THE HOTEL CHILD: THAT TIME I LEARNED ABOUT HEMORRHOIDS

By Grant McGee

  I was doing some aimless wandering across the vast expanse of the internet the other day and decided to look up my dad’s name.
  He popped up hither, thither and yon in articles about the hotel business. That was his business, the hotel business. He was the world’s greatest hotel manager, at least that’s what he told me and I believed him because after all he was my dad and he had about as much authority to me as Moses coming down from The Mount with The Tablets.
  I found a reference to him in a Pennsylvania newspaper. It was from 1966 and he was supposed to give the keynote speech at a hotel convention but was unable to “as he was rushed to the hospital earlier in the day.”
  Yep, that’s when my daddy had hemorrhoid trouble.
  I can talk about my father’s hemorrhoids because he’s done gone “on to Glory” so I don’t reckon he cares much now.   How I knew about his hemorrhoids amazes me, what with me not even being 10 years old when it happened.
  “I found an article about a convention dad went to in the 60’s,” I was telling my brother. “Now I know exactly when he had hemorrhoid trouble.”
  “What?” said my brother. “Dad had hemorrhoids? I didn’t know this.”
  “You weren’t there, man,” I said. “You were off to college.”
  “How did you know dad had hemorrhoids?”
  “Mom told me he was in the hospital back then,” I said. “I asked her why and she said he had hemorrhoid problems.”

  Flash back to 1966.

  Mom gets off a phone call that seems to concern her.

  “Who was that, mom?” I asked.

  “That was your father.  He’s in a hospital in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  His hemorrhoids burst while he was walking down the street.”

  “Hemorrhoids.  That’s what Preparation H is for.  I’ve seen it on TV.  What ARE hemorrhoids anyway?”

  My momma gave me a look of a few seconds.

  “It’s when you strain too much when you’re having a BM.”

  In all my life I never heard anyone else refer to going “number 2” as a BM.  That was my momma’s code term for “bowel movement.”

  “So dad was straining while he was walking down the street?” I asked.  I didn’t understand.

  “No,” she said.  “It’s too much to go into right now.”

  “Why didn’t he just use Preparation H?” I asked my mom. “Like they say on TV, it’s for hemorrhoids.”
  “Oh honey,” said my momma, “This was a very serious problem, that’s why he’s in the hospital.  He’ll tell you about it when he gets home.”
  Well I figured my dad wouldn’t be around for a couple of days and I still wanted to know what hemorrhoids were, ‘cos still didn’t  understand,  so I asked my buddy Catfish’s mom. Catfish’s mom was a nurse and she knew stuff.
  But she wouldn’t tell me.
  She said I should wait for my dad to get home.
  Days later when my dad came home he got all upset that I knew he had hemorrhoids.

  “Why didn’t you take Preparation H?” I asked.

  This is when my dad got into his preachy pronouncement voice thing he did.  My sister called it pontificating.  I had to look that word up.
  “My doctor told me that crap is absolutely worthless!” he said, his index finger jabbing the air.

  Years later I would learn that Preparation H is made from shark liver oil.
It made me sad to think of all the sharks that died just so’s humans could have less butt pain.

  Years later I would need Preparation H.  I thought the stuff worked pretty well.