bite me?"

Good point.

Let's go out to the garage, I'll hop around and we'll see.