Chapter Three:   False Alarm

Excellent news. I no longer have a snapped tendon.  It has healed.  Being flat out in bed for fifteen days with the flu seems to have it sorted.  Jeff, my physio, a man of enormous pessimism, looks puzzled at my ankle.   “There’s nothing wrong with you at all. The reason you are limping so badly is that stupid surgical boot, now take it off and walk.”

Not since Jesus so swiftly Lazarated the healing process has there been such a quick turnaround. Shortly we were both walking down the road and he was shaking his head about Doctors.  I know what he means.  LA consists of two large black holes called Cedars Cyanide and UCLA and slowly people are sucked inside the Dr. Schwarzschild radius, rarely to emerge with a full complement of organs.

Graham always warned us to beware of Doctors. “They’re just ex Medical students” he said.  And he should know;  he was a fully qualified alcoholic.

So the boot isn’t on the other foot.   It’s in a corner of my closet where I flung it. A thousand dollars of health care down the drain.

In order to make up for my return to health my Doctor ordered a series of tests. I was scheduled for a morning of prodding, bleeding, and peeing, plus a date with the machine that goes ping.   Actually the MRI makes a far louder noise than a ping.  It’s more like a lion’s roar.

So I had a heart scan: check, there is one.

A lung scan: “And there’s the pneumonia…”

“The what? I thought it was flu.”

“That too.”

And an ultra sound. (I’m not pregnant.)

So physically I’m ready to face the Australian bowling. And literally too, because as a happy result of some Twitter misunderstandings the great Thommo is coming to see us on the road downunda.  And he still scares me.  John too is looking forward to meeting him.  We are both cricket nuts.

Major Cleese seems in good form, and after spending six weeks on a beach in Mustique with his aquatic wife he ought to be. He says he likes his new rank, so Major Cleese it is.  I’m not sure where that leaves me.  Lance-Corporal?  Squadron Leader?  I used to be Sergeant Idle in the school CCF, but they hated me because I went on the Aldermaston March.

“Then you shouldn’t be in the CCF” said the School Padre, shocked to learn I’d been on a Pacifist rally.

“Then I’ll leave” I said

“You can’t, it’s compulsory.”

 

My Dad was Sergeant Idle too. In the RAF.  But I think I like something a little more romantic.  Group Captain Idle?  Now, that has a ring to it.

Mentally I’m ready and looking forward to the show. It’s a nice change from writing.  My shrink has cleared me for duty. Two of the Pythons have had shrinkage and four haven’t.   Luckily I’m on the road with the other one who did.  I think it helps, and I’ve had about twenty years of it now. Of course I live in California where it is compulsory, but if you don’t look under the hood now and again how can you possibly see what’s driving you?

The unexamined life is a dangerous thing.

The British, who are mentally and dentally retarded, look on all forms of analysis with fear and loathing, though no nation needs it more. Especially some of their newspapers, which do seem to be utterly bonkers.

It’s the weather of course. And I love and adore the English. Well not all of them. I hate the smugly sentimental Upstairs Downside world of the Upper classes and their nostalgia for country estates and servants. You know those television series about fat faced, smug, fucking upper class twits where happy and kindly aristocrats, are lovingly and gratifyingly served by contented, sexually available domestic servants.

“It’s an honour to work for you sir. Really there’s no need to pay us. I would do this for nothing. Oh would you like to fuck me sir, I know how an upper class gentleman gets when he’s had four bottles of claret. Or would you rather fuck my daughter? She’ll take it sir, and be grateful for the spare change in your pocket, but please only in the ass, she’s working class and we can’t afford no children….”

It’s crap. It’s condescending and inaccurate and panders to the worst kind of Americans who see the British as some kind of Butler owning democracy. It’s as if the Yanks did a series about the Antebellum South where contented slaves sing happily about their kindly owners.

“O we is happy pickin cotton all de live long day…”

Alright. Rant over. I’m a lower class Northern oik and proud of it lad.

 

 

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