I smiled. “She was pretty nervous last night, but she calmed down when they told her it was my gall bladder. I sent her away, since she was driving me batty. She’ll be back with the kids sometime tonight.”
We chatted a bit more, but not of anything too important. After that, they left, and I watched some news and napped until dinner. Not that I got any dinner. Charlie, the wiseass, told me about the delicious lunch he had dined on, and how he was taking the girls out later for dinner. Then he asked, just in passing of course, not that he had any worries, what were my plans for the recliner back in Hereford. Marilyn and his sisters dutifully slugged him. After that, he took the girls out, and Marilyn stayed with me until visitor’s hours were over, and then she told me she’d see me in the morning. I went to sleep hungry.
The next morning, the doctors waited until Marilyn showed up. She told me that the Vice President was going to be an Acting President while I was in surgery, and I simply replied that he shouldn’t get too comfortable in my swivel chair. Twenty years ago, they would have had to cut me open and leave me with a big zipper. Now, with laparoscopic techniques, I would get a few holes and they’d stick robot arms in through them. I would be walking by that afternoon. It really is mind-boggling when you think about it. I signed a bunch of waivers, and then they began loading me up with some happy juice. They had me count backwards from 100; “100… 99…” Zzzzzzz! I was out like a light!
I stayed there until the next afternoon, and only managed to escape when I promised I would stay in the Residence and not sneak down to my office. Out in the real world, they would send you home the next morning, or sooner if they could get away with it. When Marilyn had her gall bladder removed a few years after I did, she was sent packing the same day, and she damn near collapsed just walking into our house. Hell of a system! When I left the hospital, there must have been a hundred reporters and photographers outside in the cold, waiting for me to die on camera. I simply walked out the door, shook a few hands, waved, and took off. We already had issued a statement where I was praising everybody and their brother at the hospital. Since the gall bladder attack had occurred on a Monday, and I wasn’t released until Thursday, I basically took the rest of the week and weekend off. The White House Residence staff, and a lot of the West Wing staffers came out and greeted me when I got back, and I made sure to thank them all. Then it was up to the Residence, so I could get something decent to eat.
The kids were there to see me come home. The girls fluttered around offering help and pillows and iced tea and everything else. That lasted all of five minutes, and then they kissed me on the cheek and went back to College Park. I’m not sure Charlie lasted that long. He gave me the latest on his motocross plans, and then took off. I went into the bedroom, where I was going to get some bed rest on a real bed, without any tubes sticking out of me. Stormy jumped up on the bed with me and tried to push me around, which hurt some, but I pushed her off me as needed. Marilyn made me a late lunch of a ham and cheese sandwich, which really hit the spot. Then she asked, “How are you feeling. Can I get you anything else?”
I smiled and a wicked thought came through my brain. “Well, now that you mention it… Remember Monday night, when this all started, what you were up to then?”
“What? I have no idea… CARL! You are a dirty old man!”
I laughed as her face lit up. “No, I am a dirty middle aged man. Big difference.”
“Forget it! You are on bed rest, remember? Besides, the doctors told me that you couldn’t move around much, and that was definitely out!”
I wagged my index finger at her. “Now that is a lie, and I can prove it!”
“How?”
“Because if you had actually talked about that sort of thing with a doctor, your face would have turned so red they would have admitted you to the hospital, too!”
Marilyn turned beet red at that, and sputtered, “You think you’re so smart!”
I just lounged back on the bed, and waggled my eyebrows at her. My wife simply rolled her eyes, but then smiled and sat down on the bed. “Stormy, get lost!” She pushed the dog off the bed, and Stormy wandered out of the room. “If you start bleeding and pop your stitches, I am going to let you tell Doctor Tubb!” She began to undo my pants.
“I’ll just tell him how insatiable and needy and demanding you were.”
“Now who’s the liar!” Marilyn pulled my pants down, and then tugged my briefs off, and began to stroke me fully erect. “Are you sure about this?”
“I am now! How about a blowjob, and let’s see how that goes.”
She snorted in derision at me, but then smiled and bent over. I wrapped my hands in Marilyn’s hair as she sucked me off, and she did a pretty nice job. I kept her in place, and when my hips started bucking upwards into her mouth, I decided I wanted to finish off this way. I just was whispering for her to keep going, and she began sucking harder, until I exploded.
Afterwards, I sighed happily. Marilyn smirked and asked, “Is that what you had in mind?”
“Honey, you know that a positive mental attitude is important to the recovery of the patient!”
“You are still full of shit!” Marilyn tossed me my pants and I pulled them on and took a nap. For the next few days, she had to be the one on top, but I do admit, my mental attitude stayed positive.
Chapter 156: Swift Boats
Monday morning I declared myself healed enough to go back to work. I was still sore, and still had some bandages over the sutures, but I was healing a whole lot faster than if I had gotten the big zipper. Monday morning I fronted the Daily Press Briefing. This proved an exercise in silliness.
For one thing, various assorted conspiracy theorists and websites were reporting that I was now dead, after suffering an aneurysm, and that the CIA had managed to clone me and were controlling me. At the same time, several of the cable channels played the movie Dave, where Kevin Kline played both a ruthless and corrupt President and his doppelganger, a mild-mannered owner of a temp agency who moonlighted doing impersonations for local ad agencies and TV stations and was hired by the Chief of Staff to fill in for the President when he suffered a stroke. Hilarity and drama ensue, and Dave Kovic, the impersonator, ends up making out with Sigourney Weaver, which isn’t all that bad a deal when you think about it.
I simply went out to the podium, thanked everybody for their concern and prayers, and repeated Mark Twain’s line about ‘the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.’ I also told them that my name really was Carl Buckman, and not Dave Kovic, and that I hadn’t been cloned, both of which got some more laughs. There were a few questions about my general health, but I had already had several doctors report my overall health was excellent, and that aside from my bum knee I was in excellent heath for a man of my age. It would be a couple of weeks before I would be able to begin my workouts again, and another couple of weeks after that before I would be able to get back to martial arts. As for my work schedule, I would take it a little easy for a couple of days, but it was expected I would be back in my regular schedule by the end of the week.
Meanwhile, while I spent my time recovering, most of the Democrats running for President were gone by the end of February, when it became painfully obvious that they had even less of a chance with the Democratic Party than I did! In theory, this is the time when the populace learns about the candidates and how they react to the stress and strain of a high pressure situation. In reality, you watch this and you just know there has to be a better way! In a very short time it was down to a few front runners. John Kerry was the favorite, with the most money and the most backers. John Edwards was a strong second, with good looks, a winning smile, and a wife who was bravely battling cancer but standing by his side. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember whether he was going to have zipper problems in 2004 or 2008 and totally self-destruct in the process. Joe Lieberman was going nowhere, but was hanging in there for the moment. Howard Dean was another strong contender, with some interesting ideas and a huge youth turnout and Internet presence.