Happy Halloween Part 2

Excerpts from THE SCARIEST MOVIE EVER MADE!



Props to Wil Wheaton!

Happy Halloween!

My spooky story submission won Moxie Mama's "Ghost Post" contest. Yay me!

Since the contest is over, I'm reposting the story here for your Halloween reading pleasure. Enjoy!

"Wake up! I'm bleeding."

We had just finished watching Northern Exposure in bed and were drifting off to sleep. It was the rerun that came on after the local news. So it was sometime after 11pm.

"Wake up! I'm bleeding."

Young Galadriel Tanqueray Onassis wasn't due for another month.

My adrenal gland propelled me out of bed like an F-18 ejection seat.

I started assembling our "kit" while she called the pediatrician. The doctor said he would meet us at Truman Medical Center, our chosen birthing location. It was about 30 minutes away.

Less than 5 minutes later, the doctor called us back and said "Truman is too far away. Go to St. Mary's." He would meet us there. St. Mary's was only about 5 minutes away.

I really, really didn't like the sound of that.

We loaded up in the jeep and I took off like a bat out of hell with my emergency flashers on.

My bleeding wife said "Don't get a ticket!"

"They will have to shoot my tires out and follow the trail of rim sparks and hot asphalt to the hospital before I stop this jeep!"

The hospital was expecting us. I handed my wife off to the waiting nurse and wheel chair at the ER entrance while I found a place to park.

I ran from the jeep to the ER desk and asked where they had taken her.

I ran to the location they gave me. I thought. But I got lost. I ran back to the desk and asked again. I successfully ran to the correct examining room.

My wife was lying on the table, the doctor was between her legs and the first words I heard were "There's too much blood. I can't see anything. I need an emergency Caesarian."

She had a placental abruption. She had already lost half of her blood. Mother and baby were both at risk of dying. Soon.

As they were hustling her off to the operating room, they quickly dressed me in scrubs and started taking patient and insurance information.

By the time I got back to the operating room, she was prepped, taking anesthesia, a shield was erected and the pediatrician was in position.

I held her hand as she went under.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

I glanced up at the observation area above the operating room and there was a woman standing there, watching. She was wearing yellow scrubs covered with green frogs. I think she had brown hair, but I can’t swear to it. I don’t remember much more about her. I figured she must have been a nurse or a staffer who heard the late night call for an emergency Caesarian and just wanted to watch and learn.

An eternity later, the doctor pulls a limp, bloody baby from my wife's open womb.

The baby isn't crying. There is no time for pointless, modern nonsense like letting the dad cut the abdominal cord. The doctor snipped it professionally, handed the baby to a nurse who silently whisked it away.

I look up at the observation room and the woman in the scrubs gives me a smile and a big "thumbs up". I knew then that everything was going to be O.K. I felt a rush of relief and was brought to tears. I raised my hand to her in acknowledgement. She smiled and nodded.

The doctor starts closing up. He removes the abrupted placenta, examines it, and asks if I would like to see it.

I politely decline.

He then asks if I would like to see my wife's ovarian cysts before he closes her up.

Again, I politely (but somewhat more urgently) decline his invitation.

He always was a chatty bastard.

He gets her put back together and snaps off his rubber gloves.

The nurse informs him "Just for the record, it's been exactly 15 minutes since you declared an emergency Caesarian."

I look up at the observation room again, and it is empty.

Just as they are wheeling my wife off to the recovery room and taking me to where they are cleaning the baby, I hear her cry.

My daughter is alive!

The next few days are pretty iffy.

The wife had to have a pretty substantial blood transfusion. And recover from an emergency Caesarian. She was lying in her room hooked up to IVs and heavily sedated.

My preemie daughter was lying under a cake-keeper in the nursery with an E.T. light on her finger.

I was in a recliner in the wife's room with an ice pack on my blown out knee from all of that running that my sedentary body had NO IDEA how to handle.

It made for quite the family photo.

My wife's older son and daughter arrive at the hospital.

Somewhere around 3am, my wife groggily wakes up. Last she remembers, she was pregnant and bleeding. Now she's not pregnant anymore and there is no baby. I try to reassure her that everything is O.K. That G.T.O is Ok. She's in the nursery.

She doesn't believe me.

So I leave the step-kids in charge, limp out to the jeep, rush back home and get the video camera. I come back, tape G.T.O. alive and breathing in the nursery. Then I take the tape back to the wife's room and play it for her on the TV.

Many happy tears were shed.

I tried to find out who the lady in the operating room observation deck was. I wanted to thank her for reassuring me.

No one else remembered seeing anyone in the observation room. I describe her as best as I could to one of the ER nurses. Her face went ashen, she seemed to go a little limp and her eyes moistened up, and she whispered “Julie”.

I asked her what she was talking about and she said “C’mon. Your wife and baby are both fine and sleeping. Let’s go get some coffee.”

We went to the lounge, got a couple of paper cups of strong brew from the coin operated barista and settled in at a round table in plastic chairs with wire legs.

The nurse’s name was Heather. She told me story.

“Julie was an Emergency Room nurse. She got her degree in 1980 from Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences. That’s the Med School on Independence Avenue just east of Paseo. You can always spot it by all of the young kids in scrubs crossing the street from the dorms to the school. Right by the 7-11. It’s a good school, but it’s in a rough area. Right down the street from the cheap hooker hotels.
Anyway, Julie was a devout Catholic. That is why she chose St. Mary’s as her first nursing gig. She was a bit of an adrenaline junky so she was attracted to the ER. She had been working in the ER at St. Mary’s for about 6 months.

One weekend, she had ventured back to the dorms to visit some friends who were still struggling to graduate. After a late night of partying with friends, she headed back to the parking garage, alone, to get her car and drive home.

Unfortunately, the garage was not empty. She was attacked and brutally raped. She was left bruised, battered and bleeding between two cars. A security guard found her shortly before dawn and called the police.

She couldn’t give the police a description of her attacker. It was dark and he had beaten her pretty badly. She lost consciousness. He was never apprehended or charged.

But it gets worse. She was pregnant with her rapist’s child.

Being a Catholic and working at St. Mary’s an abortion was out of the question. She decided to have the baby and give it up for adoption.

The time came and she went into labor. Of course, her beloved St. Mary’s was her chosen birthing location. Her baby would be delivered by the doctors and nurses she worked next to 12 hours a day.

There were complications. Sometimes, a baby just doesn’t want to come into the world. Sometimes, they take their mothers with them when they go. Julie and her baby died in the operating room.”

Heather dropped her head. Her shoulder length blond hair obscured her face. A single tear splattered on the table next to her coffee. She sniffed, raised her head defiantly, wiped her cheeks dry and took a swig of the bitter, machine brewed coffee.

“I’ve never seen her. I don’t believe in all that hocus pocus. But I hear reports. Stories from heavily sedated pregnant mothers being wheeled into the OR. Stories from emotional family members under a lot of stress. People like you. Sometimes they see somebody who looks like Julie. Standing up in the observation deck. Wearing yellow scrubs covered in green frogs. Watching over things. Giving little signs of encouragement.

I don’t believe in all that crap. I’ve seen too many bad things happen to good people.

But I’ll tell you this.

Nobody who ever claimed to have seen Julie ever had to bury anybody.

C’mon. Finish your coffee and let’s go check on your wife and kid.”


I didn't have to bury anybody.

Before The Dark Knight...

There was a little independent net flick called "Batman Dead End" by aspiring filmmaker Sandy Collora.

A Different Perspective

CAVEAT: I don't know how much of this is true. It's after 8:30, I have to iron a pair of slacks so I can go to work tomorrow at a job that pays HALF of what I made 4 years ago and I don't have time to provide hyper-links to the true statements and false statements. I found it at this site which purports to be sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain. Got a problem with the information? Go flame them. I'm just presenting a diferent perspective on the McCain narrative.

FACT SHEET: Military record of John Sidney McCain III

"Both McCain III’s father and grandfather were Admirals in the United States Navy.

His father, Admiral John S. ”Junior” McCain was commander of U.S. forces in Europe - later commander of American forces in Vietnam while McCain III was being held prisoner of war.

His grandfather John S. McCain, Sr. commanded naval aviation at the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

McCain III, like his father and grandfather, also attended the United States Naval Academy.

McCain III finished near the bottom of his graduating class in 1958.

McCain III lost five U.S. Navy aircraft:

Lost Aircraft #1 - Student pilot McCain III lost jet number one in 1958 when he plunged into Corpus
Christi Bay while practicing landings.

Lost Aircraft #2 - Pilot McCain III lost another plane two years later while he was deployed in the Mediterranean. ”Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula, he took out some power lines which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral.

Lost Aircraft #3 - Pilot McCain III lost number three in 1965 when he was returning from flying a Navy trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game. McCain III radioed, ”I’ve got a flameout” and ejected at one thousand feet. The plane crashed to the ground and McCain III floated to a deserted beach.

Lost Aircraft #4 - Combat pilot McCain III lost his fourth on July 29, 1967, soon after he was assigned to the USS Forrestal as an A-4 Skyhawk combat pilot. While waiting his turn for takeoff, an accidently fired rocket slammed into McCain Jr’s. plane. He escaped from the burning aircraft, but the explosions that followed killed 134 sailors, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and threatened to sink the ship.

Lost Aircraft #5 - Combat pilot McCain III lost a fifth plane three months later (Oct. 26, 1967) during his 23rd mission over North Vietnam when he failed to avoid a surface-to-air missile. McCain III ejected from the plane breaking both arms and a leg in the process and subsequently parachuted into Truc Bach Lake near Hanoi. After being pulled from the lake by the North Vietnamese, McCain III was bayoneted in his left foot and shoulder and struck by a rifle butt. He was then transported to the Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton.

1973 New York Daily News labeled POW McCain III a “PW Songbird”.

On McCain III’s fourth day of being denied medical treatment, slapped, and threatened with death by the communist (they were demanding military information in exchange for medical treatment), McCain III broke and told his interrogator, ”O.K., I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.” U.S. News and World Report, May 14, 1973 article written by former POW John McCain.

It was then that the communist learned that McCain III’s father was Admiral John S. McCain, the soon-to-be commander of all U.S. Forces in the Pacific. The Vietnamese rushed McCain III to Gai Lam military hospital (U.S. government documents), a medical facility normally unavailable for U.S. POWs.

By Nov. 9, 1967 (U.S. government documents) Hanoi press was quoting McCain III describing his mission including the number of aircraft in his flight, information about rescue ships, and the order of which U.S. attacks would take place.

While in still in North Vietnam’s military hospital, McCain III gave an interview to prominent French television reporter Francois Chalais for a series titled Life in Hanoi. Chalais’ interview with McCain III was aired in Europe.

Vietnamese doctors operated on McCain’s Leg in early December, 1967.

Six weeks after he was shot down, McCain was taken from the hospital and delivered to a U.S. POW camp.

In May of 1968, McCain III allowed himself to be interviewed by two North Vietnamese
generals at separate times.”

May 14, 1973 article written by former POW John McCain.

In August 1968, other POWs learned for the first time that John McCain III had been taken prisoner.

On June 5, 1969, the New York Daily News reported in a article headlined Reds Say PW
Songbird Is Pilot Son of Admiral, “ . . . Hanoi has aired a broadcast in which the pilot son of United States Commander in the Pacific, Adm. John McCain, purportedly admits to having bombed civilian targets in North Vietnam and praises medical treatment he has received since being taken prisoner . . .” The Washington Post explained McCain III’s broadcast: “The English-Language broadcast beamed at South Vietnam was one of a series using American prisoners. It was in response to a plea by Defense Secretary Melvin S. Laird, May 19, that North Vietnam treat prisoners according to the humanitarian standards set forth by the Geneva Convention.”

In 1970, McCain III agreed to an interview with Dr. Fernando Barral, a Spanish psychiatrist who was living in Cuba at the time.

The meeting between Barral and McCain III (which was photographed by the Vietnamese)
took place away from the prison at the office of the Committee for Foreign Cultural Relations in Hanoi (declassified government document).

During the meeting, POW McCain sipped coffee and ate oranges and cakes with the Cuban.

While talking with Barral, McCain III further seriously violated the military Code of Conduct by failing to evade answering questions ”to the utmost of his ability” when he, according government documents, helped Barral by answering questions in Spanish, a language McCain had learned in school. The interview was published in the in January 1970.

McCain III was released from North Vietnam March 15, 1973.

In 1993, during one of his many trips back to Hanoi, McCain asked the Vietnamese not to make public any records they hold pertaining to returned U.S. POWs. McCain III claims, that while a POW, he tried to kill himself.

McCain III was awarded “medals for valor” equal to nearly a medal-and-a-half for each
hour he spent in combat.

For 23 combat missions (an estimated 20 hours over enemy territory), the U.S. Navy awarded McCain III, the son of famous admirals, a Silver Star, a Legion of Merit for Valor, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Stars, two Commendation medals plus two Purple Hearts and a dozen service medals.

“McCain had roughly 20 hours in combat,” explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and former chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs -- the first official U.S. representative in Vietnam since the 1973 fall of Saigon.

“Since McCain got 28 medals,” Bell continued, “that equals to about a medal-and-a-half for each hour he spent in combat. There were infantry guys -- grunts on the ground -- who had more than 7,000 hours in combat and I can tell you that there were times and situations where I’m sure a prison cell would have looked pretty good to them by comparison. The question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down.”

For years, McCain has been an unchecked master at manipulating an overly friendly and
biased news media. The former POW turned Congressman, turned U.S. Senator, has managed to gloss over his failures as a pilot and his collaborations with the enemy to become America’s POW-hero presidential candidate.

For more information: www.againstmccain.com www.usveterandispatch.com"

VOTE!

VOTE!

No, I'm not talking about politics, silly!

I'm talking about Moxie Mama's "Ghost Post" contest!



She's been posting spooky foreplay all month so there's lots of good stuff to read.

But there are 8 entries in her Ghost Post contest. One of them is mine. All votes must be placed by midnight tomorrow, October 30.

So go to her site, dim the lights, read all the scary stories, and cast your vote for the longest one!

It's that simple!

So exercise your rights as a citizen of the blogosphere and VOTE!

It's your patriotic duty!

Damn You Dan!

REMINDER: October Blog Meat

Thursday, October 30 at
Davey's Uptown Rambler's Club
3402 Main Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64111
$10 Cover

Local blogger and burlesque star Eartha Delights (formerly teckc) announces her first burlesque production of her very own ever:

Counter Culture Militia Boob Squad presents: Operation Wicked

Starring Eartha Delights and Kiki Severe

With special guests:
Lucky DeLuxe
Annie Cherry
Honey Valentine
Kitty Von Minx
and Mia Vicious
With music from the Kansas City Hitmen

I expect all of my regular readers (yes, both of you) to show up and support local blogging, local midtown dives and local burlesque.

Beats the holy fuck out of a Power & Light District Piano Bar, I can promise you that.

Attendees are ENCOURAGED to come in the costume of their choice.



No matter how stupid you look.