Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
My wife Kate has to get her hip replaced. Unlike many candidates for this operation, she is relatively young, fit, and active. All of these factors have contributed to her successful delay of an eventually necessary option, and that’s encouraging, especially if the patient doesn’t want to get the same hip replaced more than once.
According to the website WebMD, “95% of hip replacements last at least 10 years, about 75% last 15 to 20 years, and just over half last 25 years or more.” With Kate’s healthy diet and active lifestyle, she will surely outlast her first titanium hip, no matter how soon it is installed.
The hip replacement procedure is one that for our household will require significant preparation. The obstacle? No stairs. Last week her surgeon told her that she would have to stay on the first floor of our home for the first month or more, despite the fact that our first floor bathroom has no bath, or a shower. We would have a downstairs bedroom for Kate, especially after our youngest heads off to college this fall, but how will recovering Kate take a shower?
While I was out walking with Jukie earlier this week, I sent Kate ten ideas on how to address this problem, none of which are reasonable.
One, we could check Kate into the hotel that was in recent years built a block from our house and have her shower there once a week. That option would be expensive, but at least nearby. The hotel has first floor rooms, and an elevator.
Two, we could install a stair lift in the house, one of those sitting railing-based escalators that old Ruby Deagle (played by Polly Holiday) used rather dramatically in the 1984 horror Christmas film Gremlins. In that movie, Mrs. Deagle received an end fitting for a James Bond villain, so I think all filmgoers from my generation are wary of stair lifts. Of course, as Francois Truffaut said, “Film lovers are sick people.” There’s a picture of the French director posted with a bonus trivia question on Patreon.
Three, we could have installed an elevator that would deliver Kate from the southwest corner of the first floor to the southeast corner of the second floor, right next to her side of the bed. An elevator would cost about ten times as much as the stair lift, and it would require its own backup power source so that people don’t get stuck in the elevator between floors, such as what happened in the 1983 Dutch horror film The Lift.
I promise that I don’t have a horror film connection for each option on this list.
Four, we could have our contractors A+J Construction, who did such a good job with our kitchen, build a full bathroom with a door that connects it to our downstairs bedroom. Adding a bathroom to our home would cost about twice as much as the elevator. Our current emergency fund could pay for a (dental) crown, but not a room addition, so this option seems unlikely without a fundraising telethon.
Five, I contend that we have never-seen and unclaimed space in our house under the staircase. If Harry Potter could sleep in such a space for much of an entire book, Kate could crouch while taking her home shower. We haven’t scoped this out with a tape measure. Also, don’t ask me about drainage.
Six, we could just move to a one-story house in Davis. That would cost about ten times as much as the bathroom addition, especially with mortgage rates hovering around seven percent. We like our current house and its greenbelt access, and we have grown fond of the neighborhood cat, so this option also seems unlikely.
Seven, we could make judicious use of the hose in the back yard, an approach embraced by my son Jukie one summer before the Pandemic.
Eight, we could install one of those portable solar showers in the backyard. That approach would at least include hot water.
Nine, we could ask one of our friends with a one story house to swap houses with us for a month while Kate recovered. That would be a lot to ask.
And Ten, we could just to move into a one story Airbnb for a month. I would want it to be within walking distance of campus, but of course everything in Davis is within walking distance for me.
My reasonable wife Kate has wisely vetoed all these creative suggestions, but we would still have to figure out how she would take showers while recovering from hip replacement surgery.
I welcome your suggestions. What ideas haven’t we explored yet?
If you are in Davis tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. I believe the rain will conclude by 7 PM, but my phone’s weather app has a spotty prediction record recently. With regard to tonight’s competition, recruit a team and dress for a winter sunset if you plan to play outside. Most players will gather indoors, I expect.
In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on imports, royalty, record breakers, atomic numbers, California cities, autonomous communities, public offerings, animated films, iconic villains, super heroines with and without capes, again with the spiders, revolutions, title characters, Oscar winners, flu resentments, famous bridges, pineapples, Olympic hopefuls, YouTube subscriber counts, self-portraits, new castles, mobile apps, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Three of the questions for tonight have not yet been written. Despite what you might think, there will be no hip surgery questions. We had enough of that in the newsletter.
Thanks to the new supporters Brooke, Jeannie, and More Cow Bell. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
Best,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Here are four questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:
- Newspaper Headlines. What is the name of the former advice columnist to whom a jury has said Donald Trump must pay an additional $83.3 million in a widely-followed defamation case
- Popes. When you multiply the number 38 by the famous number of Hills in Rome you get the number of popes (so far). What is that number of popes?
- Nursery Rhymes. According to the nursery rhyme, which Duke marches ten thousand soldiers up and down a hill for no apparent reason?
- Four for Four. Which of the following Emmy-winning actors appear in the 1990 comedy horror film Arachnophobia: Bryan Cranston, Jeff Daniels, John Goodman, Mary Tyler Moore?
P.P.S. Can you believe that next week I will perform a breakfast pub quiz at the San Francisco Writers Conference?