I never realized just how much effort was gonna be required to get the Roo into the operating room so's he could have that there new-fangled cast iron hip joint nailed into place.

First, I had to convince my primary doc that my hip did, indeed, hurt. The x-ray he took showin' the broke off piece helped, so his seckertary made me th' appointment to go see the bone doc. There was a one month wait, during which time I got in a whole bunch'a ridin'.

The bone doc wanted me to have an MRI. There was a two-week wait for that procedure, not counting the week it took to get new credit cards issued after I accidentally took my wallet into the room with me!

Ridin' the Stray Dog was gettin' to be mite more bothersome than usual. I decided to hold off for awhile on rides down to Meridian. Continuous rain helped steel my resolve.

Finally, I got to talk with the Head Bone Cutter hisself. He sez to me, "Rooster," he sez, "yer hurt." OK, so that ruled out crazy...the pain in my butt was real.

"What'cha wanna do 'bout it, doc?" I asked. I figgered that he'd either wanna to cut out the broke piece (it was real small) or go in and scoop out what looked bad and replace it with somethin' from Lowe's.

"Well, ya got two options," he 'splained. "Ya can go with metal on plastic, or metal on metal."

Giddy with fear, I chose the metal on metal...a relatively new type of hip joint that would look GREAT clipped to the Stray Dog's handlebars. I wuz always a sucker for chrome!

"OK!" he said, "my secretary will make all the arrangements. See ya!" and he left.

So he's not a gentle soul. "Hey!" I yelled out down the hallway. "How many of them metal-on-metals have you done?"

"Hundreds," he yelled back. Probably meant that he read about hundreds, or that hundreds have been done in the U.S. My guess was that he's done about ten, two of 'em in training.

His nurse came in with an armload of papers for me to sign.

"Here we are!" she sang.

"How many has he done?" I asked right away.

"How many what, dear?"

"Metal-on-metal hip replacements," I said.

"Oh, hundreds!" she said. That meant ten.

She showed me the schedule. Today was August 30th. They could fit me in on November 16th. Monday. 5:30 AM.

"Why the long wait?" I asked innocently.

"We only do hip replacements on Mondays," she said. "He likes to be well-rested when he does these."

I did some quick math. If he did hundreds, and only did one a week, and if over half of his patients chose metal-on-plastic, and those that wanted metal-on-metal took the Greyhound bus from Philadelphia that departed at 4:35 AM and traveled south at 55 miles per hour...

Oh. The answer was so obvious. I was gonna be the first! But I had a lot to do before The Appointed Hour.

Like donating blood to myself. Apparently, I was gonna lose a couple of pints of blood during the surgery. Wanna know what that looks like? Drop two jars of Taco Bell Medium Hot Salsa on the kitchen floor from about eight feet up.

Then, there were the pills to build up my iron so's my blood would clot real good.

And yesterday, I had to go to a 2-hour long "class" where they told you all the BAD STUFF (like, why they don't want yer blood to clot too good, so they send you home with a bunch of needles and stuff and you gotta give yerself shots in yer own stomach). And more BAD STUFF, like what happens if you bend over to tie yer shoe during the first eight weeks (POP! goes the hip and ya get a free ride to the ER in a real live ambulance).

And if ya crosses yer legs while watchin' C-Span yer hip goes POP and ya gets to call 911 again.

And if ya gets outa bed wrong...POP!...911.

And if ya sit on the pooper wrong...POP-911.

And if ya takes a shower by yerself, you'll fall down and DIE.

And worst of all...the Home Health Nurse comes to yer house every day for four weeks to make sure that yer giving yerself shots and that yer shoes are untied. And "no" she don't look like Holly Hunter. You'll be lucky if she looks female. And if she IS female, ya gotta clean up the house before she gets there or folks'll talk.

I heard enough. I took Stray Dog into town and wandered around Lowe's and Walmart on my Old Man Cane. I bought nothing. I drove home, took a Lortab, and parked my achin' butt on the La-Z-Boy. This morning I could barely move.

But I had an appointment with my primary care doc...Mike Nanny, a great guy and worth every penny I ever paid him. He did the final physical and pronounced me Ready for Surgery. I unloaded all my fears and worries and pain and schedule conflicts on him in a five-minute staccato of self-involved cowardice.

He laughed, call me a card, and told me to stay in touch. Bastard.

Now the hip hurts too much to ride at all. I think I'm dying. I've started looking around for a replacement husband for Miz Roo, but I don't want to alarm her so I'm kinda doin' it in secret.

No, wait. That's "Send Me No Flowers." Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall...1964.

Meds are kickin' in. I'm gonna go hide under the covers. Wake me up on February 16th. I've got a weather-be-damned ride scheduled that day.