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(Not that I would use a cheap, cheesy pun for my title, oh heaven's no, and nobody who works with me better make a peep...snicker)

So I went to the surgery place, which is an actual real surgery place where they do actual real surgery involving actual real IVs and actual real anesthesia and they do this a couple dozen times a day at least, but for some reason, they kept asking "What's noracaine?" OK, so your one nurse has slightly sloppy handwriting, but for heaven's sake, how many extra brain cells does it take to make that little tiny leap and change the apparent lower-case "r" into its true identity as a "v"? How many, honestly? This does not breed confidence in any innocent bystanders who happen to be about to die-- er, about to be shot twice in the back with large dangerous implements. And possibly with Noracaine unless they quickly identify what exactly the patient is really allergic to...

Oy vey. Once it started, though, it wasn't bad. OK, there was the strange episode with the man in the NY Yankees head-covering swabbing my back side (and my backside) with alcohol, and the unexplained incident of the elderly nurse in the lead apron. (I never actually saw her face, just her hands. In my head, I can hear her saying, "I'm 37; I'm not old!" But that's just the aftereffects of the sedative, I'm sure.)

Speaking of the sedative, it was a good one, and only a distant cousin of Nora and her sister Lido Caine, so it didn't actually kill me or even make me wish I was dead. I didn't even realize they'd started the IV drip, but suddenly, Lead-lined Nurse was shaking me awake and telling me it was all over. Holy cow. It seemed like half a second passed. Cool.

Aside from a slightly worse-than-normal mental fuzziness, the only aftereffect seemed to be my butt falling asleep. Yeah, you think that sounds funny or maybe only mildly annoying, but think about this if you dare: It was asleep all the way through. In this condition, not only can you not move your legs to, say, walk, but you can also not do things like, say, tell when you need to run to the bathroom. Unless you're a girl-- no, forget that: a highly experienced female-- and suspect that the odd but intense pressure means some messy, female time-of-the-month stuff is on its way, you're gonna be out of luck. Hah. Another weird story to add to the slush pile.