The hospital or the house of the rising sun - compare and contrast study
The only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk
Oh mothers, tell your children
Don't do what I have done
And spend your life in sin and misery
In the house of the Rising Sun
This month has been the piece of shit that Eric Idle must have been thinking about when he wrote the song that concludes the end of Life of Brian. My favorite scene is when the messiah tells his followers to FUCK OFF, only to have his devoted follower inquire as to "how shall we fuck off, oh lord", but already I am straying...I know everyone has it bad at times, and I am probably sounding like a big whiner, and you might as well break out the violins, but for me in my own little way, having the last bit of my savings assaulted through various events of the month from car repair to repeated occurrences of fox tails in my dog's throat, falling off my bike and tweaking my arm, all the crises that exist in the household - yeah - I would say as months go, I am ready for June 2006 to end. But - it was not over, not by a long shot. Sara's digestive ailments found me at 12:30 in the morning on Sunday night, in a delirious rudely interrupted state from sleep, driving into the night to track down the emergency room to figure out what we could do. The doctors on call by phone tell you to go at once, and then once you get there and find your way through the bureaucracy, the essential feeling you get from the doctor, is what the hell are you doing here wasting my time when I have dying people to attend to.
Hospitals are always kind of depressing, the lights are too bright, the environment always seems to be very sterile and devoid of any type of spirituality, like once you come into die of cancer, a vicious car accident, or whatever it is you happen to be dying of, that you are going to be a lab specimen on a table, staring into the bright florescent lights, waiting for your time to expire and the great unknown to become known. People are moaning, coughing out of control, throwing up - at their worst ever - and at the wee early morning hours in a sleep deprived state, it all seems quite surreal and mainly a bad nightmare, when more than anything, you just want to be back in bed and sleeping, thinking - oh that was just a dream. They took an x-ray, found out she was very backed up, and basically told us to go see a doctor to get to the root of the agonizing screams from stomach ailments and gas pain that brought us all there to begin with. The next day's follow up visit to the doctor on 3 hours sleep - dealing with nightmare of trying to find a doctor who could see her on short notice, and even the greater nightmare of trying to get my HMO on the phone to approve the temporary switch in doctors and feeling like the whole thing was about to drive me over the deep end, and then sitting in the doctor's office feeling like bugs were crawling up my skin and second guessing my own participation in an ongoing dispute I have with someone I know here locally, was all enough to get me to want to check in permanently to the nearest local mental ward.
But - two nights later, the nightmare re-surfaced and we once again found our way trekking back to the emergency room one more time, this time a couple hours earlier - at 10:30 instead of 12:30, but even so - cries and screams of anguish coming from both passengers in the vehicle, questioning whether the first visit's somewhat futile experience would be repeated, at a generous co-pay of 100 dollars a visit, and it was like getting kicked in the head a second time just when I felt like I was possibly on the verge of recovering from the first one.
And so somewhat ironically, when Sara requested a spontaneous pee stop at the side of the dark Highway 50 leading into Carson City, I became aware of a very ironic fork in the road, so to speak. As she was doing her business, I realized that a sign was pointing to the location of the world famous Bunny Ranch, just about a mile or so down the road. As I stood there getting ready to drive off to the hospital for the second time, I couldn't help but recognize how profound the implications of the pee stop happened to be. Here I was - on my way to the hospital, and yet because of the end result of the same pleasure (pregnancy and birth) certain lucky men happened to be enjoying down the road, I was in this very situation that really was not so pleasurable at all.
But the more I think about it - how much different is the Bunny Ranch from the Carson Tahoe Emergency Room? Both involve two of the oldest documented professions. Think about it - you can say that the emergency room can be a matter of life or death for those who choose to visit it? Maybe so - but at the same price of the bill one may be facing without insurance coverage (last I checked a visit to a prostitute is not covered under my HMO - but I think it is kind of hypocritical and it should be covered) - it must be a matter of life and death for a man who has had sex - let's say for the sake of argument - 2 times with his wife in the last 9 months - if he is getting ready to pay up to a thousand dollars or more for the simple act of relieving massive sperm accumulations, similar in some way to the massive fecal back up that my daughter happened to be experiencing. Both places are providing a service, designed to provide a sense of healing and relief for the parties who are entering the premises. Both are quite pricey and expensive, and in the business of profiting because those are suffering. Both are designed to make the stay at the respective premises as comfortable and hospitable as possible. At the hospital after surgery, x-rays, and treatment you are told to take medication as needed and then follow up as needed. At the Bunny Ranch, after a mind blowing orgasm with the prostitute of your choice, your prescription is in essence to go back and re-live the experience to the best of your ability, and then return for follow up if the experience requires repeating. At the hospital they give you a bracelet to wrap around your wrist, at the bunny ranch it is a condom to be inserted on top of your penis. At the hospital (depending on the quality of care) there may be a choice of doctors or attendants (or if you complain loudly enough about one nurse, maybe they switch out another), at the whore house it is the choice of which one will end up in the same bed with you - and the higher the quality of care, the higher the bill. At either place, credit cards are accepted for your convenience, and once the bill shows up in the mail, it is going to be an eye-opener.
Needless to say, the idea of being at the second place seemed a lot more appealing to me at the moment than the place I was heading to. But - we all got back in the car, and night 2 of the sterile emergency room awaited instead.
Is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk
Oh mothers, tell your children
Don't do what I have done
And spend your life in sin and misery
In the house of the Rising Sun
This month has been the piece of shit that Eric Idle must have been thinking about when he wrote the song that concludes the end of Life of Brian. My favorite scene is when the messiah tells his followers to FUCK OFF, only to have his devoted follower inquire as to "how shall we fuck off, oh lord", but already I am straying...I know everyone has it bad at times, and I am probably sounding like a big whiner, and you might as well break out the violins, but for me in my own little way, having the last bit of my savings assaulted through various events of the month from car repair to repeated occurrences of fox tails in my dog's throat, falling off my bike and tweaking my arm, all the crises that exist in the household - yeah - I would say as months go, I am ready for June 2006 to end. But - it was not over, not by a long shot. Sara's digestive ailments found me at 12:30 in the morning on Sunday night, in a delirious rudely interrupted state from sleep, driving into the night to track down the emergency room to figure out what we could do. The doctors on call by phone tell you to go at once, and then once you get there and find your way through the bureaucracy, the essential feeling you get from the doctor, is what the hell are you doing here wasting my time when I have dying people to attend to.
Hospitals are always kind of depressing, the lights are too bright, the environment always seems to be very sterile and devoid of any type of spirituality, like once you come into die of cancer, a vicious car accident, or whatever it is you happen to be dying of, that you are going to be a lab specimen on a table, staring into the bright florescent lights, waiting for your time to expire and the great unknown to become known. People are moaning, coughing out of control, throwing up - at their worst ever - and at the wee early morning hours in a sleep deprived state, it all seems quite surreal and mainly a bad nightmare, when more than anything, you just want to be back in bed and sleeping, thinking - oh that was just a dream. They took an x-ray, found out she was very backed up, and basically told us to go see a doctor to get to the root of the agonizing screams from stomach ailments and gas pain that brought us all there to begin with. The next day's follow up visit to the doctor on 3 hours sleep - dealing with nightmare of trying to find a doctor who could see her on short notice, and even the greater nightmare of trying to get my HMO on the phone to approve the temporary switch in doctors and feeling like the whole thing was about to drive me over the deep end, and then sitting in the doctor's office feeling like bugs were crawling up my skin and second guessing my own participation in an ongoing dispute I have with someone I know here locally, was all enough to get me to want to check in permanently to the nearest local mental ward.
But - two nights later, the nightmare re-surfaced and we once again found our way trekking back to the emergency room one more time, this time a couple hours earlier - at 10:30 instead of 12:30, but even so - cries and screams of anguish coming from both passengers in the vehicle, questioning whether the first visit's somewhat futile experience would be repeated, at a generous co-pay of 100 dollars a visit, and it was like getting kicked in the head a second time just when I felt like I was possibly on the verge of recovering from the first one.
And so somewhat ironically, when Sara requested a spontaneous pee stop at the side of the dark Highway 50 leading into Carson City, I became aware of a very ironic fork in the road, so to speak. As she was doing her business, I realized that a sign was pointing to the location of the world famous Bunny Ranch, just about a mile or so down the road. As I stood there getting ready to drive off to the hospital for the second time, I couldn't help but recognize how profound the implications of the pee stop happened to be. Here I was - on my way to the hospital, and yet because of the end result of the same pleasure (pregnancy and birth) certain lucky men happened to be enjoying down the road, I was in this very situation that really was not so pleasurable at all.
But the more I think about it - how much different is the Bunny Ranch from the Carson Tahoe Emergency Room? Both involve two of the oldest documented professions. Think about it - you can say that the emergency room can be a matter of life or death for those who choose to visit it? Maybe so - but at the same price of the bill one may be facing without insurance coverage (last I checked a visit to a prostitute is not covered under my HMO - but I think it is kind of hypocritical and it should be covered) - it must be a matter of life and death for a man who has had sex - let's say for the sake of argument - 2 times with his wife in the last 9 months - if he is getting ready to pay up to a thousand dollars or more for the simple act of relieving massive sperm accumulations, similar in some way to the massive fecal back up that my daughter happened to be experiencing. Both places are providing a service, designed to provide a sense of healing and relief for the parties who are entering the premises. Both are quite pricey and expensive, and in the business of profiting because those are suffering. Both are designed to make the stay at the respective premises as comfortable and hospitable as possible. At the hospital after surgery, x-rays, and treatment you are told to take medication as needed and then follow up as needed. At the Bunny Ranch, after a mind blowing orgasm with the prostitute of your choice, your prescription is in essence to go back and re-live the experience to the best of your ability, and then return for follow up if the experience requires repeating. At the hospital they give you a bracelet to wrap around your wrist, at the bunny ranch it is a condom to be inserted on top of your penis. At the hospital (depending on the quality of care) there may be a choice of doctors or attendants (or if you complain loudly enough about one nurse, maybe they switch out another), at the whore house it is the choice of which one will end up in the same bed with you - and the higher the quality of care, the higher the bill. At either place, credit cards are accepted for your convenience, and once the bill shows up in the mail, it is going to be an eye-opener.
Needless to say, the idea of being at the second place seemed a lot more appealing to me at the moment than the place I was heading to. But - we all got back in the car, and night 2 of the sterile emergency room awaited instead.
posted by Zook at 6:49 PM
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