Admittedly, story has a few holes in it

As part of The Spokesman-Review’s ongoing commitment to excellence, this column has been absent since the first of May.

Actually, I went on sabbatical to finish a book. And I didn’t just read one. I wrote one, too.

Anyway, I had vowed to return in August, but in violation of my own longstanding policy, I stupidly finished before deadline. As punishment, I was forced to return to work early, which is why this column is back, leeching valuable space away from the RV column.

Yet I must fulfill the promise I made more than two months ago, which was to return with an action-packed account of “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.”

Like most long-suffering wage-slaves, I dreamed that my three months of freedom would be filled with travel, adventure and nonstop, giddy fun.

Instead, it more or less consisted of this:

Wake up. Write book. Walk dog. Write book. Go to bed. Repeat. (This was a biography of the late Spokane civil rights attorney Carl Maxey, a man who experienced seven extremely busy decades.)

I did find time to do a couple of fun things. I went fishing once. I went to a Mariners game. A surgeon punched three holes in my abdomen and removed some of my innards.

Oh, yeah, that’s right, I did do something exciting. I had an appendectomy. That was the day in which I altered the routine so that it went: Wake up. Write book. Have major abdominal surgery. Have lunch. Write book.

Having an appendectomy these days is approximately as traumatic as having a dental checkup. I had what is called a laparoscopic appendectomy – or a “lappie appie,” as I so hilariously called it while under the influence of Vicodin.

A laparoscopic procedure is a modern way of performing surgery in which the surgeon makes three holes in selected locations around your spare tire and then inserts little cameras, tweezers, Swingline office staplers and Roto-Rooter equipment.

Then he films a scenic documentary of your large intestine, after which he snips off your appendix and yanks it out, preferably through one of your three new holes. Then he Scotch-tapes each of your holes and sends you home.

(I am unclear about the exact details, since I was dreaming about talking Sicilian marmosets the entire time.)

I didn’t even have to spend a night in the hospital, or even lunchtime. I had the surgery at 10:30 a.m., was awake by 12:30 p.m. and was home by 1:30 eating yogurt.

I experienced only moderate discomfort the next few days, as if someone had punched three holes in my stomach and toyed brazenly with my cecum. By the end of two weeks I was more or less back to normal, although I did experience a brief mourning period for my lost appendix, which has been with me since childhood.

I asked to have my appendix returned to me as a souvenir of good times, but the medical industry has taken all of the fun out of internal organ removal by classifying my appendix as a biohazard, as if it were so much monkey pox. I also asked for the appendix stone, the root cause of my lappie appie, but that request was vetoed on the grounds that an appendix stone is disgusting.

When I came back to work somebody asked me how it all went. Of course, I took the opportunity to engage in gross overdramatization.

“It was agony,” I said. “Every morning, I felt as if my guts had been ripped out anew. I was sweating and exhausted every day by lunchtime. Yet even more debilitating was the emotional pain, the feelings of despair and worthlessness.”

“What are you talking about?” said my friend. “I thought your appendectomy was a breeze.”

“Oh. Never mind. I meant writing a book.”