Dr. Love and The Case of The People-Eating Sponge

Still of Elaine from NBC’s “Seinfeld”

More Cowbell Monday is always about laughter. It’s just a rule around here that we start the week that way.

Over the weekend, I saw the 119th Seinfeld episode, titled The Sponge. Of all the shows I’ve watched, this is in my top three.

Every woman I know died laughing over Elaine putting her boyfriend through a rigorous testing to see if he was “sponge-worthy.”

Here’s a link to the actual interview with the guy. (Elaine takes this opportunity to make him clean his bathroom and “lose the sideburns.”)

I mean, how do you not laugh at this:

The Today sponge and I have an adversarial relationship and Seinfeld’s “sponge-worthy” episode takes me back to a personal very embarrassing episode in college involving the stupid sponge.

Keep in mind, this hate-hate relationship started back in the late 1980’s, before the internet really hit the scene. We had computers, but it wasn’t like you could just zip online and look stuff up. Back in the day, when my roomate handed me a Today sponge, there was no How-To Guide to figure the damn thing out.

All I had was my little 4’11” roomate saying: “Of course they’re easy! Insert it like an OB tampon and when you want to take it out, just bear down and shimmy a little. It’ll fall in the floor.”

Um, no. It didn’t really work that way at all.

There was no shimmy. There was no “falling out.”

In fact, after the deed and through the next day, there was no budging that thing. And trust me, I tried all sorts of maneuvers that are way too embarrassing to mention. That sucker was wedged up in the bleacher seats *if you know what I mean*.

Ditto the day after that.

That’s when I started to get nervous.

On the THIRD day I went to the emergency room, which thankfully was close to the back entrance of my dorm. I say “thankfully” because I was desperately uncomfortable and pretty much waddling like a slutty duck at this point.

One of my pals hung out with me while I balanced on one butt cheeck in the ER, waiting to be seen. (I couldn’t sit down).

My roomate was making herself scarce at this point. She was afraid I was going to get toxic shock from HER sponge and she couldn’t handle it.

Anyway, back to me and my abused vajayjay, perched in the waiting room….

The ER triage team called me back to a bed and sent in a super-cute doctor whose name would have sent me scurrying from the ER if I’d been capable. My young resident was named Dr. Love and I’m sure he saw idiot freshmen like me every day of the week.

Dr. Love saved the day and got the stupid thing out. I started on seriously strong meds to prevent a systemic infection and vowed never EVER to use the Today sponge again.

The story was the stuff of legend amongst my circle of friends, and The Case of The People-Eating Sponge  was told LONG after we all graduated. It sure is a good thing God takes care of fools and children. At that point in my life, I was both. 🙂

Do you have slap-your-head moments from your school years? Care to share them in the comments? Enquiring minds LOVE to know these things here at More Cowbell!

Jenny