The dear old system must bear the brunt
Of a Hollywood-type publicity stunt;
I’ve failed before, with showy capers,
But this, tonite should make the papers;
For I, today, am the operatee!
Bring on your old appendectomy;
What if it sounds like hectomy?
Yes, go ahead, remove my tonsil–
If I can’t pay, my uncles and aunts’ll.
Outside of certain notorious flops,
The doctors I have are really tops.
From their operations in ’35,
Hardly a man is now alive;
However, from those of ’37
They might dig up ten or ‘leven.
The nurse says, “Here, you muthn’t thheeth, thir,
You’re about to take thith nathty ether.”
A train approaches suddenly–
And makes a wreck of mental me.
Bring your scalpels, saws and knives–
We shall look into sundry dives:
We’ve got to peek at my pesky bladder;
Gall is bad, but stones are sadder.
We’ll peer, while in there, at my liver,
And weigh it and prod it and watch it quiver.
We’ll take the time out for a lull, sire,
As soon as we scan these stomach ulcers.
We’ll chart these innards, aft and fore,
We’ll make a graph upon the floor;
A concise and clear-cut diagram
Of a lively, bucking diaphragm;
If it gets boring, as such things go,
I’ll beat the doctors at tic-tac-toe.
Or they could tell me, as they saw,
Of the ifs and maybes of Einsteins’s law;
Of the weather, the ball-game, to boats in the harbor
(These chaps are human — just like the barber).
Then when they’ve things row on row,
They take the needle, and sew and sew.
Hours later, I ope a lid,
But I won’t invoice what I did;
For this is missing and that is out–
Lighter and paler? Beyond a doubt.
The nurses give me close attention–
(That they get mine I shouldn’t mention);
All of them are love and kisses:
A well-guy doesn’t know what he misses.
Wait and I’ll tell you, just once more,
About my operation–have I before?
by Ray Romine Wednesday, September 6, 1944
