MRI mission central

i went on a trip inside a whirling machine - a time machine. it was the MRI, but the loud white noise it made, made me go back in time - a time of being 18 years old. a time of when i was just of age and a time that i got to travel around the world by ship - the" World Campus Afloat". The loud groaning and clunking the MRI made sounded just like my stateroom just over the large motor powering at a steady slow speed churning through the blue south pacific on to the indian ocean finishing up in the north atlantic at Florida. the slow steam was not a match to our jet speed youthful growth through curiosity, hormones and dumb guts.
Imagine being 18 and aboard a ship full of kids your own age you don't know, no supervision to speak of and the high energy of fright and excitement mixed together. i know you can't really imagine and i had forgotten what it felt like until tonight during my MRI.

that's right it was tonight, not at 9 am. as i thought, but 9 p.m. i showed up for my otay mesa kaiser MRI appointment 12 hours early. no one told me it was a night appointment. i didn't think to ask - "oh, 9 o'clock, is that morning or night?"
who ever heard of such a thing?
i'll know better next time.
someday when i am not too tired from vicodin and undergoing an MRI at midnight, i will tell you some tales of my trip asea, around the world - how i got chased by african elephants and visited by a lion on safari.....how i got into the middle of an argument between two black men in south africa in a place that whites weren't allowed. how i watched a fire walking ceremony in fiji and went to a college dance in perth, australia - was caught in the middle of a stampede of crazy hindus in madras, india and fought off leeches in candy, sri lanka.......it was all so long ago, maybe even a lifetime ago....but i got to visit it again tonight.