by Jerry Nelson
“Okay, son, this morning I would like you to integrate the equine power units with the solid waste disposal apparatus.”
“You mean you want me to hitch the horses to the manure spreader? Why?”
“Because you have been tasked with the oversight of the Solid Waste Management Team at the Juvenile Bovine Detention Facility.”
“What?! I gotta clean the calf pens AGAIN? It’s Wally’s turn this week!”
“Your brother has opted to take a day of personal leave in accordance with stipulations in his employment contract.”
“That slacker! I’ll get him for this!”
“Please. Any interemployee disputes should be referred to the Head of Employee Grievance Services at the Human Resources Department.”
“You mean Mom?”
“Um . . . Yes.”
“Can’t you help with the calf pen, Dad?”
“Sorry, but my schedule is already full. Due to the restructuring of the Dairy Products Production and Procurement Division, Alice’s position is being eliminated.”
“What? You can’t sell her! Alice is my favorite cow!”
“It’s a done deal. The Board of Directors decided—”
“You mean you and Mom?”
“Yes. The Board determined that Alice has consistently failed to meet production standards and has been noncompliant with corporate policy of utilizing synergism as a modality for achieving the company’s objective of increasing employee cooperation.”
“You mean you’re gonna sell her because she’s ornery and doesn’t give much milk?”
“Yes. It is regretful, but we must do what we can to fulfill our Mission Statement, which adopted the goal of increasing our equity position. We gave Alice a bon voyage party last night, and the CEO—”
“You mean Mom?”
“Yes. The CEO gave a moving speech praising Alice for her years of faithful service and, at the end, presented Alice with a handsome Certificate of Appreciation that is suitable for framing. I also made a small speech and presented Alice with an ear of corn as a token of my esteem. Alice seemed to enjoy the festivities . . . Well, she liked the ear of corn anyway. I’m surprised you weren’t there, son. I sent you a memo.”
“If I read all your memos, I wouldn’t have time for anything else.” The boy wipes a tear from his eye. “I’m gonna miss old Alice.”
“There, there, son. If you like, you could visit our Employee Psychological Counseling Representative at the Human Resources Department—”
“You mean Mom?”
“Yes. But first, be sure to fill out Form HR 876—in triplicate, of course. One copy goes to Human Resources, one you keep, and one will go into your permanent file at the Bureau of Employee Records.”
“Naw, I think I’ll pass. All I really need is one of Mom’s chocolate chip cookies.”
“Fine, but be sure to remove all hydrokinetically adhered organic and inorganic compounds from your footwear before entering the residential facility. I don’t want any more acrimonious memos from the Assistant Supervisor of Janitorial Services.”
“You mean sis gets mad about me tracking in mud?”
“Yes. By the way, Dilbert, what’s the anticipated time line for moving forward with that calf pen project?”
“I’ll have to get back to you about that situation, Dad. I’ll be sure to send you a memo.” •
A Lesson in Organic Chemistry
It was a hot summer Sunday and I was rushing through morning chores at the hundred-cow dairy my wife and I operated in partnership with my parents. I had made plans to meet my wife and our two young sons at the arts festival in Brookings and didn’t want to be late.
While scraping the barn alleys with the skid loader, I saw that the manure pump had plugged. This would mean an annoying delay. Our cows were free to wander the alleyways of our dairy barn, and we used our skid loader, a smallish tractor-like machine, to daily push their dung into an underground manure pit. A tractor-powered pump was then used to move the manure to a nearby earthen basin for longer-term storage.
There were two ways to unplug the pump. The right way involved hoisting the pump from the manure pit with a front end loader, but that would cost a huge chunk of time. Then there was the quick and dirty method, which involved climbing down into the manure pit and using a spud bar to clear the slug. I chose the quick and dirty route.
I had descended into the pit and begun to slam out the slug when I felt woozy. “It’s the gas!” I thought and began hurrying out of the pit.
I nearly made it. I was almost to the top; I could see the blue sky and could hear our John Deere 4020 tractor idling. Then the world faded to black.
The pit had contained hydrogen sulfide gas, also known as H2S. Hydrogen sulfide combines with oxygen in the lungs to become H2SO4, or sulfuric acid. This powerful corrosive strips away the lining of the lungs, causing victims of H2S to drown in their own bodily fluids.
My parents wondered why I hadn’t yet left the barn. They investigated and found me floating faceup in the manure pit. The first responders were summoned, and my unconscious body was hauled from the pit. No one could find my pulse. I wasn’t breathing. An ambulance soon arrived, and its crew immediately began to administer CPR. The EMTs intubated me and used a bag to make me breathe.
I was rushed to a local hospital. One of the first responders was eventually able to locate my wife and alerted her to the situation.
The doctor who worked on me in the ER told my family that my condition was extremely serious and that I would likely pass away soon. My wife found that unacceptable and demanded that I be transferred to a larger hospital. After she was told in no uncertain terms that there was no hope, her request was fulfilled.
A team of doctors worked on me at the larger hospital. After I was stabilized, my family was informed that I had a fifty-fifty chance of survival—if I made it through the next week.
At the end of my first week in the hospital, it suddenly became almost impossible for me to breathe. This despite the fact that I was still intubated and was hooked up to a state-of-the-art ventilator. Try as it might, the ventilator could no longer push air into my lungs. It was theorized that my lungs were swelling due to their severe injury and that nothing more could be done. My wife was told to call in the family to say their final good-byes.
She instead asked the physician to consult with the Mayo Clinic. The doctors there suggested an endoscopic examination of my lungs. This was done, and it was found that blood clots were plugging my bronchial tubes. The clots were removed. I could breathe again.
My condition improved slowly but steadily and I was able to walk out of the hospital five weeks after being helicoptered in. The only residual effect is a reduction of my peripheral vision due to the death of some cells in my brain’s vision center.
I think about my accident every day. I’m reminded of it every time I swallow and feel the tug of my tracheotomy scar.
I am grateful for each new sunrise. I know full well that I would be pushing daisies were it not for my dear wife’s stubbornness and the help of many good people.
A few days ago, I was digging in the cupboard, looking for something or other, when I ran across an item that caused me to totally forget what I was looking for.
The artifact was an old medical report, a paper monument to my manure pit accident. The records document my long and complicated process of recovery, much of which I don’t recall thanks to anoxia and large doses of narcotics. I received so much morphine during my month in intensive care that I became addicted.
The few and faulty memories I have of my hospital stay are the reason my wife obtained the copy of my medical records. Otherwise, I might deny that it happened and claim that she and my family had invented it all as part of some kind of mind-messing conspiracy.
One of the first items that jumps out from the front page of my
medical report is the word “Pavulonized.” Pavulon is a drug that is used to totally immobilize a person. Which figures, as the word “combative” appears in the same sentence. Apparently, I was a very bad boy.
Another term that is prevalent throughout the report is ARDS, which is the abbreviation for Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Inhaling hydrogen sulfide and manure has a tendency to earn a person that particular acronym. Survival is iffy at best, as proven by the attending physician ending the first page with “Prognosis is guarded at this time.”
My medical report is shot through with a hodgepodge of weird, unpronounceable medical jargon. Words like “encephalopathy” (they were worried about brain damage) and “febrile” (I had a fever) and “pneumothorax” (my right lung had collapsed).
The report also contains excruciating details regarding my tracheotomy operation. If the sentence “The thyroid gland was mobilized upward somewhat and a tracheal elevator was placed in the second ring to elevate the trachea” doesn’t give you the willies, nothing will.
Another fun-sounding procedure was the installation of a Swan-Ganz catheter: “Using the Seldinger technique, the arrow introducer kit was placed without difficulty in the right subclavian vein.”
Other assorted terms that leap out from the pages: Radionuclide. Staph aureus. Diffuse nodular infiltrates. Acute pulmonary failure. Cerebral ischemia.
The report paints a picture of someone who escaped death by the skin of his teeth. It is a monument to the miracles of modern medicine and to my wife, who kept her wits about her and kept after the doctors to ensure that every one of those miracles was made available to me. It also paints a portrait of a guy who should be grateful for every single day he spends walking around aboveground. Which I most certainly am. As an old farmer neighbor of mine remarked, “You’re the only guy I know who could fall into a hole filled with crap and come out smelling like a rose!” I couldn’t argue with that. •
You Stinker!
The moniker “stinker” has been applied to me for nearly as long as I can remember.
It started out as a term of endearment. Back when I was but a wee lad, phrases such as “What has that little stinker gotten himself into now?” and “How did that stinker manage to sneak a baby pig into the house?” were often uttered with an air of amused affection.
As time marched on this gradually changed. Gone was the tone of amusement, replaced by the distinct aroma of annoyance.
“Why do you have to be such a stinker?” was pretty much shouted at me one day when I was twelve and it was discovered that my little sisters’ dolls had been kidnapped. A cut-and-pasted ransom note demanding that these sisters’ desserts be donated to me in order to secure the dolls’ safe release was ascribed to me. Unjustly so, I might add. As I pointed out at the time, all the so-called evidence was circumstantial.
By the time I entered high school, “stinker” had taken on a decidedly sinister connotation. I frequently heard the word hooted behind me as I walked down the hall between classes. I often wondered who they were talking about and felt sorry for the poor slob, whoever he or she may have been.
It sure couldn’t have been me. It’s true, sharing a single bathroom with seven siblings made it impossible to bathe every day. But I always cleaned myself as best I could during the few minutes between the end of milking and the arrival of the school bus.
A few years after I began dairy farming on my own, I was fortunate enough to acquire a wife. Unfortunately, she was a city girl and hence unaccustomed to the earthy fragrances associated with bovine waste emissions.
She would often wrinkle her nose at the aromas I dragged into the house on my coveralls. “Don’t you smell that?” she would exclaim.
Taking a deep breath, I would reply, “I sure do. Smells like money!”
My wife frequently hinted that such odors didn’t belong in our house. She suggested that I install a laundry, and perhaps even a shower, down in the barn. And while I was at it, I could just as well add sleeping and cooking facilities. There would thus be no need for me to ever leave the barn, she said, and she could visit me on special occasions, such as Election Day and Leap Year Day.
My dairy farming days are now behind me, but I again recently found myself struggling with a smelly situation.
The car I drive for work purposes was previously used by a dog owner. This in and of itself is not an issue. The problem is that this person thought so much of his or her pooch that he or she couldn’t bear to leave the dog at home. Fido must have ridden along on a regular basis, because I am exposed to a very potent dose of doggie odor whenever I drive. I like dogs as much as the next person; the problem is, the next person might not like dogs at all, or might even be allergic.
I have tried numerous fixes for this problem. I have cleaned the carpets and the seats, but to no avail. I have even purchased those tractor cab freshener pouches, assuming that a product that can eradicate the aroma of diesel smoke ought to be able to handle a little dog stink. No dice.
My wife advised me to try a particular odor-eliminating product. I won’t say what brand it is, but will tell you that its name sounds a lot like “fur breeze.” Which suits me just fine, since I’m sort of a furry guy, who enjoys the feel of wind in my, um, hair.
So I tried that fur breeze substance and finally succeeded in stifling the stench of dog in the car. I found, however, that in order to fully do so, I also had to spray some fur breeze into the air vent inlet. I have no idea how the car’s previous driver managed to get his or her dog up into the car’s air vent inlet, nor do I want to know.
If only I’d learned about this fur breeze stuff back when I was a newlywed! I bet I could have cut back to maybe one bath per month.
There is a group of people who are disdained for the way they smell. Not so much for the methods they use to smell, but more for the aromas they exude.
This downtrodden demographic is commonly known as “guys.” The subgroup of this demographic that suffers the most is known as “husbands.”
Let’s face it: Women have a much more acute sense of smell than men. Females can detect a single malodorous molecule at a hundred paces. Guys, on the other hand, can’t tell if a baby needs changing until the diaper’s odor has become strong enough to stop a charging water buffalo. This is just one reason why women are generally better mothers than men.
It’s nearly always news to a guy when his wife informs him that he stinks.
Skillful husbands can intuit when their impending personal odors might be offensive to the female olfactory system. As such, many husbands have perfected the tactic that is known universally as “silent but deadly.”
“Oh my Lord!” a wife may suddenly exclaim in the middle of a gripping episode of Better Call Saul. “What did you eat? Week-old roadkill?”
“What?” the husband might protest. “I don’t smell anything. It was the dog.”
“We don’t have a dog.”
This is why the marriages that last the longest are those that involve household pets.
Foot odor has long been my personal albatross. Taking my clodhoppers off at the end of a long, hot day could empty the house. It was often broadly hinted that my socks would qualify as an EPA Superfund site. I, on the other hand, didn’t think that my feet smelled all that bad. But then again, that’s also how I feel about lutefisk, a traditional Scandinavian treat that’s made by steeping cod in lye. This gives the fish a particular odor that has elicited responses from my wife that have included “Oh my God, what reeks?” and “I think I’m going to be sick!” Which just proves that some people have no taste.
Once, when I was a teenager, I acquired a blazing case of athlete’s foot. The simple act of removing my boots and peeling away my socks was pure agony.
A search of the medicine cabinet yielded a small bottle of a liquid athlete’s foot remedy. Ignorant regarding such things, I doused my toes with a generous
squirt of the stuff. I was later told that my bellowing could be heard several miles away.
I shared this tale of woe with an uncle, who replied that he obtained a wicked form of athlete’s foot while serving in the Merchant Marines. Upon returning home to the farm, he was able to cure the malady only after he cut the toes off his boots, thus exposing his tootsies to fresh air and sunshine. He was a tough guy, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had done this in the dead of winter.
Then there is the issue of BO. This can be a tricky topic, as there are no objective standards regarding what passes for “a little funky” and what constitutes “a stink that would scour the rust off a plowshare.”
For instance, I was recently yakking with an elderly bachelor dairy farmer when he asked if I could give him a lift to his pickup, which sat on the headland of a nearby field. I said of course.
He climbed into the car, and the air instantly filled with the choking aromas of dried dairy cow manure, diesel fumes, and old-guy BO. These odors intermingled with a level of bad breath that can only be obtained by washing down a cud of smokeless tobacco with a quart of stale coffee. I rolled my window down as we bumped our way to the field.
“Something wrong with your eyes?” asked the old guy.
“Must have got some dust in them,” I replied as I gulped fresh air.
“Well, they sure are watering a lot. You should probably get that checked out.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” I said, between deep tokes of outside air, “what’s up with that car air freshener hanging from the back of your cap?”
“That’s to keep the skeeters away. Might look silly, but it works pretty darn good!”
“What about the smell?”
“That there’s a bonus feature. Wearing a air freshener all the time cuts way down on body odors. I bet I take only half as many baths!”
