Advisory: the following contains irreverence for Star Trek, reference to bodily functions (aka toilet humor) and nearly-naked photos. You have been warned.

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Just days before I was to undergo my hip replacement, this arrived in the mail.

I cannot tell you the relief of receiving the oddest looking thing ever to grace a commode. My first thought upon seeing my elevated toilet hover craft? “It looks like something from Star Trek.” Embracing my new command chair, I was able to boldly go to Spectrum Hospital and face the unknown. So sit back and enjoy this week’s episode of: Hip Trek. (Not a copyright infringement, at all.)

Spaced-Out: The finale to my front and rear! These are the voyages of the starship Enterpoop, Its six week mission: to explore embarrassing losses of dignity, to seek out new ways of putting on socks, to sleep like there’s no tomorrow…

Star Date: 0413.2015

Acting Captain’s Blog, First Officer Reporting: The captain has been relieved of duty by the medical officer. We arrived at the planet Spectrum for a brief layover to augment the captain’s hyperdrive by installing a new dilithium crystal stabilizer.*

Staff arrived disappointingly clothed in green jumpsuits—a total breach of Hip Trek protocol which dictates that medical personnel wear tight, crushed velvet blue shirts with black pants or mini dresses with Go Go boots. As the procedure would take some time, the captain donned a space suit designed to make her look like a Macy’s Day Float…appropriate considering some of the drugs later prescribed.

A nurse—most likely a vicious Romulan—by the name Phlebo ToMist attempted to excavate blood using an unnecessarily pointy object.

SHO’VA SHAK! (Okay, help me out, I think this one is from Star Gate) Let’s try Klingon: Qu’valth! P’tok!

The Romulan seemed disappointed when she finally hit a vein only to discover the blood wasn’t green after all.  The captain suffered this all in silence.**

According to tricorder readings, Bones (aka the surgeon)–plotted a star chart on the captain’s hip.

It looked as though he’d trained with Picasso. The captain was relieved to later awake from sedation to discover her nose reassuringly undisturbed.

The side effects of the procedure included a foggy-headed delirium wherein aliens appeared at odd intervals to monitor the implant and offer to take the captain to the head. The captain may have professed love to the anesthesiologist at one point. Fortunately Bones insisted she maintain near incapacitating level of narcotics in her system so any embarrassing details are but a blurry memory.***

Stardate: 0415.2015

Captain’s Personal Blog: Against medical advice, I have resumed my post. I will admit, Bones may have been right and the frag-bickle-lorum suggests I haven’t all my flurguls in a row. I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he is right though.

It seems as though my body has been taken over by an alien force that requires me to relearn all of my former functions using a variety of odd devices.

There is the sock-o-nator which works only in one direction apparently—which required repeated humiliating lessons before I figured out what I was doing wrong.  Fortunately the crew was much less medicated and on hand to help out.

I have a new transporter that, while of limited distance, allows me to move my leg from the floor to levitate at a level that alleviates the pain in my port nacelles.

There is the claw-like apparatus I call the ‘payload retrieval device’; it has a myriad of uses but primarily helps me locate the Captain’s briefs.

Lastly, there is my space shuttle which helps me to drag my carcass from one staggering location aboard ship to another until my body finally remembers how to function as a single, albeit sore, working unit.

And now, my moment of reflection must be cut short as we are on course to the planet Vex-Lax; it’s time to resume my captain’s chair and boldly go. Captain’s log out.

Asteroid Bedazzled Footnotes:

*In other words, to have an anterior hip replacement—dilithium crystal stabilizer sounds much cooler, doesn’t it?

**A total lie, but at least she didn’t scream “Get it out, get it out, get it out” as she did during a past similar hunt for a saline portal whilst preparing to produce her progeny. (This is 100% true. In my defense, the phlebotomist hit a nerve that to this day is funny when touched.)

***This entire post is brought to you by hydrocodone, tramadol and diazepam without which hallucinations such as this would not be possible.

Stay Tuned for Next Week’s Adventure: When the captain gets mortally impaled with a Bat’leth!