True Story: Brian is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers out
of Louisiana and performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs.
Below is an e-mail he sent to his sister.
She sent it to Laughline and won the contest (he wasn't thrilled with her
for that one). Anyway, anytime you think you have had a bad day at the
office, remember this guy.
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 toejam sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful
temp. It 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 bellybutton started to itch.
So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few
seconds my bellybutton 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 and pumped it into my suit. This is even worse than
the poison ivy you once had under a cast. Now I had that hose down my back. I don't have any hair on my back, so the jellyfish couldn't get stuck to my back. My bellybutton crack
was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was
actually grinding the jellyfish into my ass. I informed the dive supervisor of my
dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the
fact that he, along with 5 other divers, were laughing hysterically. Needless
to say, I aborted the dive. It totaled 35 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 ass" when I get
in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't toejam for two days because my
amazinhunk 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 ass.
I hope you have no bad days at the office.
But if you do, I hope this will make it more tolerable.
_____________________________
___________
Old but funny, tryin to brighten a gloomy O'Club
Eagler
