Nothing hip about changing one’s type-style

ROBERT GARDNER

My normal typing posture is to sit on the edge of my chair, shoulders

hunched forward so I can see my fingers on the keyboard and the paper

in the typewriter at the same time. That way I know immediately when

my fingers go astray. It’s one thing to figure out a few words like

“yjrm yjr fph nstlrf.” It’s something else to decipher a page of it.

However, right now I am not allowed to hunch forward, cross my legs

or do a number of other normal things, all because of a little

accident.

The dog and I were sitting out on the patio, enjoying the sun,

when I got up to go in the house and fix a drink -- my first of the

day, I underline. Somewhere between my patio chair and the door, I

fell over my own feet and broke my hip. My world hasn’t been the same

since.

My break necessitated surgery, and I spent a number of days in the

joint -- not jail but that part of Hoag devoted to knee and hip

surgeries. Like the real joint, I had a cellmate, another man who

shared the room with a curtain between our beds for privacy. I’m

afraid I wasn’t a very good cellmate. I was horribly fuzzy after the

surgery and then I’m basically deaf. Soon after waking, I told the

nurse I had to use the bathroom and made an effort to get up.

She pushed me back down. “Use the urinal,” she said.

“That’s what I want to do,” I said, again trying to get up.

Again she pushed me down. “Use the urinal,” she said and handed me

a plastic bottle.

I thought it was something to drink, but no, it was empty. “I have

to use the bathroom,” I told her, getting irritated.

“Good, use the urinal.”

We went back and forth several more times before my daughter

popped up. “This is called a urinal,” she said, pointing at the

bottle. When I was still uncomprehending, she said, “Daddy, put your

penis in the plastic and pee!”

She got high marks for alliteration, and she also got high marks

for volume. Half of Hoag probably heard her. Certainly my roommate

did, and an hour later he had himself wheeled to another room, his

wife looking like she smelled something unpleasant as she flounced

by.

I lucked out in my next roommate, a retired fireman from

Huntington Beach, Bill Keane. Bill didn’t seem to care about the

decibel count or the subject matter, so we got along fine.

I spent the next few days enduring the usual chaos of a hospital

where a very cheerful staff seemed to take great pleasure in waking

me up at odd hours to take my blood pressure and such, and then

finally I was remanded home -- back to my dog, my own bed and back to

my rum and coke. Of course, it’s not all heaven. Right now, I have

someone here 24 hours a day to remind me not to cross my legs and not

to hunch forward. For someone who’s used to living alone, it’s a

little hard to get used to, biy sd E. V. Gor;fd dsof.vpmdofrt yjr

s;yrtmsyobr/

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.

His column runs Tuesdays.