Bad Day at the Office (jellyfish)

The author is a commercial Saturation diver for Global Divers out of
Louisiana and performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs.  Below
is an email he sent to his sister.  Anytime you think you have had a bad
day at the office, remember this letter.

**********************************************

October, 1998

Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad
day at the office. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must
bore you again with a few technicalities of my job.  As you know my office
lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office.  It's a
wetsuit.

This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is
this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater.  This $20,000 piece
of junk sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful
temp. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose which is
taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used
it several times with no complaints.  What I do, when I get to the bottom
and start working, is I take the hose and stuff it down the back of my
neck. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a
Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch.
So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few
seconds my rear started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but
the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened.  The hot water
machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit.  As I said, I
had that hose down my back. Since I don't have any hair on my back like
your husband, the jellyfish couldn't get stuck to my back. My butt crack
was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was
actually grinding the jellyfish into my butt.  I informed the dive-master
supervisor of my dilemma over the comms.  His instructions were unclear due
to the fact that he along with 5 other divers were laughing hysterically.

Needless to say I aborted the dive.  I was instructed to make 3 agonizing
in-water decompression stops totaling 35 minutes before I could come to the
surface for my chamber dry decompression. I got to the surface wearing
nothing but my brass helmet. My suit and gear were tied to the bell. When I
got on board the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face,
handed me a tube of cream and told me to shove it up my rear-end when I get
in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two
days because my butt-hole was swollen shut.  I later found out that this
could easily have been prevented if the suction hose was placed on the
leeward side of the ship.  Anyway, the next time you have a bad day at the
office, think of me.  Think about how much worse your day would be if you
were to shove a jellyfish up your butt. I hope you have no bad days at the
office. But if you do, I hope this will make them more tolerable.  Take
care, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers,
Rick