The Fayette Citizen-Opinion Page
Wednesday, October 7, 1998
Carolina on my mind

By BILLY MURPHY
Laugh Lines

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There's nothing that brings me down from a Demerol "high" worse than being robbed.

It was an aberrant Saturday night for me in the naked city. Driving with one hand on the wheel and the other pouring mint flavored Maalox down my throat, I imagined Barbados.

I didn't have indigestion. I didn't have heartburn. I never get the stuff. I save my stomach attacks for once every five years or so. I had woken up two hours earlier with this upper chestal, sort of around to the back bloated, gassy, shortness of breath thingy. Well that's my scientific description of it. Oh, and I was driving around in a "robbed" vehicle.

Most of us, I am sure, have experienced the claustrophobia of a hotel room in rural South Carolina. What's that you say? "All of South Carolina is rural?"

OK, I have to agree with you there, but this was really rural South Carolina.

"How rural?" you ask? Well, this town named Monck's Corner is most famous for Andy Griffith filming a Shoney's commercial there and the world record for the biggest catfish. If I still lived in that area, I could tell you for certain if the catfish record was for Arkansas blue. It might have been a channel flathead, which coincidentally was also the nickname given to Andy Griffith after his arrogant, obstinate visit to the low country.

I was in a Holiday Inn and I was sick. I had been robbed and didn't know it yet. Many years ago when I used to get these "episodes," I used to go running and that would work sometimes. That was many years ago. Back then, I used to probably eat right, have all my hair and probably never heard of the word, "prostate."

I went walking. Walking the parking lot of a Holiday Inn, 2:30 in the morning is rather humbling. I didn't feel any better and now I had gum stuck to my shoe. Maybe I was having a heart attack. I walked past my van a third time, the one that was robbed without me knowing it yet.

Finally, after putting up with pain General Scwharzkoph couldn't take, I woke up my wife, Julie, and told her to give me a lift to the emergency room.

Luckily the local hospital was across the street from the hotel. Of course, I could see the hospital easily because of the light coming from the Wal-Mart.

We entered and I knew how to get attention. "Chest pains, shortness of breath," I moaned. While the admitting security guard/administrator/nurse talked to my wife, I squatted below the counter. They were dropping people with gunshot wounds to attend to me. I thought it was my convincing rendition of Willie Lomax from "Death of a Salesman." Rather, the doctors and nurses had read Julie's lips. "Premium Plan, Blue Cross & Blue Shield," she said.

A medical team was working on me that included a doctor, two nurses, an orderly and a radiologist, yet they could not tell me anything other than I have 98 percent oxygenated blood. I was feeling terrible and fast becoming a real pain in the neck kind of patient. Out of frustration they gave me a G.I. cocktail, which was like swallowing menthol Jello laced with pine tar. I soon aspirated.

After my begging and pleading, the doctor gave me a mega-shot of Demerol and sent me on my way (The nurses were begging and pleading). I slept like a baby and woke up with a smile, except that my wife was shaking me and asking, "Did you take your guitar out of the van? If not, we have been robbed." Julie was right. Sometime before I even went and got that first Maalox, our van had been entered and ransacked, (it was actually tidier after the thieves broke in).

Guitar, camera, baby seat, wallet, money, etc.. you name it, they got it. At least the police were nice, though their persistent question to my wife, Julie was "Why is your husband smiling?"


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