Delmer Drones On

Hello everybody. As you know Nancy has been kind enough to ask a couple of her fellow bloggers to fill in for her while she's at BlogHer. I'm Delmer from What's a Delmer Look Like. That would be me in the photo; while I'm not always in a body of water I am often wet, what with living in hot and humid Ohio and all. Oh, and while I wish I could claim otherwise, that's my toe sticking up out of the water.

I met Nancy in August of 1979 when we were both in the Peace Corps teaching English as a second language in Persia. As many of the people we taught — men, women and children — had hopes of emigrating to the US, Nancy thought it would be a benefit to go beyond just teaching ESL and to give them skills which would help them better fit in to American society. She decided to give the women hair and nail tips and I worked on teaching the men things they'd need to know to Americanize their home improvement skills.

After several months of working together, and with some vacation coming up, Nancy suggested that a group of us take a road trip in an old VW Bus she had. And so it was that on November 1, 1979  six of us shot off into the night to take a tour of the middle east. As everybody reading this knows, except the Americans as we're shit when it comes to our own history, the US Embassy was stormed on November 4, the American occupants were taken hostage, and Ted Kopel became a fixture of nighttime TV. It would seem Nancy had saved us (despite the fact we were nowhere near the embassy, but work with me, it's my story) using her womans' intuitiveness.

Nancy doesn't like to talk about it, mostly due to modesty, but her many acts of bravery over the next several weeks, as she spirited the six of us to safety, eventually earned her the the Presidential Medal of Valor and a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni (the San Francisco Treat).

Back to the guest-blogging gig.

Nancy is making it easy on the guest bloggers as she's said we could re-post something from our own blogs. I honestly think I sometimes post rather clever things however, last night as I looked for one or two, I came up short. Sure, I stumbled across a couple of clever lines (and a boatload of typos — and, honest to God I proofread before and after posting) but they were buried way deep down inside a post somewhere. Is it any wonder? Look at this entry, I'm just saying "hello" and I've already droned on to the point of boring even me.

(Oh, and I would be a horrible person to omit this, I sometimes post bits about my three adorable boys).

Anyway, I'm reposting something I wrote back toward the beginning of the year.

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Many Accidents Happen in the Home 

I had something else I wanted to blog about today but I've just had an experience I've never had — and I'm 47 — that I knew you'd want to know about.

Just a few minutes ago I almost fell off the toilet.

I know what you're thinking, that didn't really happy, he's just saying it for shock effect. 

Let me assure you it did almost happen and nobody was more shocked than I. I even made that wah-uh! noise you make when you think something unbelievably bad, yet not life threatening, is about to happen to you. I've never been more happy to have had a bathroom to myself than I was at that moment. Can you imagine being outside a stall and hearing wah-uh! come from within it?

I've been making use of toilets in reading mode for what, 46 years? The only other time I've ever come close to having an incident like this was when I was hospitalized with a high fever back around '83 or '84. I'd gotten out of bed in the night to make a number two and had gone into the spacious hospital-room toilet to do my business. I lifted my gown, and as I went to lower myself I got faint; as I looked back to aim, my vision went and took my sense of balance with it. In an instant I developed a serious concern that I was going to wedge myself between the commode and wall and, to top it off, I'd be wedged there having to poop. So I gave the nurse-call lanyard a pull.

I don't know if the nurses can tell which alarm in a room has been triggered, but my nurse seemed to arrive with incredible speed, almost as if she knew this call was about something more than me needing a glass of water. 

She also arrived with incredible petiteness and this lends itself to a rather nice bit of imagery. Back in '83-'84 I was about the same size I am now (yes, I know, bravo for me); that is to say, just something over 6'4" tall and about somewhere between 230 and 240 pounds, depending on the day of the week and my hydration level (other big guys will appreciate the 10-pound range as being an entirely-possible scenario). 

My night nurse, as I recall, was about 5' 2" and maybe 100 pounds.

I don't remember if I'd actually started the ass-wedging-between-the-wall-and-commode process or not but I do remember my nurse having me by the hands and helping to pull me forward. As she pulled I farted a little bit.

No I didn't.

Another thing I remember about the night nurse was that she was really cute. I've got to guess that being wedged in a hospital bathroom with my junk all hanging out and dehydrated didn't make the best impression (I've noticed she hasn't called once in all the years that have gone by).

Anyway, in the time that has passed I've had many very successful toilet experiences and have never since almost suffered injury or humiliation. I can only assume that all these accident-free years have filled me with a false sense of security and that it was only a matter of time before I made a mistake that almost dropped me to the tile.

How did it happen?

I'll tell you tomorrow.

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Thank you for reading. I'll be here all day. Be sure to tip your bartenders and wait staff. (And if the above story didn't put you off, the same thing happened again about a month later.)