Dikfore

My mother is still there. Still sitting around in cold hallways for tests. Still no answers from anyone. Still eating terrible hospital food. Still bored. Tonight will be her third night in the hospital.

While we were waiting in the ER the other day, I remembered a tale once told me by my boss. He was in the hospital for something - long before I met him - and claims to have been abandoned by the nurses. He got out of bed, marched up to the nursing station with his ass hanging out of his hospital gown, and shouted "Who do you have to fuck to get an enema around here?" I relayed this to her, thinking it might be a way to get some action, but it's not quite her style.

Enough about my mother. My boss is a major character, and we had a couple of priceless go-rounds today.

I was in his office this morning, having one of those random conversations that required several trips to the dictionary. First we had to look up "bob", to see if "plumb bob" was one of the definitions (I thought it might only be a plumb bob if the plumb preceded the bob). Then we had to look up "knurled" because he had never heard that word and the afore-mentioned plumb bob had a knurled knob on the end (actually, there were two plumb bobs on his desk - he seems to be collecting them). And then we had to look up "poofta" (or "pufta" or "poufter" or however you want to spell it). I can't remember who I was talking about, but I called someone a poofta and he claimed to have never heard the word. Given that he's been involved in dance in NYC for fifty years, and avoided the draft by claiming to be gay, I was quite surprised. And then, poofta wasn't in the dictionary we were using. I guess we should have hauled out the compact OED, but the type is too damned small.

Later, I googled it. Urban Dictionary came through with a couple of different spellings, so I printed one of the pages out to show to him. The next time I saw him, I handed him the printed page. He went immediately to the Google ad photo on the page - which I hadn't even noticed - and said to me, completely guilelessly, "What's a dick for?" I was hysterical, convulsed with laughter, and he was clueless.

You have to understand, this is a potty-mouthed man once succinctly defined as an "impish motherfucker".

After I recovered my composure, I said to him: "I don't think it's up to me to tell you what a dick is for."

Maybe he's losing his edge.