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What we’ll do to feel better, right?  Sal was looking wildly forward to what was inside the syringe held by the nurse, but in order to get that high, she would have to have her hand sliced and diced, otherwise known as surgery.  That’s a hefty price to pay for about 5 minutes of not caring who you are or what they’ll do to you because you’re too busy laughing and saying insane things to total strangers.  Yet, we all must crave that pre-surgery high or why would we always be having surgery?

I shudder when I think of what our ancestors went through to have a bullet taken out, for example.  My ancestors would have fit into that category because they were mostly all misfits, gamblers and gunslingers. The pre-surgery routine back in the day consisted of lots o’whiskey and a stick to put in your mouth so you wouldn’t scream.  What were they thinking??!  Thanks be to God that the medical community started working in their labs on a better way...a painless way...and one that would allow the patient to wake up post surgery asking, “Have they taken the bullet out yet?”

You mothers wouldn’t have had the luxury of an epidural before childbirth either.  You would have had to finish your chores, lay down on the thin, hay-stuffed mattress and ‘git’er done...pop that baby out, get up and go milk the cow!  Your husband wouldn’t have had nearly the amount of sympathy for you as they do today because back then, they were in the next room (if you had more than one room), impatiently pacing the floor...not because they were worried about you, but because they were late with the plowing.  Now-a-days, they are shamed into experiencing the miracle (and physiologically disgusting site) of childbirth.  They get to share your pain, drugs or no drugs.  We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?

In this modern era, there is a pill for every single kind of pain, and now we take the pill in anticipation of pain...just the thought of it.  We’re prepared to ‘not feel.’  When I go to the dentist (being more than slightly dentally phobic), not only is there no pain, but I’ve got people massaging my hands and feet; the Valium kicked in before I even entered the office, and my nose is covered with the contraption that spews nitrous oxide into my system.  Soft music is playing in the background, a large photo of a tropical beach scene hovers on the ceiling above me, and the dentist is wearing a mask that has a gentle smile painted on it.  At the end of my procedure, I’m apt to inquire, “Have they taken the bullet out yet??”

Ahhhhh.

KK

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Yeah, baby, that’s what it’s all about if you have to have surgery.  Drugs.  I’m not even scared to have anything done anymore because I know I will be in dreamland before ‘100, 99, 98, ahh…’

As a matter of fact, I am bound and determined to have my mouth wrinkles stretched back toward my ears in order to get rid of the sagging jowls that make me look like Andy Rooney on Sixty Minutes.  Listen, the only reason people didn’t do this in the old days was because they didn’t have the good drugs.

I wonder who the person was who, realizing how great ether was, said, “Wow.  Let’s start charging women out the wazoo for cosmetic surgeries.  Now that they won’t feel any pain, we’ll all have mansions on Nob HIll.  Cancel all the important surgeries scheduled and sign up for classes in eye lifts and neck stretching!  Yeehaw!”

When I had my colonoscopy they gave me the really good drugs and I was out like a light the whole time.  Did people have colonoscopies before the good drugs?  I doubt it.  I wonder who the person was who said, “Wow, Let’s start charging people out the wazoo for sticking scopes up in their wazoos.  They’ll be so stoned they won’t be embarrassed and we can make a fortune.”  Come on now, would you have a colonoscopy without drugs?

Did they have colonoscopies in the wagon trains headed west?  I don’t think so.  I rest my case.

SalGal