Bagging A Gator: Facing Incontinence
I am entering a lottery that half of me secretly hopes I don’t win.
The American alligator elicits no sympathy from me. I am just as cold blooded about that beast as it is about me. For reasons I cannot comprehend (and I am pro-nature), the alligator is legally protected despite not being an endangered species and not having many, if any, natural predators. Meanwhile it menaces water edge prey with lightning speed, humans included. There is scant support in the Department of Natural Resources’ literature for its protected status, no more than a vague mention of keeping other species populations in check.
Alligator population in South Carolina alone is thought to be about 100,000 and a number of them have started hiding under cars in my local mall’s parking lot for the fun of it. When drainage ditches in populous areas make for their habitat, there is something ludicrous about a regulatory sign that tells citizens not to harass the alligators. Perhaps that has something to do with the Department of Natural Resources opening up a hunting license lottery for a lucky one thousand gator hunters this season, allowing the bagging of gators ranging anywhere in size from 4 feet in length to a rare but possible 16 feet.
Not being a gambling woman under normal circumstances, I didn’t check my odds before agreeing to paying for my spot in the lottery. I rationalized that I never win anything so there was nothing to worry about, no personal face to lose. So now I find out that only several hundred people entered last year and everyone was a lucky winner with licenses to spare. To save face, I cannot back out now. So how did I get in this jam to begin with?
It has to do with the guy next door, my old friend Walt, who led me into this. He has been somewhat miserable since his prostate surgery in the early spring and during a momentary weakness, I agreed to this extreme method of cheering him up. Walt has always been an avid outdoorsman and his health hiccup has caught him off guard. His cancer recovery prognosis is a good one but he is not the type to agree to a conservative recovery. He is miffed at being tired and worse yet, he is resentful of experiencing SUI (Stress Urinary Incontinence). And he is not quiet about it.
Walt holds court daily in his knotty pine paneled garage, the walls decked with skins of water moccasins, a mangy mounted bob cat head, and the piece de resistance, an 11 foot alligator skin. The Big One, his thirteen footer, is indoors just above his living room mantle. Whenever I enter the garage, I can’t keep my fingers from tracing the ridged distance from between the eye slits down to its nostrils, like the ritual rubbing of a talisman, marveling how this distance in inches magically equates the beast’s actual length in feet. And predictably, my shoulders always give an involuntary shudder.
A few weeks ago, I was doing my bit as part of a casserole brigade for Walt during his convalescence, dropping off a chicken divan or some such thing. I entered as usual through the garage door and once again, like an automaton, my hand ran its course down the mounted reptile’s snout. Walt gave his usual half smirk at my predictability but it was obvious his mind was elsewhere. Then without warning, he spilled his guts. “Well, Sister, I don’t know what kind of a man I am anymore, what with peein’ my pants and all these days. I probably should just buy me a rockin’ chair and some shares in one of them adult diapers companies.” Perhaps he felt so free to express his self disgust because he knew very well this was my line of work, incontinence supplies.
Walt is no dummy. He knows his encounter with prostate cancer has been a serious one and he is fortunate to have the good prognosis that he does. But even the common and most often temporary nature of the Stress Induced Incontinence (SUI) he was experiencing was severely annoying to him. I was familiar with the literature he had on the TV tray over in the corner; brochures and pamphlets with anatomical drawings and photos of scrubs-cloaked medical professionals explaining the possibilities and procedures surrounding post prostatectomy, including SUI. A cough, a sneeze or a routine golf swing could literally dampen a man’s mood in a matter of seconds.
The literature explained how the prostate wraps around the urethra and after radiation or a prostatectomy, the sphincter muscles that hold back flow from the bladder may be too weakened for a few months to hold up to their job. If SUI persists after six to twelve months, there are numerous other medical options to explore to help eliminate bladder leakage.
Walt refused to have the patience required of a convalescent. He expected the most of his body now as he had before as though his iron will could translate quickly into an iron bladder. SUI is certainly far more than a mind over matter issue but that was how he was choosing to deal with it, even in his frankness about shopping for “adult diapers, pads or whatever the hell you called them.” He was determined to win the day with bravado and I realize now that is why he reached under the bar to pull out his trusty harpoon and bang stick. Plunking them down on the counter, he said, “You and me, we’re going to have some fun this September that we need to start plannin’ on now.” If he had to stare down the maw of a personal darkness, then Walt was going to make sure I had my own personal taste of terror, even if it was trivial in comparison to his.
In the heat of the moment, I foolishly put myself at the mercy of Walt’s diversion tactics and now today am staring at the electronic signature line of a DNR alligator hunting lottery application. He insists I have to save face and not back down, that it is the only way to conquer fear. There can be a lot of arguments against this logic when it comes to gator hunting but I get what Walt is saying. He is telling me that getting into that boat at dusk will be a grabbing hold of life. That it will be an honest but conquerable fear when my flashlight beam locks onto a pair glowing red eyes gliding along the cypress swamp’s black surface. And Walt assures me he won’t hold it against me if I have to wear a pair of adult diapers to retain my dignity on the terrifying adventure.
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