The perfect opportunity for me dropped into my lap a couple of weeks ago, a contracting job that will require 100% travel. That’s not all bad, it’s a perfect job for a guy who likes road trips. It’s inspecting units of a famous national chain of restaurants, one that had a real person as a spokesman, not a clown. The guy died but the restaurants continue on. We cannot go into them between 11:30 and 1:30, so I have nice long lunch hours, a time to post my reports to an internet site, actually.

In the middle of the 4th day on the job, last Thursday to be exact, I was in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, between stops. It was the lunch hiatus, so I stopped at FedUp-Kinky’s to upload some data. I was suddenly overcome with tremendous stomach cramps and I thought I had gotten some bad sausage at breakfast. So I went to the mens’ room to see if I could, um, bring them up for discussion.

Nope. Nuthin’ there.

I drove up the road looking for a Walgreen’s but found a Wally World first and went for some Peptide-Dismal. No help. I tried to sleep in the front seat of the car but the pain got worse and spread to my back. I began to get the sweaty chills and thought, great, flu.

By 3:00, I was pretty sure I needed some medical attention. I remembered seeing a place across the street called “Express Care” so I started the car and drove across the street, not a small task in the Chicago ‘burbs.

“Express Care” is an oil change place.

Next I wound up in a parking lot that promised a clinic but by this time, I was too delirious to see any signs, so I just used my cell phone to call for help.

The next thing I remember was riding in an ambulance. I told the EMT’s to not bother with the GD EKG because it was my stomach. They weren’t listening and did one anyway - normal - You see, I TOLD you not to waste the time on a u$ele$$ te$t.

I wound up in a nice suburban horsepistol’s ER. The ER doc did a chest film, a CTscan and an ultrasound. I told her I didn’t want to know the gender of my baby. She didn’t see the humor in that but said it was a gall bladder attack and she wanted to take it out. Of course, it wasn’t inflamed so such surgery is elective at that point. I declined. I’m not paying to have surgery done in a foreign hospital. She did prescribe some good narcs for pain relief. (A doc in my own clinic at home reviewed the reports and her theory is that I passed a gall stone. She says at this point there is little to do but eat a low fat diet and keep and eye on it. Oh great. The cancer treatment has already taken away just about everything I ever enjoyed, not to mention taking away my teeth, and now my gall bladder is taking away just about everything else I enjoy.)

The Kat Lady and Karen came to rescue me, and the horsepistol was discharging me just as my new boss arrived.

Do I know how to make an impression on a new boss, or what?

Karen drove me home, after stopping at a 24 hr Walgreens for my narcs. I did sleep most of the way home, but did wake up in time to guide Karen around the $1.50 toll booth that is the last one before the state line. I may have been really sick, but really cheap trumps that, I suppose.

In three and a half days on the new job, though, I impressed my new boss enough that he is demanding I stay home and get well because he really needs me for the long haul. As much as I like that, I need to get back to work. I need the loot.

Timing? Just as I get a job so I can start digging out of some debt, I incur an expensive red & white taxi ride to an expensive health care facility.

Two steps forward, three steps back. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Dang.

(There is one piece of sorta good news in this. The Kat Lady drove my car home, it has one of those transponders that transmits prepaid tolls to the Illinois Toll Authority. The prepaid tolls are HALF of the coin-toss tolls, so The Kat Lady was only charged $0.75 at that last booth. By having Karen go around it, the net savings was $2.25 which isn’t going to make a big dent in the horsepistol bill, but it would pay for lunch at my employer’s restaurant - one that is too high in fat for me to eat, anyway.)