20 SEP 05: WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Columbus has had little rain in September, but there's plenty of water around. Monday's evening news reported 45 trailers filled with bottled water are sitting at an industrial park, waiting to go to the hurricane damage zone. It's nice to see they're kept a safe distance away from the looters....

The Federal Emergency Management Agency apparently ordered those 45 trailers full of bottled water. But they're sitting at the Blanchard Industrial Park near Victory Drive, not heading toward the Gulf Coast. Is someone expecting the New Orleans Saints to move a home game to Columbus?

About 300 tractor-trailers filled with bottled water were stationed in Columbus over the weekend, and 45 remained Monday. Hopefully the rest were driven to the damage zone - not stolen by jealous Columbus Water Works employees.

Some drivers say FEMA is paying them $500 a day to sit in Columbus, and wait for the call to head toward the Gulf Coast. Now THIS is the job to have! And since the drivers are near Victory Drive, they can enjoy several table dances a night.

(Can you think of any other jobs in Columbus where people are paid $500 a day to sit around? Well, besides some of the offices at Aflac Tower....)

This isn't the first complaint about how FEMA is handling the response to Hurricane Katrina. One group of firefighters couldn't enter New Orleans for days, because it first needed special "training" in Atlanta. Well, how DO you put out fires coming up through polluted water?

If the Gulf Coast doesn't need those 45 trailers full of bottled water, some people down Victory Drive might. The Benning Park SuperCenter remains a hurricane evacuation shelter -- and restaurants aren't getting any free publicity for providing dinners there anymore.

But the American Red Cross isn't welcome everywhere for sheltering hurricane survivors. DeKalb County, Georgia Chief Executive Vernon Jones told the Red Cross to stop providing assistance there Monday, due to "management issues." You'd think long waiting lines would be tolerated there - especially given Atlanta traffic.

Now let's climb out of the water, and check other items from the last couple of days:

+ Muscogee County School Superintendent John Phillips denied claims by school board members that he has a "buddy system" for hiring people. Well, we haven't HEARD of any other new staff members buying luxurious homes in Ladonia....

+ WCGT "Final Edition" host Jerry Laquire complained Karl Douglass of Columbus South Inc. lives far from the south side, in Green Island Hills. Sure enough, the phone book shows Douglass lives on Millington Road - but hold on. Maybe that's the south side of Green Island.

+ Tymber Boswell of Columbus returned from trying out for "American Idol" in Chicago. Boswell revealed to WXTX "News at Ten" she was NOT selected to go to Hollywood -- which means someone besides Simon Cowell will have to puncture her ego.

+ The Home Box Office movie "Warm Springs" won two Emmy Awards. The film actually was shot in Warm Springs - so where's the "Columbus" movie? Is everyone waiting for William Calley to write his memoirs?

+ The Atlanta Falcons admitted Michael Vick has hamstring trouble, and is questionable for next Sunday's game in Buffalo. The Falcons have two more Monday night games on the schedule - but now ABC may be calling the National Football League to arrange more "Saints fundraisers."

(BLOGGER'S NOTE: The jokes for today officially have concluded. You're welcome to read on, for first-person notes about a serious challenge we've faced in the last 48 hours.)

BUT SERIOUSLY: I'd pretty much ruled out a blog entry for Monday, because of another late-night project. But then things started happening, and they weren't pretty.

I'd felt an upset stomach late Sunday evening, but blamed it on an unusually stressful work day. As the late project was completed, I also noticed a rumbling below my belly. It was no big deal, I thought - but then my body started providing special effects straight out of a Six Flags ride.

Suddenly I had diarrhea, and was throwing up to boot. Thankfully my bathtub is directly next to the stool, so the heaving went there. Small apartments have their advantages....

Did I not heat my meat for lunch enough? Was that little rash on my left hand the spark of something? I had no idea, but after a few minutes my body calmed down. Yet suddenly my 47-year-old body felt 77.

I slowly shuffled to the corner of my bed, for a weak but lengthy closing prayer. It lasted so long that my legs tingled like they "went to sleep," as my family likes to call it. I braced myself on the edge of the bed to stand up and....

The next thing I remember was hearing a series of strange voices in my head. I opened my eyes, and found myself lying on the floor along the side of the bed. About 30 minutes had passed, and I knew nothing of what happened.

I slowly pulled myself up, went to the bathroom mirror and found a big red spot on my forehead. If I hit the edge of the bed while falling, I never felt it -- yet suddenly I had a bigger mark than Mikhail Gorbachev.

But once I reached the bathroom, the internal pyrotechnics started again -- more heaving, more "running," more hacking. I'm not sure any of my Sunday dinner was left inside me when it was over.

I cleaned up things a bit, and tried again to get to bed. But this time, I took no chances -- grabbing a big plastic bucket and putting it at the bedside. There also was a cool washcloth around my neck, and a water bottle above my bed.
Thankfully, the bottle didn't fall off and bonk me on the head again.

The sleep time was restless, but calm. The throwing up stopped, and the sitting down to use the bathroom like a woman almost did. But when you open your eyes in the morning and the room seems to roll around for a couple of seconds like a carnival ride, things still aren't quite right.

After a morning prayer on my knees, somehow I blacked out again for a few moments. But this time, I wound up sitting on the floor near the bed. Laying low can have advantages, too.

Then came the drama of the day. I took an Advil pill, and had my usual breakfast. But it took a long time for me to swallow two simple slices of toast -- so long that I heard ESPN Radio hosts make the same point about four times.

Thankfully, the breakfast stayed down. The diarrhea was 95-percent stopped Monday night. A sweaty fever I had all night is gone. A two-and-a-half-hour midday rest on my bed worked wonders. And it was about 3:00 p.m. when my sense of humor came back.

(The sweat was really no surprise - nor are the 95-degree temperatures we're having. Rosh Hashanah is still two weeks away - and to borrow a principle I've heard from pastors over the years, it's not fall until God's calendar says it is.)

I played it safe, and heated a can of soup for dinner. My body rumbled slightly, but didn't explode again - so I was well enough during the evening to watch TV and do computer work. But I was only stirred up to about half my normal hormone level, when I saw the gorgeous Sam Ryan on the Monday Night Football sidelines.

It was a scary night, to be sure - with me wondering about everything about whether I had a stroke, to the rash possibly being a sign of West Nile Virus. But at least now I can sing about it, to the tune of "Stars Fell on Alabama":

I fell near Alabama,

And I hit my head so hard -

I wish I'd fell in Alabama, on lard!

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