Crazy Ass Planet

For reasons I never understood, one of my father’s expressions was, inexplicably, “Ah, go take a shit in your hat!” I never knew what it meant. I suspect it was just his way of telling someone to piss off.

How was I to know there actually were such things as shit hats?

There are. I got one of my own when I was sick many years ago. I don’t know what I had, some bacteriological nightmare I acquired from eating the wrong thing. Imagine having a flu of the expulsive sort. And now imagine it times ten or so.

For several days I was a shit and vomit festival. I remember at one time literally being naked and in a foetal position on the living room floor, afraid to move for fear it would start up again. You know those times when you’re so sick and you manage to find a moment when it abates – you don’t care where you are or what you look like – you’re just grateful for that moment of cessation? That’s what this was.

It was not good, as this had gone on for a few days. Not only could I not eat, I could not so much as sip water without starting up the whole ugly business again. And when there is nothing left in you to expel, but your body keeps wanting to … well, it’s just not good.

Anyway, I don’t recall how it transpired but I eventually ended up at the Emergency at the University of Alberta Hospital. As it turned out, I was so dehydrated they had to put me in a bed and hook me up to IVs, where I remained for about five hours.

I eventually stabilized. This was quite a while ago, so I don’t remember what they gave me or how I took it without exploding again. Maybe I improved somewhat simply because they had given me fluids. Whatever the reason, they finally sent me home, but …

Enter the shit hat

They needed a stool sample but, recognizing that wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon, they gave me instructions on what they needed (a stool sample), a small container to place it in and, wonder of wonders, a shit hat.

Okay, so it wasn’t a hat but it looked like one. It was this plastic thing you put over a toilet seat. In the centre, there was a netted cup-like area for the, umm, waste to drop into. Anyone who has ever had to provide a stool sample will know this is an excellent device. Try getting a stool sample without one – and without getting yourself covered in shit.

My problems began as my health improved. There were certain things they had not told me (or, if they did, I was so out of it I didn’t remember). For example, what do you do with the shit hat when you’re done? Clean it? How? And where do I take the stool sample?

I won’t describe cleaning the shit hat – let’s just say I managed. I’ll just jump ahead and say I went back to the hospital with a little bag containing the cleaned shit hat and the stool. I went back to the Emergency, which seemed logical since they were the ones who had told me what was needed and had given me the instructions etc.

Still shaky with the illness, though much improved, I entered and walked up to the desk. I lifted my little bag.

“Yes?”

“I’ve got the stool sample,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The stool sample. You said you needed it. Well, the doctor did.”

The woman at the desk looked as if I had asked her to taste it.

“This is Emergency. We don’t do that here.”

“Where should I take it?”

“Try the main information desk. Through there.”

And off I was on my quest to find someone who would accept my bag of shit.

At the information desk, they looked horrified. Shit? We don’t want no stinkin’ shit!

So where do I take it? He didn’t know. He just pointed and said something like, “Try them.”

And I did. I tried everyone. I went like a lost waif, my little bag of shit held out before me, from floor to floor, department to department, up elevators and down.

“Can I give you my …?”

“NO! Try the Macro (insert unpronounceable medical term). They might take it.”

Of course, they said, “NO! Try the Micro (insert unpronounceable medical term). They might take it.”

High and low I tramped. Mothers would protectively pull their children aside as they passed by because they had overheard me with the desk people and wanted no part of me and my shit touching their little Johnny or Esmeralda.

I spent the entire freakin’ morning wandering the halls of the University of Alberta Hospital trying to find someone to please take my shit. Geez, you’re the ones who asked for it, after all!

Eventually, I did find someone who accepted my parcel – reluctantly, with scrunched face and head tilted slightly away. But they were having nothing of the shit hat!

“Don’t you know? You’re supposed to throw it away.”

No, I didn’t know. I thought I was supposed to return it. You mean, I hunkered down and cleaned it of all that shit for nothing?

Apparently.

Where my stool sample eventually wound up, I’ll never know. No pun intended, but I figure it’s lost in the bowels of the U. of A. now, no one willing to touch the damn thing. (Not that I blame them.)

As far as I’ve been able to determine, and as this sad tale demonstrates, life is largely characterized by shit, confusion and series of absurd humiliations. It’s essentially a slapstick affair.

Tag: Shit hat, How to become an idiot