Tapped Out Flatter than a Pile of Cow Manure

Now, I had two reticulated pythons, one eleven feet long the other a little over fifteen feet long, who stayed hungry all the time. Joe used to feed them fresh chicken, cleaned and dejointed.

They each had their own box, made of three quarter inch plywood, four feet by three feet wide, eight feet long, with a glass front. I traded my station wagon for a big second hand school bus to haul them and the rest of the snake show in. Joe used a you-haul-it rental truck and when the show was running, he used the empty truck to live in.   He said that it was a lot cheaper in the long run than having your own.
 
Well, thanks to Joe we had our own show. It took us a few days to sew up the rips in the tent, repair the banner line, repaint the poles, stakes and the ticket box. When we finished, we booked it on the same carny and hired a guy to sell tickets and put it up and take it down.
 
In the seven or eight weeks that the big snake show was open, we made money. With it being about closing time, with three more spots coming up, May started to have trouble with her periods and complained about having severe pains in her stomach. She got so irritable, I could hardly live with her. She wanted to go back home with her folks.
 
I took her to several doctors. All they did was ask questions and give her a prescription for pills, saying that they would stop the pain and cure her. Instead, she got so bad that she couldn't hardly bend down to put her shoes on. I figured the best thing to do was to take her home.

I agreed to let the guy I hired to run the snake show, finish what spots we had left to play and keep whatever money the show grossed, if he would bring the bus, snakes and other equipment to me up at May's home.

He agreed, so I gave him the keys and the papers to the bus. Then we put all our belongings in a car that we had just bought and I took her home and we moved in with her folks for the winter.

We were not rich by any means but we had a couple of grand in our kicks. Two days after we moved in, May really started to suffer so I loaded her up and took her to see the local doctor, only this time I went inwith her. She told him what her problem was and he checked her temperature, her pulse, listened to her heart and started to write her a prescription.

I said, "Hey, just a damn minute! She's been to four doctors in the last two friggin' weeks and all they done was to ask her a few questions and give her some pain pills. Damn it, don't none of you guys know enough to give someone a pap smear or a thorough physical? This pill shit isup the creek as far as I'm concerned!"

The doc replied, "I could, if I had a nurse on duty.   The law says that I have to have someone else in the room with me while I examine a female.   Right now, my nurse is off for the remainder of the week."
Right away I said, "What about her husband?"  He answered, "That would be permissible." to which I replied, "Let's go."

In the examining room, he questioned her again about when she had her last period, how long she had the pains, on which side and so on. Then he poked around her stomach. He started to put pressure on her lower abdomen and had her put her feet in the stirrups like she was about to give birth. He put a rubber glove on his right hand, then

put three of his fingers in her vagina, felt around a little bit more and said, "Now, this may hurt a little, but it's got to be done." He then stuck four of his fingers in and gave them a twist. May cried, "Stop it, damn it! I can't stand it, it hurts too much!"

The doc withdrew his bloody fingers and the stink almost knocked me over. He said to me, "Your wife has tubal pregnancy in both her tubes, plus gangrene has set in. You had better get her to a hospital today or she won't be around too much longer."

As he pulled off his glove, he said, "I can phone the hospital in Abingdon (that's nearest to us) and notify them to get ready to receive her, if that's OK with you." I told him to make the call.

While May put her clothes back on, I asked the doc how much I owed him and he shook his head and said, "You don't owe me one cent, my friend, you just made me realize why I became a doctor."

May came into the waiting room and thanked him. I helped her to the car and drove her straight to Abingdon, twenty one miles away.

When we arrived at the emergency entrance, they were waiting at the door for her. Sure enough, she had a tubal pregnancy in both tubes and gangrene had set in. She had to have her ovaries removed along with the rest of the process. Twenty five days later, I brought her home with a tube in her stomach.

Now, her folks were real old time country folks and they thought that it was not right for a man to give a woman a bath, much less a douche. Well, right or wrong, I did.

One of May's sisters had a yeast infection and May had some of the douche powder left. You diluted it in water and used it for infections, especially for yeast infections. She mixed some up, put it in a douche bag and handed it to her sister and her sister said, "Do it burn?" Aunt Emma said that if you was to get water in your 'jiner,' you would drown. May told me about it, laughed, then said, "I knew that I had some dumb ones in my family, but damn if that don't win the blue ribbon."

Bill Anderson, from York, Pennsylvania, the A-hole that I let take the bus and snake show, failed to keep his promise. By then, winter was closing in and the only carnies operating were far away, either in south Texas, New Mexico or southern Florida.

I said the hell with spending money trying to find him then, I'd find him come spring. Come spring, May and I were tapped out flatter than a pile of cow manure that had laid in the field for two years.

To be Continued