STEAMED TENDERS

"BIDET"
According to Webster's New World Dictionary, a BIDET (bi da) {Fr.}is "a low, bowl- shaped bathroom fixture, with running water, for bathing the crotch".

As you will soon see, the aforementioned device will do a lot more than just "bath the crotch".
First off let me bring you up to this point in my life, I had never seen a bidet before but sure I'd heard of them. In fact one radio personality, Dr. Dean O'Dell talks about how wonderful this little beast is and how everyone in the world should have one etc., etc., etc.
Well, after my little escapade with the beast from hell let me be the first to let you know, "one will never grace the confines of our bathroom".
So with all that said; NOW's the time to close your eyes, put on your tiny wings, so you can be the proverbial fly on the wall so to speak. Go sit on the edge of the mirror and see what happens when an unsuspecting traveler has a run-in with a Bidet from hell. So please, just sit back and relax while I weave a tail of woe for you.

I was one weary truck driver that night. I'd been on the road for about twelve hours by the time I saw the bright glow of lights and the sign in the night sky for the Boise Stage Stop.
It's a very, nice truck stop at MP 71 on I-84 on the outskirts of Boise, Idaho. As I take the exit and start to gear down, I raise my foot from the throttle to let the deep-rumbling Jake brake slow me down. I drop a few more gears and as I come to the stop sign I look both ways as I coast through the intersection and grab one more gear as I turn the wheel to the left. Accelerating towards the Fuel Island I can see no one's at the fuel pumps. I think to myself "*&%$@#, I'll have to pump my own fuel," The last thing I want to do is have to fuel this thing after a long day." Oh well, I'll fuel now, pay for it, get a shower ticket and take a long hot shower; Then I'll get some food and go to bed. Ahhhh! It's the end of a pretty good day, and what better way to relax than a long hot shower?

I've completed fueling, paid for it and received my shower ticket and as I pull out of the fuel bay I notice that lo and behold there's a Skunk Truck just pulling out. Now I'll have a parking spot right up front. Good deal, I won't have to walk a mile to get into the warmth of the truck stop.

I drive around the perimeter of the lot and swinging wide to pull into the spot that Dick Simon AKA "Skunk Trucks" had just vacated. I place the transmission into neutral and pull the button on the dash to set the parking brakes. I hear the all too familiar "KA-SHEWWwwwwwwww" as the airbrakes set.
I raise the tilt wheel to get it out of the way and stand up and step into my sleeper to grab my little backpack. It has all my shower stuff in it. Like my razor, soap and I even toss in a washcloth to take with me. Some truck stops don't give you washcloths with their towels when you get your shower and I wasn't going to take a chance on this place not giving me one. I grab my keys from the ignition and head off across the parking lot.

It's a cool fall night and just starting to get that nip in the air "Brrrr, Snows on its way, just a few more weeks." I think to myself. There's not a cloud in the sky and all the stars are shining so brilliantly tonight I swear you could read by starlight. As I walk in through the swinging glass doors and step into the game room, my senses are assaulted by the clamoring racket issuing forth from all the slot machines and pinball machines; along with the race car video game all begging for me to feed them lots of quarters or dollars. I swear those machines have some kind of sensor in them. Whenever someone comes close, they all start to blare and flash and squeal at you trying to get the attention of anyone with a roll of quarters in their pocket. It kind of reminds me of the window washers you'll find at intersections in New York.

As I walk through this room and into the hallway I notice a sign hanging down with an arrow pointing towards the left, "SHOWERS" Well hey that's what I want. So off to the left I go, up the stairs two at a time. I want my shower now and I don't want to wait. I only hope to God they don't have a waiting list for the shower. I felt confident that with the amount of trucks around and nobody fueling and also it being a Saturday night I wouldn't have wait.
The shower girl was standing at the check in table waiting to hand out free popcorn to the few drivers lounging in the Movie Theater and also to take my name and company name and write the information into her guest book As I come closer she notices me and she say's, "Hi, how ya doing tonight?" "Well honey I'll tell ya, I'm ready for a long hot soak." I reply with a smile. She tells me "I can fix ya right up. We'll get ya set right up so you can go on in and soak to your little hearts content. We're not too busy tonight so take as long as you want."
She takes my name and receipt number for the fuel I had just purchased and also my Company name and writes it into her book. She leans over and reaches into a closet that has a million towels folded. She takes three and asks me to follow her. She leads me down a wide hallway to a door. She takes out a key and opens the door to a huge bathroom.

I notice huge Tub on the right and a shower just around the corner from the tub and a sink on the left side of the door with a big mirror above the sink. A ceiling and wall fan is humming away in the background doing it's best to keep the room as moisture and mold free as possible. There's a toilet over on the far side far the room; but what's that thing beside the toilet? Karla the shower girl turns and hits the switch for the fan to come on and turns and smiles and gives me a wink and tells me to "Enjoy!" Hmmm...

Well the first thing to do in a situation is this. Off with the clothes!
I then commence to digging in my pack getting the shampoo, soap, razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste and then grabbing my wash cloth noticing they gave me one, I toss it in with mine. I undo the rubber bands holding the towels together and put them over by the shower and then walk over to the tub. "Oh my," I think to myself. A long warm bath does sound oh so good. So I start the bath water running and then kind of saunter over to the fancy toilet looking thing beside the real toilet.
Hmmm. Three knobs? I notice the sign above saying, "BIDET. Adjust water, squat and enjoy." "Cool" say's I. So I squat beside the contraption and turn one of the handles and water starts to flow from under the rim. I turn the other far handle and even more water starts flowing from under the rim. I turn the center handle and promptly get hit in the face with a shower of water. I leap backwards sputtering and gasping. In the heat of the moment I must have turned it all the way on because then the blast O water has reached the ceiling like a water cannon trying to keep protesters at bay. This freaking thing's squirting water to the roof and showering down on me like a torrential downpour one might find in a hurricane. I'm scrambling to get to the valve to turn the friggin thing off before I get the management banging on the door asking if I need help.
I get the darn thing turned off and all I can think is, "GOOD GOD! Am I glad I wasn't sitting on that?" Well I should have just left well enough alone at that point, but no. Not Dougie, no way! After doing the responsible thing, such as cleaning up my mess which, if I may say could have been MUCH worse had I been riding the water cannon from hell. It makes me shudder to even think of what that could have been like. Can you image trying to explain that to the management?"Oh yeah"!

Anyway after I got this thing tamed down and figured out how it worked, I climbed on and sat down. All we're missing now was the rope and horns. "Yee Haw!" I reached behind me and with a feeling of apprehension turned the center handle and WHOOOOOSHHHHH! ARGHH!! Quickly cranking the handle the other way I got it down to a mere roar. After a few minutes I decided "hey this things not really all that bad. A bit messy for sure, what with all the water which was spraying about, but still kind of groovy." I decided I'd grab my book so I reached behind me and turned the center valve and shut the water down and took a step or two and retrieved my book from where it had landed from my earlier soaking foray. I sat down again and this time I GENTLY turned the valve and was rewarded with only a minor splash that rattled my teeth.
I was just sitting there doing the man thing. You know "Bideting and reading" when I decided I really do need to do something with the volume of water issuing forth. So with man like reasoning I reach behind me and without looking, start turning a valve while still reading my suspense filled book. Looking back on it I don't really seem to recall just what the hell I was thinking and if you read farther along you'll see that apparently I wasn't thinking at all!
I turned the valve and nothing happened. "Should have been a clue," you think?
Well nothing seems to be happening so I really cranked the handle all the way to the right.
About that time this beast from hell burst forth a jet of high pressure steaming water that will only rivaled something from "Yellowstone".
With a SQUEAL and a HOWL I leapt from my perch to view this steaming cauldron that was boiling and simmering away where my ah.. er ...shall we just call them my "Tenders" had Just occupied.
I get this geyser of steam turned off and I'm dancing and prancing about, I'm crying and laughing at the same time. I'm wondering to myself "GOOD GOD! WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?"
"This is nuts", I think. This is about the most STUPID thing that anyone can do to theirself.
I mean hey, you read about fools that do this kind of thing. (McDonalds coffee lady comes to mind) Now you're the fool they're going to read about in CNN! Oh shit, I remember the jokes on the David Letterman show and Conan O'Brian and pretty much every comedy act known to man used this in their acts.
Ohhhhhhhhh Woe is me!
About this time I'm noticing the heat is really starting to build up down there and I remember from First Aid training that the first thing you need to do is immerse the cooked parts in cold water. OH JOY!
Where do I go to get cold water? Ah! A cold wash clothe? Nay, no way is it large enough to hold enough cool liquid to quench the flames licking at my tender thighs and nether regions. Besides, a wash cloth is way to slow. I need vast quantities of cool water and I needed it like 2 minutes ago.

AhHa ! Maybe there's Cold water in the bathtub? The bathtub is full by now. I stick my foot in and test the water in the tub. Holy Yikes I say as I pull back a blistered toe from the scalding pool. God this is HOT and getting HOTTER "Ohh OWWww Ohh this hurts"! Quick Dougie think.

I spy the BIDET! This time with familiarity born of necessity I turn the COLD WATER on and then I turn the center handle and this time I only get a light dousing in the face. I TEST the temperature with face and finger. COLD! Oh Good God It's cold. I sit and let the ICE WATER chill the tenders till I can't stand it any longer.
I look down and can't see anything. No, they're not all shriveled up, maybe a bit cooked and a bit blue. "Ohhhh Ohh .. heh heheheh ehhe oh oh ohh gawd it hurts SOOOOOoooooo damn bad. What the hell did I do to myself"? I snicker and cry.
I know I have to look but it's not like it's in a place that's easy to get to. Sheezzz! If you scrape your knee it's easy to look at. If you toast your parts it's like hard to get a view that's helpful.

I look around for a reflecting device that I can use. I start rummaging through my pack, alas nary a mirror. Oh God it's starting to burn. I flee back to the Ice Water Bidet. Sitting and shivering and pondering.

Ha AHHA! I spy a reflecting device up on the wall. All I have to do is figure out how to get my scorched parts up that high and then be able to get a view that will help. I look about my room and I see the chair. It's kind of like a kitchen chair. I scamper from my icy perch and grab the chair and drag it to the sink/counter and then climb onto the counter top. I turn around and all I can think is "I hope these people don't have a camera behind the glass.
I get as close as I can to the mirror and bend over and try and peer between my bony little knees up to the mirror. All I can see is a lot of redness and that's it really. Well at this point I'm contented to believe it's only a first-degree or at worst a Second degree burn. "Painful but minor".

Now as I'm perched upon a bathroom counter-top three feet in the air, "nekkid" and pretty much standing on my head on a piece of wet Formica. I figured that I should be careful; anyone that could scorch their arse like this can surely slip and fall off a wet Formica counter top whilst standing on his head and not wake up until you hear the shower girl chortling madly about a scalded unconscious twit in the showers to the Boise Fire Dept.
I gingerly stand up and stepped carefully down from harms way. Where I promptly slipped on the wet floor and landed on my burned tenders. I laughed and I cried and sniveled as I crawled back to my fountain O Ice Water. The only thing I know for is. I can't very well sit here all night on this ice water fountain.

Granted the best thing to do for a burn such as this is the application of cool water. What'll the workers say if I don't leave here for hours?
I know I need to find a way back to my truck with the least amount of pain and greatest amount of looking normal. After a long time of quick freezing my tenders over the ice water bidet I slipped on my pants and shoes and hopefully was looking normal.

I got dressed and walked out and with a forced smile to Karla at the counter when she asked if I had a "good soak". "Oh yeah, none better, I'll never forget this night that's for sure" I said as I dragged my flaming tenders down the stairs and through the hallway and past the game machines that seemed to be laughing at me.
Off across the parking lot I trudge with my new jeans chaffing the last hundred yards or so. I didn't know if I was going to be able to make it or not.

Well, I did make it but just barely. I scampered into my sleeper and ripped my pants off to get some coolness down there. It was really starting to burn now.
"Maybe I should go to the hospital or something" I think. Yeah! "How ya gonna get there?" I can't drive. There's like no way in hell I'm going to call an ambulance. I can't go in and complain to the workers. Oh yeah, like they'll show any mercy for me. I sure as hell can't get on the CB and ask for help over the Airwaves.
I'm so screwed. What did I do to deserve this? Sniffle, whine, and chortle. I do have a fan in my sleeper so I turned it on and spent the night with my feet planted firmly on the ceiling of my sleeper. If I dozed off, my feet would drop down to the bed the heat would start to build up again and would wake me up.
"'Twas a miserable night" I spent there. As it turned out, I had some pretty good second degree burns that I couldn't really tell I had because I couldn't see down there well enough. After about a week I started to peel like I'd received severe Sunburn. I'm like "what the hell is going on now"? I'm afraid my tenders are going to fall off. After a few more uncomfortable days of peeling my parts they're now good as new.

So folks, that pretty much concludes my adventure with the beastly Bidet. Also known as the cooker of TENDERS! So groovy guy's and groovy gal's, BEWARE it's out there just waiting to leap and bite you where it really DOES hurt the worst!