‘til Death Do Us Part

Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.

-Groucho Marx

I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

-Woody Allen

A few days before our wedding I was dying.  Really.  Laugh away.  I was convinced I would never set foot on Italian soil for our business trip/honeymoon.  I would undoubtedly clutch my chest and crumble to the ground, all the while watching the wedding ring roll across the floor in a grainy, black-and-white, slow-motion like a scene from an Orson Wells movie before I could croak out, “I do.”

The phone call to future wife went something like this. Or at least how I choose to remember it.

Bonnie:  Hi, Babe.  What’s up?

Ken:  We need to talk.

Bonnie:  What?

Ken:  I’m dying.  I won’t live to see Milan.

Bonnie: (Crickets)

Ken:  Don’t weep for me.  Just start a home for abandoned hamsters in my name.

Well, it went something like that.  Bonnie agreed to meet me after work, (so much for compassion), picked me up and we went to the doctor.  Luckily, I was still alive by the time we arrived at the office. 

After checking my blood pressure and pulse, I was weighed and measured (for undertaker’s purposes, I surmised) and invited to spend some time alone in a cold drawer… er…room, waiting for the doctor.

Side Note: Doctor’s visits are like Disneyland, where you’re convinced you're near the ride until you reach the corner and discover something constructed by the same sadists that designed rat mazes.  Only at the doctor’s office they shuttle you from room to room and you don’t get cheese.

After a wait that seemed no shorter than showing up at DMV without an appointment, a female doctor (who could have played Gidget if they rebooted it today) entered.

Doctor Gidget:  What seems to be the problem?

Ken:  Holy minestrone, I’m dying. (All right, the Gidget quote wasn’t in there, but I wanted to say it.)

Bonnie:  He’s not dying.  We’re getting married.

Ken:  She’s an optimist, not a doctor.

Let’s cut to the chase.  She checked my heart and lungs (both still there) and then pronounced me fit, and free to get married.

Ken:  It’s not that I don’t believe you, but is there anything else you can check?

Bonnie:  Stop.  You’re not dying.  We already paid for the trip.

Ken:  You can carry me in one of those urns, but not a fancy one.  Something plain, in blue…  I’ve always looked good in blue.

Bonnie looks at the doctor and shakes her head.

Doctor Gidget:  We can do an EKG (My first thought was Electrocute Kenneth Goorabian, but that’s how my mind works) if you like.

Ken:  How much will that cost?

Okay, I was in for $80 so far and dying or not, I am a freelancer.

Doctor Gidget:  $60

Ken:  Let’s do it. If I’m dying who cares about the bill.

Bonnie: (Gives me a look that would scare a terrorist off a plane.)

After a few minutes, the doctor came back with the results.

Ken:  How much time do I have?

Bonnie:  Oh, my gosh.

Ken:  I just bought these shoes.  I want to get some wear out of them.

Funny how the mind works.  Apparently, it was a simple panic attack due to my already-existing generalized anxiety, the wedding, the trip abroad, moving, yada, yada, yada.  The doctor presented me with my first Xanax prescription.

Lesson I learned:

I’ve seen my share of doctor shows, so I knew what an EKG was, but was not so happy when I came out looking like a dog with mange after they hacked away my chest hairs to attach the electrodes.  My chest looked like a smiley face.  If I had to do it all over again, I would visit both a tanning and waxing salon before submitting myself to this procedure.  I really want to look better as a corpse.

Kenneth Goorabian

www.kennethgoorabian.blogspot.com

Quirks, Quarks and Quotes

I'm no Einstein.

-Albert Einstein

My wife refuses to acknowledge expiration dates on food. She would eat a week-old dead possum as long as it wasn’t pink inside and she had some A-1. I, on the other hand, have a hard time eating yogurt that still has a few good days left before retirement. I know this is silly. It’s already spoiled milk, right?  How much more rotten can it get?

We both have our quirks. She loves mangos, papaya, kiwis. I consider any fruit that hasn’t been cubed, drowned in syrup, canned and labeled “cocktail” some sort of alien life form.  She doesn’t appreciate slightly ajar cupboards, drawers or open closet doors. Some childhood Boogeyman thing maybe? Not sure on this. I’m positive I close them… most of the time. She says I don’t. I’ve decided we must have a poltergeist because I’m also missing some socks.

I think it’s great that we are different. She watches Dancing with the Stars and occasionally I watch it with her. I do this so she will watch the shows I like which revolve around bubble theory, quarks and quantum physics. Unless Heidi Klum is on. Project Runway trumps the string theory any day.  Quizzically, she also loves Moonshiners. I don’t get shows where subtitles are required for people speaking English. Okay, I did like Honey Boo Boo so there are always exceptions.

Being around someone who likes everything I do would get on my nerves after a while. I mean really, I don’t even like myself most of the time. My wife has opened so many new doors for me. Encouraged (forced in some cases) me to crawl out of the box and if not smell the roses, at least point at them from across the street. She took me to Italy with her as a piggyback honeymoon/work trip. It was one of the best experiences of my life. Only had two or three panic attacks the whole trip and she didn’t have to chase me down even once. Ah, the memories.

Who’d have thought the fourth (yikes, guess I’m a slow learner) trip down the aisle would be the one. Finding your sole mate (little pun ‘cause we both love shoes) is magical. Quite frankly I thought it was a load of Hollywood hooey, but what do I know. I though Arnold Schwarzenegger was a good actor.

K.G.

Traveling With K.G.

Ciao cyber-pals. How’s life treating you? Today’s topic is traveling, and I don’t mean from the La-Z-Boy to the fridge.

Who doesn’t like to travel; explore faraway places, eat exotic food, use long forgotten math skills to figure out how many pairs of underwear are necessary? I mean really, don’t want to get caught short (pun so intended).

Just returned from an awesome trip to Italy recently; Rome and Milan respectively. I believe these are the only places on earth without a Starbucks on every corner. Of course, there are coffee bars every five feet, so having caffeine withdrawals is not likely. The Italians are so much worse than us. We won’t drive more than a block to get our morning fix, and they won’t walk more than a few feet. Probably because they have cooler shoes and don't want to wear them out.

The Coliseum was… well…colossal. An ingenious feat of human imagination and engineering, I must say. So how come all the streets are uneven cobblestones? Does it take a genius to make a flat road? Just asking.

Oh, and I took my first trip through that naked camera thing at the airport. What the heck are the requirements for that job? Good eyesight and a strong stomach I think.

More on my trip later.

K.G.