Editor's note: this essay can be found in the author's book, Naked Through the Snow and Other Bits of Silliness, published by Quarternion Press. It is reprinted with the author's permission.

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Sailor Jim, slightly swacked from his employment celebration, is sitting and allowing memories to drift through his mind. This is a situation he generally discourages, in that so many of his memories involved random acts of stupid violence... but one particular memory bobs to the surface, and he starts to laugh.

He was the oldest enlisted man in the Coast Guard and I was the youngest, so it was almost fated that we'd become friends.

He was fifty-four years old, a First Class Storekeeper and twice divorced. I was yet seventeen (a few months shy of my majority), a Seaman Apprentice, and had no earthly idea what the Coast Guard was really about. Tom Caffery, and that was his name, took me under his wing and did his level best to put an old head on my young shoulders.

Sailor Jim pauses for a moment and looses his grin. In truth, now that I think of it, what he taught me was probably the reason for my surviving the next few years reasonably whole and sane. Never considered that... He stares into the fire for a moment.

Well, anyway... Tom and I became close friends. So close, that when the docs thought Tom might have colon cancer, he confided in me and asked me to accompany him to the USPHS hospital. They were going to check him out and he was, understandably, a bit scared.

Now, please remember that I am not a medical man in any way, nor do I play one on television. If I get the words and procedures wrong, it's just combination of ignorance and a bad memory. Plus, there have been -- I understand -- some changes in medical procedures since the seventies.

Anyway, they had to give Tom a special enema. The basic idea, if memory serves, was that they would fill him up with some sort of dye or something, and then take an x-ray... I think. At any rate, they had to give him a special enema.

I walked with him through the entire appointment. The doctor, who clenched an empty pipe between his teeth the entire time (and was such a stereotype for the "earnest scientist" that I kept half expecting him to tell us how to defeat Godzilla), approved of my presence and even thanked me for coming along.

The doctor explained that Tom would actually be the recipient of not one, but three enemas today. The first two would make him antiseptic and remove any matter that might interfere with the x-ray, and give him a good couple of practice runs for the third, which was the special enema. He would have to hold the third enema for a goodly amount of time, so the first two would help him feel less... I dunno, pressured?

A nurse joined our merry little band when we walked into the room where the procedure was to be performed. There was an x-ray machine and the table Tom was going to be on was...

I had to turn away and control my laughter. The damn thing was humped in the middle and had leg supports to either side; he was obviously going to be face down, with his butt in the air and his legs splayed out. Considering the procedure, it made sense but I was seventeen and it struck me as hilarious.

Tom, too, when he finally noticed me doing my best to not laugh. He made some sort of joke and all four of us had a good hard laugh at it. The nurse (whom I immediately dubbed "Nurse Sugar," since she had a Georgia accent, constantly smiled, and apparently called all men "sugar"), told Tom to "just change into this here gown, Sugar." I told Tom that I'd be waiting in the chair right outside the door.

I'd brought a paperback, something by Heinlein, and I settled in and started to read. Then, around ten minutes later, I heard the nurse telling Tom to "relax, Sugar, this won''t hurt a bit." Then I heard a deep grunt that ran up the scales really quickly and made me bite my lip to keep from snorting out a laugh.

"Now, Sugar," I heard a moment later, "if y'all don't loosen up, this will be a lot more painful than it needs to be... here, just look at how small this nozzle is! Why, Sugar, it's a nothing!"

A moment later, a new grunt (with overtones of whimper) came through the closed door and I almost bit through my lip when a triumphant "There ya go, Sugar!" followed. I thought the show was over and I could get back to my book, but I was sadly mistaken. The next few minutes made it all but impossible for me to not laugh. Tom would grunt out, "Isn't that thing empty yet!?!" in a pathetic tone; and the nurse would reply, "Wall, that's only 'round a third of the bag, Sugar... relax, it'll be over soon." Then the steady whimpering started, like a puppy that...

Look, I won't bother going into all the assorted noises. Nor will I apologize for being slightly less than compassionate about what was happening to my friend. Suffice it to say that the next few minutes were filled with noises that I, in my insensitive and ignorant youth, found to be ball-bouncingly funny.

Now jump ahead five minutes. The nurse finally said, "There, Sugar, that's all of it. Now you just hold it for a minute, then you can use the john."

The doctor finally said, "Good fellow! I know this is difficult, but the next one will be a lot easier... "

And Tom said, "Ahhhhhh-CHOOOOOOOO!!!"

Sailor Jim sticks the tip of his tongue out for a second and takes a big swallow of his drink. He sneezed. Big. And right on the heels of his sneeze, so close as to almost be one sound, came a splashing thump on the wall over my head, two people shouting in alarm, and the thump of someone falling on their can.

I sat in shock, unable to believe what might have just happened, when the Doctor said, "Awww... for pity sake..."

And the nurse calmly added: "Well... gesundheit, Sugar."

I fell off the chair, laughing hysterically. People up and down the hall stuck their heads out of various rooms to see what the noise was about, but I didn't care. I was doing my level best to keep my bladder from exploding.

The door to Tom's room opened and the doc walked out, slipping slightly on the tiles. He no longer wore his white lab coat and he was carrying his pipe rather gingerly. He gave me a disapproving glance as he walked over to a supply closet and brought out a new gown and several towels. I started laughing harder and heard Tom start to laugh inside the room. The nurse quickly tried to shush him. "Stop that, Sugar... oh, look... now that isn't helping, Sugar!" My own laughter redoubled and I started to feel lightheaded from lack of air. The doc walked back to the door, handed in the replacement gown and towels, told the nurse to get the patient (and herself) cleaned up and to "...reschedule this procedure... I'm going home early." The door closed again.

Just as I was beginning to get it under control, some poor guy in blue overalls came up to the door with a bucket and mop, walking with slow dignity. He knocked, opened the door and froze. He leaned carefully in and craned his neck to look at the wall next to the door. After a moment, he withdrew, looked at me in shock, looked at his bucket in a professional sort of way, shook his head and just as slowly walked away.

I just barely made it to the restroom before I peed myself.