THE BOTTOM-DWELLER DIVER'S BAD DAY

April 1998

Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother.

Last week I had a bad day at the office.  I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all.  Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.  This time of year the water is quite cool, even with a wetsuit.  So what we do to keep warm is this:  we have a diesel-powered industrial water heater.  This $20,000 piece of crap sucks the water out of the sea, heats it to a delightful temperature, and then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a damn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints.  What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is I take the hose and stuff it down the back of my neck.  This floods my whole suit with warm water.  It's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch.  So, of course, I scratched it.  This only made things worse.  Within a few seconds my butt started to burn.  I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done.  In agony, I realized what had happened.  The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish under a cast.  Now I'd had that hose down my back.  I don't have any hair on my back, so the jellyfish couldn't actually get stuck to my back.  My nether-region-opening, however, was not as fortunate.  When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into my butt.  I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator.  His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were laughing hysterically.  Needless to say, I aborted the dive.  It totaled thirty-five minutes before I could come to the surface for my chamber dry decompression.  I got to the surface wearing nothing but my brass helmet.  My suit and gear were tied to the bell.

When I got on board, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to shove it up my nether-region when I get in the chamber.  The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't go to the bathroom for two days because my nether-region-opening was swollen shut.

Anyway, the next time you have a bad day at the office, think of me.

Think about how much worse your day would be if you were to shove a jellyfish up your butt.  I hope you have no bad days at the office, but if you do, I hope it will make them more tolerable.

EDITOR'S NOTE:  Believe me.  The language was far more colourful, but I toned it down.  It's not like you don't get the idea!!

I think this would pretty much qualify for a career change: