MUUMUU MEAL

I’m going out for dinner tonight. 

 

This shouldn’t be a big deal, at least for normal people, but I’m not normal.  I’ve been sick and/or in recovery mode for ten days now, and I haven’t exactly been eating anything exceptionally exciting: soup, lots and lots and lots of soup; tea; juice; bagels; rice; hamburger; linguini; bread … safe foods.  Thanks to the medications, I’ve been away from alcohol for ten days, as well.  This really isn’t an issue for me, but I do enjoy a decent glass of wine every now and then, and this nasty muggy weather screams for an ice cold beer, neither of which I have been able to enjoy.

So, tonight I’m going to attempt to eat something more exotic than chicken noodle out of a can and maybe, just maybe, sip a little wine while tempering it with soda.  This fills me with sincere excitement.

Conundrum solved, right?  Wrong.  You see, it’s still nasty, gross, and thickly humid outside.  While I’d like nothing more than to wear jeans and a comfy shirt, the weather and the venue call for a change of my usual attire.  No problem.  I have a tiny closet stuffed with possible outfits.

For an hour I try stuff on.  Too casual.  Too fancy.  Too short.  Too long.  I cannot decide.

Finally, I remember where all decent outfits start:  shoes.  In the midst of being sick, a friend took me with her to DSW, knowing full-well that clearance shoe therapy is the best therapy of all (she is correct).  I bought two pair of kick-ass sandals – one in fuschia and one in pewter.  I decide on the pewter, a subtle silvery color that looks both smart yet discreetly casual. 

Then, I move on to anything in the closet that will be appropriate for the weather.  Good.  I move the outfits to the left and start trying them on with the shoes, narrowing it down to three possibilities.  Finally, I realize that I’m still feeling a little funky, so comfort is tantamount this evening.  I put on the most comfortable of all, a loose dress that feels almost like pajamas. 

I look in the mirror.

Okay, so it looks a little bit like I’m wearing a spotted muumuu.  A LOT like I’m wearing a spotted muumuu.  I can smuggle leftovers under my dress on the way out if I want to, maybe even an entire bottle of wine, a busboy if I’m so inclined. 

I don’t care.  I am so damn happy to be getting out of this house for something other than a medical crisis that I’ll wear ten muumuus if I have to.  Look out, restaurant, I’m heading out for dinner for my first full meal in almost two weeks.  I sure hope my new shoes can hold up under the pressure.

FINGERPRINT BY PROXY

My pal needs to be fingerprinted.

No, she didn't get arrested.  She's a teacher, and, like me and all the rest of us across the state, she has to have her prints formally taken and filed with the state's database.

Lest anyone thinks this database is really helpful and/or protects children, you'd be dead wrong.  This is a money-making scheme set into motion by our lawmakers.  The fingerprinting consortium makes $$$$ off teachers.  The state never really does anything that's in the best interest of the students, at least not unless it makes them money up the whazoo.

Anyway, when the state fingerprinted me, the company came to my place of employment.  My friend has to go to one of the satellite places, and this is how we end up in the middle of the city.  I used to live near here, so I'm familiar with the roads, but I still street-view the area before we drive there.  Damn good thing I do, too, because the place is a hole.  And it's in a wall.  It is truly a literal hole in a wall. 

We open the front door, and I am immediately berated to move my car.  What did I mean parking it out front in the area along the street that has the wide, white line along its edge?!  Parking where there appears to be parking must make me a moron.  I move the car to a side street under the shade of a big tree, then I come back in and start looking around.

This place has some grubby chairs, some filthy throw cushions, a filthy floor, unfinished walls, dust and dirt everywhere, and a mutt.  It's a good thing I'm pushing super-med antibiotics because I suspect this place is smeared with MRSA.  I'm not entirely certain the dog draped in the chair is still alive or if it expired from natural (or unnatural)causes.

My buddy puts her fingers on the scanner, but she is told her hands are too dry.  The scan shows with little interruptions.  Perhaps some lotion will help, the tester suggests.  No, what will help for real is a huge spray can of Lysol.

Oh, and no hits when the prints make their way into the system.  That would be special, too.  Relatively safe and sound (and covered in god-knows what strains of bacteria), we finish up, hightail it out of there, and flee, windows down, hoping the hot breeze kills anything crawling around that we may have picked up.

Damnit, fingerprinting is DANGEROUS!

LUCKY DAY

I am having phenomenally good luck today. 

My doctor's appointment is better news than I ever thought it could be, and my bizarro throat infection has almost completely healed.  I get to the grocery store, do not get accosted by a single weirdo, a baby actually smiles at me (they usually cry or spit up), I find everything on my list, and there is no line at the check-out.  I have to head over to the cable company to switch out some equipment that shit the bed Monday, so I am anticipating a long, terrible wait with a bunch of stinky, sweaty people as we swelter outside in a line that will probably snake around the parking lot in this horrid heatwave; yet there is no line, no wait, no trauma, and I am in and out of the cable office in less than three minutes.

I decide to push my good luck.  Today is the day I figure out if both modular kayaks will fit into my car, and if I will be able to take a passenger with me so we can both go kayaking together.

Remember my kayak debacle?  Instead of ordering the kayak through the actual dealer, I went through a distributor, and the kayak, though sea-worthy, arrived with a random factory hole in its hull.  The actual company, Snap Kayak, immediately sent me a replacement hull, and they could not have been more attentive nor more professional (nor more horrified).  Excellent customer service and support from start to finish.  Well, I decided to repair the first hull, and I ordered a second rear piece.  As a result, I have two kayaks.

So, folks, now that we are all on the same page, I give you my pictorial blog.

Two kayaks assembled in the den, ready for water

Factory defect is no match for Goop + Plastic

And, just to be sure, more Goop and some duct tape to match

Okay, everything's on the patio.  Let's see if we can fit these clowns in the clown car.

Hmmmm.  At this point, I think the front passenger seat might get involved. I am wrong, though.

Piece #1 = In successfully

Piece #2, and I haven't yet breached the center line.  Life is good.

It is now obvious that both kayaks will fit easily.

And so they do!  But, my rearview mirror is blocked.  Bad for backing into a shoreline area.

I start moving the kayaks around.  Yup.  I can put one sideways and one flat.  Perfect.

Hey, maybe they'll both fit flat.  Three out of four, and ...

Success!  With room to spare for oars, gear, and a cooler.

Yup. everything fits perfectly!  It's my lucky day!  Now, to get rid of that old SSU sticker...

 It truly IS my LUCKY DAY.  If I can just recover enough from being sick and from the effects of the meds, maybe I can actually get both kayaks IN the water instead of just on the den floor and in the back of the Caliber.  More pictures forthcoming, folks. 

RUN FOR YOUR EVER-AXING LIFE

I am walking across a parking lot full of cars, but, surprisingly, I am the only person for hundreds of yards.  As a matter of fact, I see no one between the large lot and the brick building that is my destination.  Still, I smell something.  It’s a strong smell, overpowering; the stench of young men’s cologne. 

I am by myself.  Clearly, it’s not coming from me.

A hot breeze is whipping around the blind corner, and it brings with it a tsunami of Axe.  Yup.  Axe.  I recognize the horrid aroma, the odiferous cancer of cologne that young men and eight year olds think makes them attractive to females and slightly rabid muskrats.  I know the smell because I work at a middle school, and Axe was all the rage four years ago.

As I near the corner, the stink hits me like a sucker punch.  I glance around.  The nearest person to me who is remotely in the correct wind position to be emitting such glandular hypocrisy is walking about fifty yards away.  He is a skinny fellow, perhaps in his thirties or forties – far too old to be wearing Axe (let alone bathing and soaking his laundry in the shit).

I see him cut into the door in the same building as my destination but not the entrance where I am heading.  Thank God, I say out loud.  Axe makes me sick.  It makes me sneeze and it triggers migraines.  I’m sick enough without adding that to the mix.

I think I’m in the clear.  I check in, go find a seat, and settle into the waiting game with my cell phone.  I’m happily tapping away, minding my own business, when I smell something.  I’d like to say it’s subtle at first, but it’s not.  It’s a smell so strong and so sudden that it could knock a buzzard clear off a shit wagon at twenty paces.

Sitting in a chair about ten feet away is Stinky Man. 

For those of you who’ve never had the pleasure of encountering Axe, it smells like a giant sweaty ass, and not just any sweaty ass, but the world’s most odorous smelly ass you could ever be horrified enough to encounter.  Imagine if Earth had a sweaty ass and it could be smelled from galaxies away and you were standing right in Earth’s sphincter.  That’s what Axe smells like.  And now, Mr. Hanky Earth Sweaty Ass Stinky Man is sitting close enough for me to perhaps be overcome by his glandular oozing.

Thankfully, Axe Man is called from across the large open hallway.  He is sitting on the wrong wing of the floor.  Even more mercifully, I am called in to my appointment, safely sequestered into a room with no outer windows or dangerous intake vents connected to the hallway.

Although I do not see nor smell the Axe-coated man again, the damage is done.  Sitting alone in the cubicle, my eyes start to water, I start to sneeze, and my head begins to hurt worse than when I arrived.  If I didn’t feel sick before, I sure as hell do now. 

Oh, well.  Best to get used to it.  School starts soon, and soon I’ll be inundated with prepubescent males who are under the advertising-fueled impression that they must coat themselves in an Axe shellac in order to attract the opposite sex.  I hate to be the one to break it to them, but the only thing they’re going to attract are muskrats from the river.

My best advice to them:  If you need to get off the bus and walk to your house more than twenty feet -- Run, little muskrat bait, run for your ever-axing life.

THE FIRST EPIGLOTTIS OF THE DAY

For all the joking I do, I have to say that I have the very best friends and family in the entire world.

All that bellyaching I did over the past few days about being sick?  Well, turns out I really am sick.  Not seriously so, but I am about ten minutes away from a trip to the ER for a rather painful needle aspiration when an ENT specialist steps forward and saves day.

Apparently, there is a condition called peritonsillar cellulitis and abscess.  It is slightly more serious than peritonsillar cellulitis and much less serious than peritonsillar abscess.  The differences between these conditions -- one requires antibiotics alone and one requires a painful needle drainage followed by antibiotics, and then the one in between is a fifty-fifty shot at the needle and a 100% shot at the antibiotics.

"I could drain it," the ENT explains, "but I wouldn't get much fluid out of it."  Shit, then by all means, let's not drain the fucker.  Let it be; for the sake of my sanity, leave the damn thing alone.

But, that's not the funny part, for there really is a funny part in all of this.

As soon as the doc at my primary care office announces that I need to go to the ER immediately if they cannot locate an ENT this late in the afternoon, I start texting people (not many people; just three good pals, my sister, and my daughter, who is an RN; the people who've been in on this fiasco since the get-go), answering their texts from earlier in the day. 

From Pal #1: Let me know how the doctor appointment goes.
To Pal #1:  Jesuschristalmighty my life is a clusterfuck. Will chat later.

From Pal #2:  Keep me posted.  Let me know if you need anything.
To Pal #2:  Ten minutes short of the ER. What a clusterfuck of an experience.  I'll fill you in soon.

(Apparently, everything about the past five days has been one giant clusterfuck.)

From Pal #3:  Let me know if you need wheelchair accessible...
To Pal #3:  Probably headed to ER.  Bring me new skivvies if they admit me.
From Pal #3:  What do I do with the old ones?  I don't have a roof rack for that large an object.

From Sister:  (yesterday)  Medical update?
To Sister:  (yesterday) Blogworthy day.  Call me.
From Sister:  (today) What did the doctor say?
To Sister:  (today) Another epic day.  Chat soon.

To Daughter:  (without my glasses)  Peeitonsilurabcess mightbe. going toer
To Daughter:  (with my glasses)  Headed to ENT for emergency consult
(Phone rings; it's daughter; she deciphered my message; she meets me at ENT appointment; I love her.)

The ENT listens to my litany of five day's worth of symptoms, and he and his medical resident examine me.  Suddenly, they are spraying something up my nose.  "Sniff!" they instruct me.  Before I realize what they're doing, a camera scope is gently snaking its way up my nostril.

Holy shit, can anything stranger happen to me today?  Seriously?  Why do I ask these things?  Of course something stranger is going to happen.

The doctor is staring into my throat, examining behind my tonsils, with a camera.  He starts poking around then asks me to bend my head forward so the medical resident can see.  "She's shorter than I am, " he chuckles.  Um, sure, let me just take my tube-filled nostrils with me here.  And then he says to my daughter, "You're an RN.  Wanna see this?"

My daughter sidles over to the camera, takes a gander, and exclaims, "Wow, that's the first epiglottis I've seen all day!"

Friends, family, and some great medical staff from start to finish.  I go for a follow-up in two days, and tonight I expect to get the best sleep I've had in six nights.  And, yes, as serious as it is and could have been (so much worse), it's still damn funny.  After all, it's just another one of the awful things I endure on account of being me.

LIFE IS A PILL

Pain medication is dangerous.  I should know; I’ve had a pill stuck in my throat for three hours now.

I have been sick for five days with some kind of infection between my left ear and tonsil, but this morning I awake to screaming pain in my jaw bone.  This means one of two things:  Either an infected tooth is causing all of my problems, or I am suffering with some severe deferred pain since I slept on that side all night.

No problem.  I’ll just pop some OTC pain meds.  Hmmmm, decisions, decisions.  Gel cap acetaminophen or coated ibuprofen tablet.  Which one … which one …

I decide on the ibuprofen.  I mean, it’s coated, right?  No problem.

It hurts to swallow (because of the whole swollen tonsil thing), so I chug down water first to wet my throat and then chug more water with the pill.  This is all fine and good until …

Uh-oh.  Oh, no.  Shit.  What do I do?  I’m all alone.  Do I text a friend?  Dial 911?  Stagger to a neighbor’s house?

Sonofabitch, the goddamn little bastard of a pill is glued to the right side of my throat.

It doesn’t take long for the gag reflex to kick in, but no matter how much bile comes up, that sucker is not moving.  I realize that if I am hurling, that means I am breathing.  The pill is stuck in my throat, but I can still take in air and I can still swallow, and everything up and down appears to be functioning as fluids are going both directions between my stomach and my mouth.

For three hours the pill and I fight with each other.  I drink a gallon of water, I drink hot tea, I eat applesauce.  I even try the trick of drinking water while lying flat, which makes me puke enough to get the pill to the back of my throat, but there is nothing on this earth that will force that pill back up into my mouth.  Not gagging, not forceful couching, not even the Heimlich Maneuver.  That sucker does not want to see daylight again.

I start looking up how long it takes for ibuprofen to dissolve.  Fifteen minutes.  Fifteen minutes?  Are you fucking shitting me?  It has already been hours.  What the hell is this thing coated with?  Steel? 

I start thinking about the prescription I need to take.  Holy shit, there is NO WAY I’m attempting to swallow another pill right now.  I continue examining my dilemma while searching the Internet for more suggestions.  I contact my daughter the nurse, and she runs through the list of things I’ve tried.  “Eat bread,” she suggests.  Sure, the bread goes down, but the pill just keeps moving up and down my throat like a worm.   

To make matters worse, now that I’ve pounded down all that water, I keep having to run to the bathroom to pee like a teenager drinking beer.

In my cyber search, I start coming across tales of great success dislodging pills from throats.  I mean, really, the thing should be dissolved already, especially with all that acidy shit flying back up the pipes, and since it’s a reasonably determined little pill, I have faith that it will eventually go where it needs to go.  But, I also see stories of epic failure, like to woman who had a pill stuck in her tonsil for three days.  THREE DAYS?!  She said she could SEE IT STUCK THERE but she couldn’t dislodge it with her fingers.  This story in and of itself sets my head back into the bucket.  Alas, the pill will not finish its upward (nor downward) journey.

All of these fixes later, I am starting to feel like possibly the pill has moved on.  I’m not sure because now my entire throat is sore like I’ve damaged my esophagus, and I still feel the dull need to puke, though it’s probably more from anxiety than from actual physical need.  I mean, seriously.  It has been more than 210 minutes of disaster.  The stupid pill cannot possibly still be alive, right?

Unbelievable.  All the crazy-ass things I’ve done in my life, all the unintelligent situations in which I have found myself, all the weird-ass diseases and conditions I seem to get (Bell’s Palsy … anyone else?), all the dangerous people I’ve managed to piss off, and it all comes down to this?  OTC ibuprofen?

What will my tombstone say?  She was a pain to all until pain finally did her in.  Thank God for store-brand pain relievers.  May she rest in pieces.

Oh, yeah.  I’m going to be cremated.  Never mind.  Just be careful sifting through the ashes.  I’ll bet good money that fucking ibuprofen will be still intact.