[JerryHawk250]

Tom is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers out of Louisiana and performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. This is an e-mail he sent to his sister. She sent it off to laugh line and won a contest (he wasn't thrilled with her for that one) Anyways...anytime you think you have a bad day at the office remember this poor chap.

Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I'd share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me I must first bore you 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 sh*t 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 damn 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 ass started to itch. So, Of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my ass started to burn. I pulled the hose 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. This is even worse than the poison ivy you once got under your cast. Now I had the hose down my back. I don't have any hair on my back, so the jellyfish couldn't get stuck to my back. My ass crack was not so fortunate!! When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jelly fish into my ass.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. 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 dry chamber decompression. I got to the surface wearing nothing but my brass helmet. My suit and gear were tied to the bell.

When I got to the medic, with tears of laughter streaming down his face, he handed me a tube of cream and told me to "shove it up my a**!" when I get in the chamber.

The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't sh*t for 2 days because my a-hole was swollen shut. I later found out that this could have easily been prevented if the suction hose was placed on the leeward side of the ship.

Anyway, next time you have a bad day at the office, think of me. Think of how much worse your day would be if you were to shove a jelly fish up your ass. 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.

Love you, Tom