A Shadow and I'm Gone For Some Days

Originally I was just going to write that posts would be few and far between as I will be wandering the North Cascades of Washington.

Then I stopped at a discount grocery on the way to the house from work.  Oddly, walking out of discount store I noticed my shadow cast upon the black top.  Odd, because Portland even a day or two before the 4th of July is rarely filled with shadows. 

My shadow gave me pause as I put my purchase and cane into my truck. 

As we walk through our lives, [geez I'm thinking this as I'm on my way to a small vacation] we cast a shadow every minute of the day.  Shadow over our children.  Shadow over our desk at work.  Shadow over our relationships etc.

Why over?  Why is a shadow always defined as over?  How about with.  I think I would rather have my shadow with my children, loved ones and friends.  Not over them.

That being said.  I'm off to the wilds of the North Cascades of Washington.  For those of you that read this.  Probably won't see anything till a Wednesday sort of time if you see anything at all.

I'll talk to you all as soon as I can.

What's Better 6 inches or 16 Centimeter

Sixteen  centimeters?  How long is that?  Doesn’t sound like much does it?  Nor does it sound very lengthy to me.

Imagine listening to a football game on the radio and the announcer with voice in full drama, “The game comes down to this folks.  The Gamecock’s [yes there is a college team who’s mascot is the Gamecock] season rides on converting this 3^rd and sixteen centimeters.”  You hear that and just have to scoff at the drama.  Even the most bucolic of offenses can pick up sixteen centimeters for lands sake.

How about while reading a novel you discover that the hero has fallen into a pool of quicksand full of alligators and piranhas.

As you read you can’t believe the author is going to do our hero the injustice of an early exit.  Filled with dread for the early demise of the hero you frantically turn the page.  Holding your breath you deflate as you read “The branch dangled sixteen centimeters out of reach of Hero’s finger tips.”  Good god, you’re the hero.  Grab an alligator for leverage and grab the damn branch.  It’s only sixteen centimeters.

Imagine a man in greasy slimy hustle mode walking up to his hope in a bar and saying “Baby I’m packing sixteen centimeters of love.”  Is that impressive?  Maybe it is.  I have no clue but sixteen centimeters doesn’t sound like much of anything.

Or does it?  I think Centi means 100.  I know that a meter is a little over three yards.  So, using my exceptional reasoning abilities sixteen centimeters could be a little over 300 yards.  Further using my amazing powers of deduction there is now way the guy in the paragraph above can have 300 yards of stuff.  Think of what his pants would look like.  No way.  I’m thinking sixteen centimeters is not much to brag about.

So laying in Diagnostic Imaging prior to my pheresis yesterday I watched and listened to a well oiled machine.  The prep team draped me in blue.  Painted my lower neck antiseptic blue.  Rattle of the table being laid out while the buzz of the ultra sound machine searched for the juggler before they called the doctor who would do the insertion. 

All of this bustle in preparation of what they called a central venal catheter or some such.  I hear the nurse say, “I checked his charts and last time he was  sixteen centimeter.

Who knew? 

After my pherisis my ace R.N. in the dialysis room, one of two people accredited to use the machine on humans pulled out the venal/central whatever catheter.  He showed it to me this time.  I found out.

16cm means nothing in football.  16cm means with a little ingenuity our hero could have saved himself.  16cm probably would make more women than would suspect happy.

Sixteen centimeters is approximately 6.299 inches.  6.299 inches is approximately the length of a pen with the cap on [yes greasy hustler guy you aren’t impressive your average].  6.299 inches is huge when plunged into your juggler and headed for your heart.

Wish I had a witty close.  Talk you all tomorrow.

1st Geoversary

A year ago today Janet and I discovered Geo-Caching.  Our first find was deep in the woods a couple rivers over from the Cabin.  We were instantly hooked.  The "sport" opened up a world of "boy I didn't know that was here."  We've found caches in fake electrical boxes, fake water taps and crosswalk buttons just to name a few odd locations.

 

That teeny weeny magnetized nub [called a Nano sitting on the bench in front of Janet] was attached to the metal underneath the bleacher bench.  Janet found it today and we logged our 100th find.

It's the little things in life.

Natural Miracles

The world is truly an amazing place.  The world can take aim and dump on you with a precision akin to laser guided missile.  I know this to be true.  

Today.  Today the worlds target was the dead [don't normally use that term anymore] center of my rigs steering wheel.  

Being a mathematician engineer sort I measured, pondered, and drove to the house all the while smelling a unique avian puke odor wafting about the cab wondering how and upon arriving I  measured some more.

I will provide you with this info and the pic:

Window was open 3.875 inches.

Distance from window opening to target 23"

No residue ANYWHERE! But dead center steering wheel.

Angle of dropped stuff  70° to 80°

Note the white drooly on the steering wheel. Doodle it up.  Look at the pic.  Impossible.  If an effing bird can pull off this targeting I'm holding out for miracles.

Talk to you later and everyone have a great evening.

Why We Hate This

If you are reading this, new to disease, or if a loved one of yours has this cowardly disease what the both of you are thinking is true.

As a person with Cancer I'm overwhelmed with guilt.  Guilt for a myriad of perceived and actual reasons.  One of the major reasons....I'm always tired.  I want to do things but I don't.  I go to work and can barely keep my eyes open sometimes. 

I come back to my house and family and can't remember things or sometimes even have a remotely intelligent conversation let alone remembering a conversation from days ago.

These lapses aren't wholly the result of my meds or lack of sleep.  I think they are a result of being overwhelmed.  Between home, pharma, appointments, bills, work, fear for myself and what I leave to my loved ones and, well, not feeling right... my brain turns off.  

I used to be an amazing multi-tasker.  Bring it on and I'd get it done all the while in a very very intense deadline driven industry.  Since becoming ill I've not only had to teach myself a different way to work but also become comfortable with the fact I still deliver excellent product just not quite as fast.  Guilt.

Just one example how your life with disease will change.  When I say "your" I mean both of us.  You that share life with an illness and you that has that illness.  Spouses, friends employers, partners....we all need patience.  Guilt

Those of us that are ill need to remember those that have been a part of our life still are and are desperately trying to figure out some way to help in a sometimes helpless situation.  Those who are in the support circle of life need to remember that those of us whom are ill still have the knack, still love you, still respect you and still are competent [perhaps just not as fast] but can become ugly very quickly....it's not your fault.  Guilt.

I'm blessed that I have a wife that loves me and holds my hand.  I'm doubly blessed that I have family and best friends that support me in this fight.  I'm triply blessed that I have an employer that supports me. I can not imagine having neither of those.

If you are one or the other involved in this ugliness.  Comment.  I'm no guru.  But, I'll electronically hold your hand if you have no one else.

I'll talk to all of you tomorrow

A Thousand Words...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, and a button is worth a thousand words, then a picture of a button is worth....

Solstice

Trained by my wife whom is a bit "witchy" I've come to recognize the turnings of the year. 

Summer Solstice is upon us.  Suddenly the days become shorter tomorrow. 

Suddenly the warm days of summer start to play with our habits. 

We parade through the shorter days that are headed for the Autumnal Equinox.

My  family recognizes  different names for these mile stones in season.

Truly, they all move much much too fast.


 

Man's Best Freind...The Catheter

I personally believe one of the greatest medical devices ever invented is the catheter.  It is the true lazy man’s let’s watch the Final Four device.  Oh certainly the very thought of the insertion process, at least to a man, makes the hardiest men of men cringe in cross legged horror.  That is precisely why the insertion process is done while one is in a healthy completely totally unaware professionally administrated coma.

The first thing one does upon waking from said coma is drink water.  Lots and lots of water, Amazon River scale of water (well in my case I also ate about three meals in ten minutes) after of which in the end that water logically has to go somewhere. 

Enter the catheter, literally and figuratively.  Admittedly, not paying attention to how one painfully fidgets roles or adjusts can cause a distinctive unpleasantness in the nether regions.

Even considering the above, the benefits of the catheter are amazing.  All a guy has to do is lay there in a Morphine Haze acting like, in my case, he can keep track of the Butler W.S.U. score because the NCAA tourney is on afternoon television.  

Looking back I might have been a bit confused as I don’t believe W.S.U. was in the 2011 tourney.  I’m peeing and the gown stays dry. 

The bedding stays dry. 

I DON’T even have to move. 

I don’t have to cause my body pain by trying to get my non-functioning prostate into the bathroom only to find out I didn’t really have to go and all my lower vertebrae scream and scream in pain.  Oh wait that would be me screaming.

Nurse comes in, measures the jug which seems to be a gallon full of liquid the color of apple juice.  I look at the quantity in disbelief, vaguely remembering I did drink the Amazon. 

Apparently that river is dry and I’ve started on the Nile as the nurse has shown up three times in the last fifteen minutes to empty the jug.  Truly amazing.  Don’t have to think about peeing, don’t feel myself pee and gratefully don’t have to MOVE.

I find myself, the next afternoon, faced with “Rookie Nurse” and “Teacher Nurse” [aside….Teacher Nurse was the only nurse that visibly didn’t like me].  They are doing their nurse thing and of a sudden Teacher Nurse says to Rookie “did they teach you how to take out a catheter?”

WOW…they aren’t taking out my catheter.  NO WAY.  That means I would have to get out of bed to might pee.  That means my lack of a prostate would cause me great great pain attempting the trying process of getting out of bed let alone walking.  So…at this point is where I’m told I had my only hissy fit during my stay post surgery.

I started with “I’m not ready to get out of bed.” 

Next was “I have prostate cancer and have to get up all the time even though I just feel like I have to pee.” 

Nurse teacher was very uncaring and rookie was vibrating with anticipation that she got to pull a catheter out from a real live patient.

 I finally said “this just isn’t going to happen.” 

Nurse teacher is adamant and says “You men have an advantage” while holding up this jug that actually made sense when considering a penis, but not mine. 

The manly appendage normally dangles.  Mine used to but with my hormone treatment it is shorter than one that’s been swimming in a 32° river.  Add, just recently out and about from major surgery tripled with massive quantities of pain meds…A new born’s button is porno grade compared to mine.

I actually used the above argument.  I had no shame.  I didn’t want to get out of bed let alone move.  I told both females, Nurse Teacher and Nurse Rookie, that my “penis” was too small to use that jug. 

Yes.  Yes.  Alas, I stooped that low.

Ultimately Rookie Nurse won.  She pulled the device out famously, I guess.  I have nothing to judge it by as having never had that procedure happen to me before.  Hell I’d never spent a night in a hospital before this. 

In the end…it was good.  I did need to get up and moving.

Prelude II to Catheter Story

OK.  I was putting the finishing touches on my catheter story.  Tired beyond belief, actually I think the Docs call it fatigue, I give a call to the house to let Janet know when I would get to the house.  

Ring Ring Ring, recorded woman answers explaining how we can leave a message or a numeric page. What the hell is a numeric page?  Odd Janet didn't answer the phone that time of the evening.

Here's why you aren't getting the cool catheter story I have working.  A few minutes later my phone rings.  It's Janet and she says "I'm sorry, between the hockey game and cooking bacon, I must not of heard the phone ring."  Hockey.  Bacon.  Mother of god. Side effects be damned.  I raced to the house and you will have to wait until tomorrow for the Catheter story.

Prelude to a Catheter Story

I'm brushing up, what I think to be a great story, about a catheter.  I'll have it ready for you tomorrow.

I was thinking today about people who have disease similar to mine. Once afflicted you quit being you.  You are defined by the drip of an IV, defined by the torture that you are to your friends and family, defined by lack of funds, defined by all that you can not control.  

Then there is possibility.  You have no more possibility.  Your possibility is limited by a number that is delivered from this test or that. Gone is that school boy bike ride in halcyon summer days where anything is possible.  Gone are the possibilities of career promotion, cool vacations and simple road trips.  The disease disgustingly limits possibility.

Not sure what my point is there.  Warned you that this wouldn't be all cancer all the time but sometimes.

Smile....tomorrow you get to read a real life blog posting about a catheter.

A Goggled Dog Moment

It is odd what moments our lives grab us and shake us like a doggy toy until laughter and tears spill out.  Odder still is the new way I view and perceive the world since being diagnosed.  I have no idea why the mere thought of a moment from a few days ago can still tear me up and make me smile.  But, that seems fitting as I'm clueless as to why and how it became one of those moments in the first place.  I have chosen not to over analyze and just tuck it away into my internal cedar chest.

The sun, unusually not clad in Portland grey that day, was warm on my back that afternoon. I waited for my chance to turn left onto a busy road near my work.  My windows were down allowing a light breeze to be company to the idle non thoughts one has at a long wait for a stubborn turn signal to go green.  There was a lot of cross traffic busily being busy.  That was all it was in my thoughts, busy blurs not registering as single entities but just a river of metal racing by.  There was nothing significant about the jeep, waiting for its own left turn signal, my thoughts suddenly latched onto.  At least not at first.

It was a red Jeep Wrangler.  The windows were down sharing the same breeze the rest of us were sharing.  For some reason the driver was wearing a black vest.  I quickly decided he was a bartender or headed for a wedding.  I voted for bartender.  Who gets married at 4 p.m. on a Monday?  The driver was also wearing unusually large sun glasses that reflected the world he looked at.

As my mind focused in more on the scene before me I noticed that the driver's companion was a dog.  A big curly thing, colored a muddy brown doing what dogs do, head out the window drinking the wind.  More focus in my mind and I noticed that not only was the driver wearing sunglasses but the dog had strapped on a pair of goggles.  The dog with goggles struck me as so funny that out of character for me I tapped my horn.  The jeep driver glanced my way probably expecting impatience being revealed by the middle finger but instead he sees my arm out my window hand high in the air giving him the universal thumbs up sign.  The Jeep driver needing no verbal explanation and knowing that his dog didn't have thumbs returned the thumbs up in proxy.

As the Jeep with the goggle clad dog leaning out the window made thier turn I was laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my face.  Apparently from four wide lanes away the driver could hear me and added a wave of his own as the jeep left my view.

This all happened in less time then it takes to read this.  But in that brief moment in the most mundane of situations a connection was made between a stranger, a dog wearing goggles and myself.  It was a moment I probably would have missed a few months ago.

NEW I.P.O.

Grab it while you can.  In Chemo today a new business opportunity was spawned.

Designer ports by Chemo-Chic.

Narco Moments

Ritz Crackers and Photos. Soon 

Piles and Metal

Cars, those pieces of metal that, hopefully, take you from point A to point B like the trusty steeds of yore. Cars, those pieces of metal that, while broken down alongside a lonely highway you wish you could put the hunk of metal down like a trusty steed of yore with a broken forelock. Then look to the west and rope a new one. Cars, those piles of metal where we learned much of life and forgotten more.

Unlike the trusty steeds of yore my cars have been much more than transportation. The act of driving has taught me defense [dodge the oncoming car in my lane], offense [that car pissed me off I'm going back after him], mental telepathy [at the intersection I'm going straight and though the oncoming person has their right turn signal on I know they will turn left in front of me. ] All the self preservation things a ton of metal could be expected to teach, they've taught me.

A ton of metal running 110 mph, arrow straight during cats light, on a piece of asphalt that slashes through the Eastside of Washington holds more than one lesson to be learned.

That same pile of metal, engine ticking while cooling, offers painfully lonely lessons while parked along on some wayside as you hope for a moments dream. The coming morning, with yesterday's light once again gaining the East as you fight your way West to tomorrow, the pile of metal, at the turn of the key, changes from the pay by hour hotel to a possibility.

Fast. Windows down. So fast that as you pass one irrigated field to the next you can feel the change of temp and moisture. Mind only. Blissfully feeling , thinking nothing . Leaving every thought behind as the pile of metal roared on at unsafe speeds. A lesson to be learned.

I've owned a different car basically every five years of my driving life. Go fasts, what the hells, pickups and the car seat fits. All of them have had some lasting effect on me but at some point they quit molding me and defining my life. I know exactly when those hunks of metal quit teaching me. It was an Orange over White Ford F-150 purchased by my folks for me and mine.

It was the very first pile of metal that didn't, wouldn't and couldn't teach me anything. Sad in a way. A passing of age I suppose. New found professions and responsibilities pretty much assured the Orange over White Ford wasn't going to have to keep me warm on some back road somewhere between there and someplace else. 

The Orange over White was to be utilitarian.

That's not to say memories weren't made. I distinctly recall pulled over under a giant plastic Palomino in front of a Western Supply Store and morning sickness [Chucky Cheese Sickness I think] was my wife's splatter on the asphalt. There were more memories but that really isn't the point. That pile of metal was the end of learning but not living.

So for a favorite car I have to look before the Orange over White. I have to look back where the pile of metal was the center of life, education and at times salvation. A place where I learned pain of heart. A place I learned how to love, how to be scared and how to live very very dangerously. First to mind – The Toranado.

 

The Toranado was unique. Electric everything. I mean everything. Seats, windows, antennas… a perfect what the hell is a high school kid doing driving that piece of metal. I drove the Toranado during the days when it was cool to take the pieces of metal, jack up the rear end and look cool. I had the best of both worlds. Electric seats! I could kick back low low low and cruise like the…well of today. Or, if I wanted that jacked up feeling…Electric seats to the rescue again and no expense of a lift kit.

That pile of metal wasn't quick but it would cruise easily at 120mph and not drift an inch all the while the thrush mufflers my best buddy and I threw on sparking at each impact on the much too close asphalt. Front wheel drive. Huge pile of iron it called a motor. It was a car.

I learned much in that car. Friendships, how easy and how ever so hard it was to keep the important friendships. I learned about love and somehow missed the lesson about being kind. There isn't a person I knew then that was important to me that didn't learn and live in the Toranado. That pile of metal tried the second hardest of them all to kill me.

In the end, not being a mechanic, I was told the Toranado was D.O.A. one day. I pushed it to Smith's Wrecking and they gave me 50 bucks for it. I should have been smart enough to see what portent that was. Especially after not many months later I found out from my girlfriend's dad for 100 bucks I could have had the electric mobile with the toilet paper speedometer back in fine fettle. Goes to show you…don't always put them down, double check that forelock.

Driving as fast as fast can up the dirt road between two canyons, hitting the intersection and sailing my piece of metal into the air. One night while in the air the engine stopped. When my piece of metal landed, there atop the hills above the basin I opened the hood. Every spark plug wire had St. Elmo's fire dancing about. I took a deep breath and looked to the east over miles and miles of what I then thought was nothing. The Elmo's quit dancing and as the truck restarted on its own, I closed the hood. A lesson to be learned.

There was the Charger, red with a white landau roof. A rocket powered by Mopar. I started a new life in that car. It hauled me and my then to be wife over endless seemingly empty miles of the west and delivered me far from home so I could get a formal education. Prior to that on a very regular basis the pile of metal safely delivered me to Yakima, my wife to be home town. There were splendid times, golden times, driving hell bent times in that pile of metal.

That pile of metal took us back to the Pacific Northwest pulling a trailer and during the dark sporting only one eye. Too poor to by a new eye we drove, well, wife to be, drove with the high beams a blazing on coming truckers be damned. I remember some of that trip through a pain killer haze as I'd broken my arm the night before sliding down the banister at Red Rocks. At that sliding time the Everclear made sure that nothing was felt.

It was the next morning, three boxes away from departure that we decided the big fat black arm accented with fingers the size of sausages warranted a visit to the emergency room. After that visit my wife to be, became captain of that pile of metal.

There is no better feeling then waking up someplace in nowhere just as the sun begins to look out from the East. The sun paints in the details of the wayside where unclear minds finally had to stop for "just a rest". Secure in the pile of metal you watch the painting unfold in a blurred pastel. Then the shadows join in and more detail filters in through the bug splattered windshield. Pretty soon you get to share with each other two things. The first, is the breath taking view that was originally disguised by the 1:00 A.M. darkness. The second, is you really have no idea where you are and it doesn't matter. At that moment, inside the pile of metal, all that matters is you are both there.

Once again, years later the Charger, the pile of metal, where I learned so much about my now wife, started showing symptoms of failure much as "The Toranado" did a decade ago. The pile of metal was sold fast and cheap. Later I found out all that pile of metal needed was a new thermostat. Goes to show you…don't always put them down, double check that forelock.

Friday, punch out grab the pay check and run. Jump in the Charger Soap Lake Liquor and an old codger were the first stop. Fifth of Old Crow and a six pack of Country Club. Back in the pile of metal and hit the back way curves to Ephrata hard as I took thirst quenching gulps from the first Country Club of the day. Destination; a quick shower to rid myself of steel grime, change of clothes thrown onto the searing hot black back seat and I'm outta' dodge.

Three Country Clubs down and here's the exit for the run down the Columbia River that will take me the back way into Yakima. The fast way. The scary way. What the hell when you are running you might as well run as fast as you can. Old Crow and Coke mixed just fine in the water bottle that used to climbed a peak or two. The bottle is nestled between my legs for easy reach.

Wanapum Dam is my let go. Hotel California blasting I punch all 440hp of the Mopar God. The basalt heated air blasting through the open windows at 120 plus. Just go. Just go. Three Country Clubs left but now they go to the back seat for later and it's just the Old Crow and Coke. Seeing the sign for Desert Aire means gas that I needed and didn't get cuz' I needed to escape.

Fueled up and on the road again Pile of Metal. Laughing at the slow as we blasted past. Chance on chance taken on every curve…

There are other piles of metal that supplied cursory moments. But looking back none of them educated me in life. None of them tried to kill me. They were almost like fog banks between what was and what would. Piles of metal that should have belonged to someone else and in most cases ultimately did.

But there was one. It was a white over maroon three quarter ton pick up. Not much to look at. I dueled out the exhaust. Slung tires and wheels on it appropriate to where I drove the most. That's about all that pile of metal got from me. Those things and another engine when I blew the original coming back from Moses Lake in a fit of fury were about it.

Everything happened to me in that pile of metal. It was a roller coaster ride of life.

There were people who decided they wanted to ride that life and once the doors closed screamed to be let out. There were people who wouldn't get out once doors closed and I learned cruelty beyond belief in an effort to get them to jump out. There were people who got in a rode with me. Taught me about love and opened the door to that piece of metal and left much too soon. I won and then I lost. I laughed then I cried. I lost again and won again.

I learned the difference when being followed by an official blue light and an official red light. I learned that bench seats were the coolest thing in the world. I learned those simple things and other things I wish to this day I hadn't in that pile of metal.

I ran and ran in that pile of metal. Montana, Idaho Wyoming, B.C. I ran. One would think that those states were enough space to run to ground in that pile of metal. Apparently not.

I guess that pick up was my favorite piece of metal because it carried me through everything. From loving, being loved, learning how to love. To adventures like a friend wanting to break into a Montana cop station because they had his dope. Trolling for change on the dashboard to buy a "Dick's Bag Full of Burgers". More times than not holding a bottle of whiskey, as I alone, watched the day old light of yesterday break on the Eastern horizon. Wondering, if I really should look West for a new day, perhaps a new life.

I'm not really sure how or why that pile of metal, that had acquired a brown over white door through one mishap or another escaped my grasp. I do know years after it left me to for someone else's life I saw it a time or two in later travels.. I do know that, unbeknown to me, my wife to be had seen me in that pile of metal but has never ridden in it.

To this very moment as my fingers touch these keys I can picture a myriad of life scenes that involved that pile of metal. Scenes, scenes lit by neon. Scenes lit by a rising sun. Scenes fading under a setting sun. Outside looking in but most often as not inside looking out. The memories aren't why I chose this pile of metal as my favorite. 

This pile of metal, the unobtrusive pickup, made me, just as I made it take me where I wanted to go. Often times that pile of metal knew I didn't want to go there and I would fight it tooth and nail all the way to a lonely wayside somewhere this other side of where I didn't belong. Ultimately that piece of metal delivered me to someone that could save me.

So my favorite car? Not to begrudge the requisite sports car that comes with thirty. Not to forget the luxury car that came with success. I don't forget to smile fondly when I remember the "car seat fits" cars. They all have memories both good and bad. But only one pile of metal made me.

Goes to show you…don't always put them down, double check that forelock.

The engine went tick tick tick. Fog muffled the engine sound. I could hear surf not too far behind me. I never knew what made the engines in those piles of metal go tick tick tick…I went West.

Did Marvin Build This?

A few days ago I was hooked to this amazing piece of ingenuity.  Who comes up with this?

The device has many widgets and gadgets.  Go Rube Goldberg!

Marvin Martian

I’ve come to believe that the loneliest place on this planet is the radiation room after the slab they call a door has closed.  There you are, surrounded by seeming science fiction machines and your thoughts, nothing else.  That’s it, you, the machine and your disease. 

No prattle of a chemo room to divert you.  No loved one holding your hand to lean on.  No work to keep your mind elsewhere.   Just you, the machine, your disease and your thoughts.

But then there is humor, at least with the radiation machine I’ve become familiar with.  There’s a click, a hum, then…gods bless the guy that made this machine.  I’m so hoping it wasn’t happenstance that when the machine fires it sounds exactly like Marvin the Martian’s ray gun.

Voice from above “Michael lay still.”

 I smile. 

Thanks Marvin.