So, on Wednesday I went back to the discount doctor to get my stitches taken out. I personally think it was too soon to have them out, but whatever, he went to, like, online med school and knows better than me.
As I was getting out of the car, I realized to my horror that I had forgotten my book. ("In Cold Blood" -- I highly recommend it.) This was absolutely tragic, as now I would have nothing to distract me from the running, jumping, screaming hoard of wildebeasts all hopped up on Coke and chocolate that was inevitably occupying the waiting room. God DAMN it.
I could hear the shrieking as I walked out of the elevator, and my suspicions were confirmed. Children. Children piled on top of children. Children spilling out into the hall. Multiplying before my eyes, like the bunnies in that one MasterCard commercial.
I have to make it clear that I don't dislike children, usually. I think they're a hoot and a holler, and I often have the urge to borrow someone's kid and take it to the park where we would swing, and eat ice cream from the ice-cream man, and build things out of sand. (Of course, at the thought of having my own kid I am overwhelmed with sweat and start to hyperventilate a little... maybe that's something I'll grow out of.) But when I am trapped in a tiny, smelly waiting room with roughly a thousand misbehaving children, I cannot help but picture myself kicking them and then laughing maniacally as they hit the floor with a thud.
I gently elbowed some kids aside and wedged myself into a corner of the waiting room, where I had over an hour in which to observe the following:
A woman with 6 children who was so pregnant I kept waiting for #7 to shoot straight out of her loins. (Which worried me, because I was directly in the line of fire. If I were her I'd probably seal my business off with some duct tape or something.)
A child, maybe 4 years old (who can tell?), turning pages in a National Geographic about sea life and shouting "Nemo-Shark!" over and over. And overandoverandover. (actually, that was a little bit cute)
A crazy old lady wearing a big-brimmed straw hat with fake flowers super-glued onto it, a denim shirt with a giant Mickey Mouse bedazzled in silver on the back of it, and velcro shoes. And these weren't ironic velcro shoes, mind you. They were being worn in complete earnest.
A mom whose daughter kept picking up her baby brother from his stroller, shoving her nose in his diapered butt crack and saying loudly, "Wheeeeew, yeah, he poo pooed. I think he needs to be changed. Stinky stinky!" GOLD STAR TO YOU, little one. Don't think the rest of us haven't noticed -- that is why I am melting your mother's skin off with my fiery stare as she sits on her gargantuan ass not doing anything about it.
A super old dude, probably eleventy-two or so, reading an issue of Every Woman magazine.
One of the six kids I first mentioned, we'll call him #4, had a neck tattoo. Now, I have a hard time believing a 6-year-old has a REAL neck tattoo, but this thing looked absolutely legit. I'm pretty sure he just got out of juvey for popping a cap in some 1st grader's ass on the tetherball court.
Butt-sniffer girl started singing, at the top of her lungs, "I BELIEVE IN JEEEEESUUUUUS!" except she had some weird lisp-y thing going on, so it sounded like, "I BELIEVE IN GZEEEESZSHUUUUUUSS!" Just that one line, loudly and continuously. Then, when she tired of that, she moved on to "HAAALAAAYLOOOOOOOOYAH!" Again and again and again, infinity.
I think the nurses could tell I was about to go fetal and start rocking and humming, so they called me back to see the doctor. He snipped my stitches, which kind of hurt, and then he put tape over the cut. TAPE. Doc, should you really be taping up your patients? Is that what they taught you at www.YouCanBeADoctorToo.com? I'm not made out of construction paper and pipecleaners, asshole.
Luckily, I don't have to go back there EVER AGAIN. Except in my nightmares.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Monday, March 20, 2006
The shart heard 'round the world
A couple of years ago I was living with my ex-boyfriend in Australia. I mean, he wasn't my ex at the time, but he is now. Anyway. This was a very relaxed, responsibility-free time in which we had little else to do but loll about on the beach, play pool, watch "The Simpsons," and consume a small ocean of beers. We never fought, except when we were both sauced out of our minds... so the next day neither of us would have the slightest clue what we'd fought about the night before. We decided if neither of us remembered, it didn't really happen.
Apart from all the lolling and drinking and fun-having, a major contributing factor to my contentment with this boyfriend was our shared point of view toward bodily functions, namely farting. I realize I am among a small percentage of women when I say this, but I am pro-fart. Farts make me laugh -- my farts, your farts, dog farts -- they are all funny to me. You can fart in front of me; I won't be grossed out. Yeah, I'll say, "Ewwww!" but I'll say it laughing. And if you are able to produce a particularly loud, or musical, or well-timed fart, my eyes will grow wide with awe and I will say, "Woooow" as I discover a newfound respect for you.
Not only were my ex's outbursts of the bowels funny to me, but he also found my flatulence charming. It was an integral part of our courtship, and one of the things I remember most fondly about him. And it's a damn good thing, because we could have made a quesadilla the size of Brazil with all the cheese we were cutting. A steady diet of barley, hops, and malt will do that to you.
One particularly lazy Sunday morning (and by morning I mean 1pm or so), we were in the kitchen discussing what we should make for naked brunch. Suddenly, amidst discussion on the merits of fried versus scrambled, my being let loose a triumphant, trumpeting, window-rattling sonic boom of a fart. The reverb is still traveling across the Indian Ocean, I'm sure of it.
My ex picked himself up off the floor, his hair disheveled by the gale force wind. Feeling his manhood threatened to the point of extinction, he had no choice but to retaliate with whatever fury his inner recesses could muster.
It was a fart-off... to the death.
He braced himself with both hands on the kitchen counter, slightly bent at the knees, his stance just a little bit wide. A look of intense concentration overcame him, and I imagine that the face of a suicide bomber, about to die for what he believes in, must look much the same. With great effort, he squeeked out a mediocre (at best) poot... but the effort was just a little too much. Out onto the kitchen floor lept the tiniest, most cheerful little turd you have ever seen.
I went absolutely blind with laughter. Even now I just had to take a minute to recover from a fit of spastic giggles.
Winner, and still champ: Yours Truly
Apart from all the lolling and drinking and fun-having, a major contributing factor to my contentment with this boyfriend was our shared point of view toward bodily functions, namely farting. I realize I am among a small percentage of women when I say this, but I am pro-fart. Farts make me laugh -- my farts, your farts, dog farts -- they are all funny to me. You can fart in front of me; I won't be grossed out. Yeah, I'll say, "Ewwww!" but I'll say it laughing. And if you are able to produce a particularly loud, or musical, or well-timed fart, my eyes will grow wide with awe and I will say, "Woooow" as I discover a newfound respect for you.
Not only were my ex's outbursts of the bowels funny to me, but he also found my flatulence charming. It was an integral part of our courtship, and one of the things I remember most fondly about him. And it's a damn good thing, because we could have made a quesadilla the size of Brazil with all the cheese we were cutting. A steady diet of barley, hops, and malt will do that to you.
One particularly lazy Sunday morning (and by morning I mean 1pm or so), we were in the kitchen discussing what we should make for naked brunch. Suddenly, amidst discussion on the merits of fried versus scrambled, my being let loose a triumphant, trumpeting, window-rattling sonic boom of a fart. The reverb is still traveling across the Indian Ocean, I'm sure of it.
My ex picked himself up off the floor, his hair disheveled by the gale force wind. Feeling his manhood threatened to the point of extinction, he had no choice but to retaliate with whatever fury his inner recesses could muster.
It was a fart-off... to the death.
He braced himself with both hands on the kitchen counter, slightly bent at the knees, his stance just a little bit wide. A look of intense concentration overcame him, and I imagine that the face of a suicide bomber, about to die for what he believes in, must look much the same. With great effort, he squeeked out a mediocre (at best) poot... but the effort was just a little too much. Out onto the kitchen floor lept the tiniest, most cheerful little turd you have ever seen.
I went absolutely blind with laughter. Even now I just had to take a minute to recover from a fit of spastic giggles.
Winner, and still champ: Yours Truly
Friday, March 17, 2006
Cease and de-cyst
So, for the last decade or so I've had this lump in the back of my right thigh. Okay, it's a cyst... but I hate the word cyst with the white hot passion of a thousand burning suns, and I feel like when people hear "cyst" they will automatically think I have the cooties. Let's be honest, having a cyst is not exactly good game. But saying you have a lump sounds slightly less disgusting, and it implies that whatever it is might be cancerous, which doesn't gross people out as much as it makes them feel bad for you. I know, I know... I'm diabolical.
Anyway, this thing had been growing slowly and ominously for the last several years, and finally my doctor decided they should take it out, just in case.
So on Wednesday, my mom (she DEMANDED to come) drove me to my doctor's office so I could have the surgery. What you have to understand is that my health insurance blows. BLOWS. BUHLOOOWAHS. I am only authorized to see doctors who set up shop in the grungiest, most germ-infested offices: offices that smell of 3-day-old soiled diapers, with carpets that have not been vacuumed EVER, framed (probably forged) licenses askew on the walls, magazines from 1989, and a minimum of 23 screaming, wild children who take turns thrusting their sticky hands into my purse, pulling out items, and handing them to me while their parents nap in nearby chairs.
When they called me into the operating room (after an hour and a half of sitting with the demon-spawn), the nurse said, "Ok, so just undress from the waist up and put this on," indicating a paper half-gown thingy. I stared at her for a full minute before I said, "Sooo... from the waist UP?" She stared back. "Aren't you having something done with your... to your..." and then, very quietly, "breast?" That bitch was gearing up to slice and dice one of my perfectly good hoots! Now it was clear why they had me sign the paper that said: "No matter how badly we fuck you up, you promise not to sue us." These people could not tell their asshole from their elbow.
Finally everyone sorted themselves out, and the surgery seemed to go okay, despite the doctor not giving me enough anesthetic at first. I had to say, "UM, THAT HURTS." Which further deteriorated my wavering confidence in this dude. After several minutes of him digging around back there and me repeating "don't puke" over and over in my head, he triumphantly held up the cyst for me to see. GROSS. It was about the size of those little rubber bouncy balls you had as a kid, and I will spare you the details of what it looked like.
He stitched me up, had me get dressed, and gave me some instructions. AND THEN, in a little plastic jar, inside of a sandwich baggie marked "BIOHAZARD," he gave me back my cyst. What. The. Hell. Apparently, my insurance company, in all of its blow-iness, was too cheap to pay for the doctor to transport my cyst to a lab for testing. So I had to take it to the lab myself. On the way home, I kept picking up my BIOHAZARD, examining it, and then putting it back down in disgust.
My mom said, "Call your dad and tell him that we're on our way. And that we're bringing dinner."
INAPPROPRIATE.
Anyway, this thing had been growing slowly and ominously for the last several years, and finally my doctor decided they should take it out, just in case.
So on Wednesday, my mom (she DEMANDED to come) drove me to my doctor's office so I could have the surgery. What you have to understand is that my health insurance blows. BLOWS. BUHLOOOWAHS. I am only authorized to see doctors who set up shop in the grungiest, most germ-infested offices: offices that smell of 3-day-old soiled diapers, with carpets that have not been vacuumed EVER, framed (probably forged) licenses askew on the walls, magazines from 1989, and a minimum of 23 screaming, wild children who take turns thrusting their sticky hands into my purse, pulling out items, and handing them to me while their parents nap in nearby chairs.
When they called me into the operating room (after an hour and a half of sitting with the demon-spawn), the nurse said, "Ok, so just undress from the waist up and put this on," indicating a paper half-gown thingy. I stared at her for a full minute before I said, "Sooo... from the waist UP?" She stared back. "Aren't you having something done with your... to your..." and then, very quietly, "breast?" That bitch was gearing up to slice and dice one of my perfectly good hoots! Now it was clear why they had me sign the paper that said: "No matter how badly we fuck you up, you promise not to sue us." These people could not tell their asshole from their elbow.
Finally everyone sorted themselves out, and the surgery seemed to go okay, despite the doctor not giving me enough anesthetic at first. I had to say, "UM, THAT HURTS." Which further deteriorated my wavering confidence in this dude. After several minutes of him digging around back there and me repeating "don't puke" over and over in my head, he triumphantly held up the cyst for me to see. GROSS. It was about the size of those little rubber bouncy balls you had as a kid, and I will spare you the details of what it looked like.
He stitched me up, had me get dressed, and gave me some instructions. AND THEN, in a little plastic jar, inside of a sandwich baggie marked "BIOHAZARD," he gave me back my cyst. What. The. Hell. Apparently, my insurance company, in all of its blow-iness, was too cheap to pay for the doctor to transport my cyst to a lab for testing. So I had to take it to the lab myself. On the way home, I kept picking up my BIOHAZARD, examining it, and then putting it back down in disgust.
My mom said, "Call your dad and tell him that we're on our way. And that we're bringing dinner."
INAPPROPRIATE.
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