INT – Castle – afternoon

The lead knight rushes to Unknown with important news. 

Knight: The scum have surrounded the castle and are upon the walls, Sir.

Unknown: All right then, man, no need to panic. We’ve been here before. Piece of cake. Let’s drop some boiling oral cipro on their heads.

Knight: Been there, done that.

Unknown: What? What do you mean by, “been there, done that”?

Knight: We already tried the boiling oral cipro, Sir. It’s lost it touch, it has.

Unknown: Really? Well, that’s not good. All right then, Plan B. How about some flaming balls of IV tobramycin to knock them down? That’s always a game-changer.

Knight: Been there, done that.

Unknown: My God, man, would you stop staying that, please?

Knight: Been there, done that?

Unknown: Yes, that. Exactly. Thank you. It’s no time for negativity. Are you quite sure the last barrage had no positive impact?

Knight: Yep. Not this time. Quite surprising it was, if I must say so. Just bounced right off of them. Quite amazing to see. Tough little buggers and quite angry.

Unknown: I see. Brilliant. Well, what else have we got here?

Knight: For lunch?

Me: For lunch? Are you daft, man? For heaven’s sake. For lunch? Not for lunch, imbecile. To drop on them. To keep them out of the castle.

Knight: Hmm, let me think. [pause while he thinks, and thinks some more] Well, lunch was pretty awful. It might work.

Unknown: Oh, my god. That’s the best you’ve got?

Knight: Well, yes. The ham is quite spoiled. Damn awful. They’ll be throwing up for hours if they eat it. Buy us some time, it will.

Unknown: Oh, damn me. We’ve run out of tricks, haven’t we? I guess we have no choice. Drop the ham. Drop it now. Let’s buy a few hours before we’re buggered for good.

Knight: But we’re out of ham.

Unknown: What? But you just said we had ham.

Knight: Well, not technically. I said perhaps we’d like to consider dropping lunch on them. But we ate it all.

Unknown: Even though it was rotten?

Knight: We used lots of mustard.

Unknown: And the men didn’t leave even a tiny bit of ham for later?

Knight: No, I’m afraid not. We ate all of it.

Unknown: And you didn’t get sick?

Knight: Oh, we got sick all right. Right horrid, it was. Oh, terrible squirts. But we was hungry. What’s a man to do when his stomach calls?

Unknown: Skip the detail next time, my dreadful knight. So, if I’m to understand correctly, what you’re saying is that we’re completely screwed?

Knight: I guess I am. That sounds about right, Captain. Completely screwed. 100%.

Unknown: Very well then, I’m going to walk to that wall over there. And then I’m going to climb up on it, at which point I want you to give me a nice solid kick to the arse, sending me over the edge and into the intruders. I may as well take a few of them with me on the way out. Are you clear on the new plan, my good knight?

Knight: Crystal, Sir. It will be my pleasure, your royalness, to kick you in the arse. My pleasure indeed.

The End

I have no right to complain. Every day I grow old with CF is a gift, but some of those days have their challenging moments. Today was one of those days.

My PFTs are still down after IVs. Or, no improvement. And the reason I can’t hear higher tones anymore is because I’ve lost a portion of my hearing thanks to the dozens of doses of IV tobramycin I’ve taken over the years – one drop at a time. Ouch.

Tomorrow will be a better day. I have a shipment of ham on the way.