Live Surgery!

'What kind of a Surgeon's Assistant are you?' I said to my girlfriend, as we left the house.
'I'm not a Surgeon's Assistant,' she said, as she handed me the keys. 'Hence why I don't have a scalpel.'
'Fair point,' said I, as we trotted merrily on our way to Sainsburys.
On the way to Sainsburys, we came upon a junction. A junction with a sign. A sign upon a signpost, attached to which were three other signs, which gave distances and directions to various places. But the sign which our eyes had alighted upon read thus...

[ Live Surgery! 2 Miles! This Way! ]

'Live Surgery?' said I. '2 miles?'
'Curious,' said my girlfriend.
To which I responded: 'And startlingly coincidental, considering what I said to you as we left the house.'
'Amazing,' said my girlfriend. Although I detected some degree of irony in her tone. She did, in fact, have the appearance of someone who was less than amazed.
'Are you less than amazed?' I queried, as my girlfriend consulted the shopping list, crossed out the number '2' which preceded the words 'tins of beans' and replaced it with the number '1.'
'I have never,' she replied, 'been interested in the prospect of Live Surgery. Now come on, this shopping won't buy itself.'
She grabbed my arm and attempted to lead me in the direction of our original destination.
'But it could be fun!' I said, as I attempted to extricate myself from her vice-like grip. 'Not to mention interesting and informative.'
'But we are in need of cabbages!' said my girlfriend determinedly. 'And how are we going to get that stain out of your shirt without a block of Vanish?'
'The stain can wait!' said I. 'Live Surgery is a once in a lifetime opportunity!'
My girlfriend gave me a look. I proffered my most puppy dog-ish smile.
She raised her eyebrows, as if considering (so it seemed) whether or not to throw me a bone.
I widened my grin to almost supernatural proportions.
'Okay,' she said.
'Hurrah!'
'But if I get blood on my new pashmina, you're paying for the dry cleaning.'
'We have a joint bank account.'
'Get a paper round.'
And off we went to see what this Live Surgery hoo-har was all about.

It wasn't especially pleasant, it has to be said. I mean, it was Live Surgery, what do you expect? Scalpels, blood, slicing and the like. It was, however, presented with no small amount of glitz, glamour and showbiz panache. To wit...
'Ladies and Gentlemen!' said the man in the sequinned surgical gown (with sparkly bits), into one of those old-fashioned microphone jobbies, such as was used by The Goons and other radiophonic entertainers of long ago. 'May I present your surgeon for the evening' - he waved his arm theatrically at the stage behind him - 'Doctor Nathaniel Sparks!'
'Evening?' said I, as I consulted my watch. 'It's 2.37 p.m.'
But my voice was drowned out by the sound of tumultuous applause and cheering a-plenty, as the compere sidled off the stage, in that way that comperes do; powerful music, like that of a 70's disaster movie, filled the room; and spotlights flashed and flitted about the place, lending erratic luminance to Dr. Sparks and the bright white table from which he would be providing his unconventional brand of entertainment.
The venue, far from being a hospital or somesuch, was a kind of converted warehouse.
Dr. Nathaniel Sparks was a surgeon. He was dressed like a surgeon. None of the sequins or sparkly bits of the compere - just a face mask, green surgical scrubs and surgical gloves. He also had one of those ponytails made popular in the 80's by twentysomething businessmen, tight-trousered magicians and fans of Dire Straits.
And he had an assistant: an identikit blond, straight out of drama school, with an unfeasibly large frontage, who wore one of those pretend, plasticcy nurse's uniforms you can buy in less classy versions of Ann Summers for about a tenner... So I've heard.
Anyway, there he stood, all surgeon-like behind his table, as the assistant flounced and gesticulated like some kind of Sale of the Century girl. The music drew to a close, the lights dimmed, the cheering and applause faded, as Dr. Nathaniel Sparks walked to the front of the table and asked for a volunteer. Like, you know, from the audience.
'Go on then,' said my girlfriend, giving me a nudge. 'Show me how much you love me by having your pancreas removed in front of hundreds of people.'
Pancreas? Removed? Volunteer? I don't know what I had expected from a Live Surgery event, but this was not it.
'This man would like to volunteer!' - she grabbed my arm in that vice-like grip of hers, lifted it and started waving it about.
'No!' I said, as I desperately tried to pull my arm back down. 'I didn't come here to have my pancreas removed!'
She stuck out her bottom lip - 'Don't you love me?' - and also did a bit of eyelash fluttering (all the while continuing to wave my arm about... It's amazing how she can multi-task like that!... It's like that patting your head and rubbing your belly thing... She's brilliant at that kind of stuff!)
'Well yes,' I said; 'but-'
'But nothing!' she admonished. 'Now quit your griping, get up on that stage, be a man and show me what you're made of!'
Well... to cut a long story short (as what happened next was really rather gruesome and I'd prefer not to go into it right now), I did as I was told, was selected by Dr. Nathaniel Sparks and walked off that stage twenty minutes later sans pancreas. Or so I thought. I mean, it could have been anything he had cut out of me - I'm no surgeon.
And my girlfriend's no Surgeon's Assistant.

Later that afternoon, somewhat worse for wear from my ordeal, I found myself in the position of carrying four big bags of potatoes home from Sainsburys.
'Uhh,' said I, as my wrists nearly stretched to breaking point from the exertion of it all.
'Potato scrubbing for you tonight,' said my girlfriend, seemingly oblivious to my pain.
What you'll do for love eh?

[FIN]