"Victim in Pain"

I was in as deep a sleep as I could possibly be in, without being buried six feet beneath the earth. But, as quickly as a two-year-old boy can fall down while running down a steep driveway, my state of bliss was over.

"Carter," Stacey said in a hushed, but strained voice.

With that one word sentence, and after a few moments of "coming to," I was awake.

Seeing my wife doubled over in the bed, clutching her midsection while her eyeballs strained against the lids which were pulled tightly shut, I somehow sensed that something was wrong. (Male intuition, baby!) With sleep still calling my name, and wishing desperately that she could somehow stomach the pain (ba-dum-dum) until morning, I instead did the only thing I could in that situation and gingerly helped Stacey downstairs and into the car so that we could make for the hospital. Keep in mind, this is a woman who has undergone natural childbirth, so to say she has phenomenal pain tolerance would be as big an understatement as saying that Katrina dropped a bit of rain on New Orleans. If she says "it hurts," don't ask questions or someone is gonna die.

Nearly ten hours and one removed gangrenous appendix later, Stacey was coming out of the anesthesia with all of the grace of a hungover co-ed on Sunday morning.

"How much do you think it weighed," she asked clumsily, referencing her erstwhile infected organ, hoping that she at least earned the benefit of losing a few pounds of unwanted weight for her suffering.

My wife, ever the comedian, was trying to make me laugh after undergoing a routine, but serious procedure. Being as I hadn't really slept in two days, and put aside my desire to sleep to get her to the hospital (whatta guy) I appreciated the gesture.

In retrospect, having appendicitis while on vacation certainly wasn't the worst way to spend a couple of days (although Stacey might disagree just a tad).

Besides, who else can say... "I had my appendix taken out on vacation, and all I got was this crappy mug."