In anticipation of my husband’s upcoming bypass surgery, I’d like to create a “Fuck it” Bucket (David Sedaris’ brother, The Rooster’s invention) to keep him entertained, motivated and calm during his stay at the hospital (3-5 days, I guess.) I have a few ideas (crossword puzzles, fave magazines and a book or two, an etch-a-sketch perhaps) but wanted to see what inventive/unusual/creative ideas you all could come up with.
Thanks!
PlayDoh
Legos. I’m 43 and still love 'em.
A Slinkey is always entertaining
Tiny remote control helicopter?
ThinkGeek tends to have fun toys – you may look around the rest of the site.
Second this, those things are a blast.
Hazle, I’ve been stuck on my back in a hospital bed, and I really like your Etch-A-Sketch idea. Along the same lines, perhaps a coloring book, with some colored pencils and a sharpener. By the way, if the anatomy book is too twisted for your sense of humor (personally, I’d put a bookmark on the heart page), there are others in the series (fine art to marine biology, etc).
A Gameboy or other hand-held computer game.
But you will most likely need to leave bed many a time to right it after its many inevitable crashes.
Rubik’s Cube
A copy or two of “Uncle John’s Bathroom Companion” Readers
Hope all goes well!
FML
That is what I was going to say but make sure it is all messed up first.
A deck of cards to play solitare if he likes that sort of thing can at least pass on hour or two. You can also play a hand or two of Rummy when you visit.
Also bring a travel board game like scrabble or the like. There is nothing worse than visiting someone in the hospital and after the how are you feeling conversation is exchanged for 15 minutes you end up doing nothing but watching the TV.
They’re not going to allow a remote controlled helicopter to be operated in the hospital people.
Having bypass surgery limits your movement drastically, and you’re hooked up to a lot of stuff. Keep that in mind when suggesting stuff.
They also might not allow the GameBoy or anything like that. When I went in for my knee surgery, I wanted to bring a laptop with me, but that was vetoed by the hospital.
Rats! Hopefully, this hospital will have a different policy. I’m loading Scrabble onto his laptop and was going to bring him a bunch of dvds to watch.
3acres…excellent idea…he would definitely find that humorous!
I assume he is already familiar with the complete works of Cecil Adams?
Only because of me! I see a subscription in his future! Unfortunately, he knows my username. I wonder if I would be allowed to change it. I’ve nothing to hide from him, but he would most likely be uncomfortable with how much sharing I’ve done with you all.
How about a selection of the tabloid papers from the supermarket checkout line;
“BATBOY FOUND IN BRAZIL”
“BABY BIGFOOT RAISED BY FAMILY IN KENTUCKY”
“THE WORLD WILL END IN 19 YEARS, SAYS NOSTRADOMUS”
Light short reading and it doesn’t matter (and might be better) is you don’t retain any of it.
If that totally won’t do, then The Dangerous Book for Boys is a good read. He can learn how to tie knots, build a tree house and about the 7 wonders of the ancient world. But skip the similar “The Daring Book for Girls”. That one isn’t nearly as interesting.
Too bad that the crown jewel of made up crap, the Weekly World News went belly up last July.
Excellent…and I’ve ordered the anatomical coloring book and a Lewis Grizzard book that he’s been wanting from Amazon. I’m going to head over to Tarjhay this evening to get started.
I just came back from getting an Appendectomy, not the same thing as cardiac issues (hope all goes well for Mr. Weatherfield 
), but aside from the mindless drivel on the TV, what I got the most use out of was my Motorola Razr cellphone’s Tetris game, the design of the Razr allows me to play the game one handed, and only really gets frustrating/frantic around level 8 or 9, when the interface starts to interfere with playability
York Hospital, where I went, has a few laptops available on those rolly-tables, his hospital may have something similar, maybe get him a good set of headphones to use with the loaner computer
maybe one of those inexpensive portable DVD players with the built-in LCD display, that, a set of headphones and a few of his favorite DVDs from home…