Hospital gowns, undies and a thwarted car thief: Kevin Page

Sure enough, below me, maybe three times the length of my crutches away, this person is trying to break the lock on the canopy of the ute.

So, there I am recently about to be admitted to hospital for an operation.

And, like my mum always told me I should, I have new undies for the occasion.

Okay, to be 100% accurate, my mum told me I should always wear clean undies in case I got run over by a bus.

Regardless, getting new ones for my hospital stay is, I think, essentially the same thing.

I’ve gone in with Mrs P and we’re going through the usual pre-admission checks with a lovely old nurse. You know the type. She’s seen and heard it all before.

Which is good because the fun started when she asked me to get changed into the mandatory gown and hospital-issue undies.

No, I couldn’t wear my own, she said, even if Mrs P had just gone and got me a new four-pack on special from Farmers.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve experienced hospital issue undies yourself Dear Reader, but let’s just say if you haven’t, they leave a little to be desired in both the areas of comfort and aesthetic appeal.

I’m delighted to report the ones I got the other day did not disappoint. So much so that I felt the need to perform a little fashion show for Mrs P once I had them on.

You may have heard the laughter from where you are.

They were a boxer style made of thin, stretchy, see-through material that stretched significantly when enough pressure was applied.

Naturally, with Mrs P just about rolling round on the floor already, I decided to go as far as I could and hitched the elastic waistband as far up towards my armpits as I could.

As a result the bottom half of the “garment” – and I’m struggling to actually describe them as such – became tighter.

I’m sure you can visualise what I’m saying. For those of you with a weak disposition and/or vivid imagination, you may need to lie down for a while.

Anyway. As I stood there posing in front of a near-hysterical Mrs P, our nurse came bowling back into the room.

There was one of those awkward momentary silences as we both froze, staring at each other. But the look on her face – a barely perceptible smile evident – confirmed what I said earlier: she’d seen it all before.

So anyway, off I went to surgery, resplendent in my figure-hugging undies, which, I assume, did not send any of the surgeons sprinting off over the horizon. Though who would know? I was out of it obviously. The cleaner might very well have come in and replaced my hip.

Fast-forward five days and I’m out of hospital and recuperating at a friend’s house.

Mrs P and I are staying in a charming little apartment above their garage. I’m on crutches for a while and this particular night we are deep in slumber when I hear something outside.

Like most of us with a lockable garage, we’ve been lazy and left the car outside. Groan. And now some little toerag is trying to break into it.

I lay there for a few minutes to work out if the noise I just heard was a dream, as you do. Then I heard it again. Nope. Definitely not a dream. Somebody’s out there.

Quietly, I wake Mrs P and whisper my plan.

I’m going to sneak out on the deck right above the car and catch the culprit red-handed. Obviously, there’s nothing I can do in terms of physically restraining the offender, but I figured if I could at least get a good look at him, that might help with follow-up action.

So off I go, super-quietly out into the lounge, opening the deck ranch slider then out on to the deck.

Sure enough, below me, maybe three times the length of my crutches away, this person is trying to break the lock on the canopy of the ute.

Right on time and exactly as planned, Mrs P flicks on the outside lights and there he is in all his scumbag glory, staring straight up at me.

Fired up by adrenalin, I’ve shaken my crutch at him and roared at the top of my lungs.

“WHATAREYADOIINGYALITTLE******!!!!!”

The look of absolute terror in his face before he scarpered back down the driveway was priceless.

Obviously, that might have had something to do with the noise I produced and the sight of me in my new undies from Farmers waving a crutch at him.

I think if I’d been wearing my hospital-issue undies for the occasion, he’d probably still be running now.

I’d say at the very least that sight would certainly have left him emotionally scarred for the rest of his life.