The ongoing battle between Calgon and Chuck E.

I have the feeling that I may have to escape the office during lunch.

I have been fighting a sore throat and general malaise since yesterday. This morning, I woke up with a cough that leaves my throat feeling raw, along with the unmovable urge to stay in bed. I went to work anyway, where I was greeted with at least six e-mails all asking for the impossible, along with the distinct stench of coffee burnt to tar at the bottom of a coffee pot.

After tending to the coffee pot (by turning off the burner) and the e-mails (half I replied to, the other half I flipped the bird at), I made every attempt to let my dear co-workers know that I would rather not try to speak today, despite the fact that I sound just like Selma Diamond. Most were sympathetic; the small gaggle of idiots that constantly raise my ire proceeded to ignore my ill health and send calls and patients back to my office, left and right.

Excuse me? Let's send oncology and hematology patients, who are more than likely either already sick or highly susceptible to illness, to the sick-ass person suffering in the small, enclosed office in the back!

More patients coming in right now. Goodness. On goes my SARS mask.

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This is probably how constipation starts in most people.

Today, I was being a dutiful daughter. My mom is going to participate with the church choir again after a year's hiatus, so she has started attending practices for the Easter Vigil mass. It so happens that these practices are on Monday nights, during the same time that Ben and I attend a class nearby. So, it only made sense for us to drop her off at practice, then pick her up after class.

Upon arriving at our drop point, my mother assured us that she would call me if her friend couldn't give her a ride home. I saw this as a moot point, since we would be out of class right around the time her practice would wrap, and I planned on driving her home, anyway. She insisted, however, that if her friend could drive her home, she would call me.

"I'm going to have my phone on 'silent,'" I warned her. "I don't want my phone to ring in the middle of class. I won't know if you've called until I leave the room."

"Well," she started as she got out of the car, "Don't you have a vibrator?"

Dead silence from Ben and me for a good twenty seconds. She continued to stare at me, with little to no affect on her face, waiting for my answer.

I looked in the rearview mirror, back at Ben, who looked as if he was going to either barf, start crying hysterically or pinch off the biggest loaf in the history of loaves.

---Sorry, no image available.---

"What?" was all I could eke out after the never-ending silence.

Now, Perla was getting a tad impatient. "You know," she said as she stood there, "Where instead of ringing, your phone vibrates to let you know you have a call?" This was said, mind you, with all the annoyance of one who is quite aware of such technology. It's quite funny, coming from the woman who is famous for hanging up the cordless phone, then pointing the same at the television in order to change the channel.


Seriously. You don't want to vex her. She will straight up bitch slap you.

"Oh, yeah," I replied, finally understanding what she really meant. "Sure. I'll have it on 'meeting.'" With that, she shut the car door and headed into her practice.

Within moments, I pulled away from the church to find parking for our class. Ben could hold his hysterics in no longer. I teared up a little from laughter, especially after we thought up some clever things I could (but never would) have said:

• "Don't I? Who doesn't?!"
• "Well, Ma, shit, does it really look like I need one at this point?" here, I'd be gesturing back to Ben, who would wave happily.
• "It's in the shop."
• "No, I put it in with our other donations to Goodwill."
• "No, not since you bitched about how high the utility bill was last month!"
• "Didn't you find it next to the gas mask and bottle of lube when you went through my shit last week?"
• "Not anymore. Ben's borrowing it. Right now. Give you three guesses as to where it is." Again, I would need his assistance in this scenario. Of course, it would end with "And honestly, at this point, I don't think I really want it back."

Just file this under the new label: Stories to tell the children grandkids absolutely nobody when we're older.

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Dirtbag.

Lately, instead of calling perturbing people fucksticks or douche nozzles (or just "nozzles," for brevity's sake) under my breath, I'm calling them dirtbags. It's just been in the past few days, and I think it's because I can't get the following joke out of my head:

What's the difference between a Harley and a Hoover?
The location of the dirtbag.

Oh, well. It'll probably pass when the word "fucktard" gets back in my good graces, which is probably right after I've called people "dirtbags" twenty times before I clock out today.

Today's going pretty well. It's a slow Friday, which is almost how I prefer them. I'm not running around the office like an idiot trying to put out small fires like I often do on Wednesdays, which is the day all the doctors are here, and everyone's scrambling for room. And air. And sanity. Most of the patients coming in on Fridays are regularly scheduled for treatment on those days, and they're usually all set, just chilling in their chemo chairs, reading, talking on their cells, watching a movie, or sleeping.

Oh yeah, if I've neglected to mention it before, I got a new job last April. The fact that I'm approaching a full year at this "new job" is just crazy. I work for a bunch of oncology/hematology doctors now, and strangely enough, I really, really enjoy this job. I get to interact with patients a lot less than as a therapist, but a whole lot more than when I worked at Eviltown, USA (one of my many pet names for the job before this).

The people I work with are pretty cool, except for one person who has made it her mission in life to make her job seem more important than it actually is; and who, by her actions, makes it less and less meaningful in the process (now, that's some talent). I don't want to waste precious time on her, as it wastes my energies...

Oh, now, here we go. She just walked into my office, sat down next to my desk, and proceeded to stare directly at this screen for fifteen seconds before making up some lame excuse that she was trying to find out what music I was listening to. Oh, so it's not being a nosy, nicotine-soaked idiot who wants to pretend she has any say over me or what I do?

Now I have to cut this post short, before she comes back in here, snoops some more, then reports some tall tale to someone who actually has authority.

Effing dirtbag. I swear.

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Excuses.

Oddly enough, I don't have any really good ones for being absent so long (yet again)... I thought of perhaps taking the stance that my web silence was in quiet support of the striking writers; but we all know that one has absolutely nothing to do with the other, and it would also mean I'm taking my verbal shenanigans way too seriously. So, out of respect for striking writers, I will not use them as my convenient excuse for blog slacking.


Again, they have nothing to do with my laziness.

Instead, I shall explain away my lack of blog effort on footbaw(!), work, family, my new mp3 player, and life in general.


Me, as recently as four hours ago.

Now that I have established myself in an office almost all my own (I share with one of the doctors two days a week), I may be able to sneak in a post once in a while, assuming the mood strikes.

For now, I'm off to have my fourth can of Sprite Zero since I got here this morning. It's like Hades in here.

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Food coma and football related hypertension.

Today was just a big ball of pain and punishment. First off, I got up early to go to the Dirt Mall to get a new case for the phone, only to find that there apparently no people staffing their booths laden with open and easily accessible merchandise at 8:30 in the morning. This would not have been so terrible if I had not made a point to wake up early on a Saturday to haul my cookies down to the Dirt Mall in the Park (!), and hadn't gotten adequate sleep the night before.

After the unsuccessful trip to the DM, there was breakfast at Cracker Barrel, which is normally fantastical, except for the fact that I couldn't get a tea refill to save my life. Ben couldn't get his coffee cup to 1/3 empty before someone came by offering to top it off (something that actually irks him because it messes with his cream and sugar balance), but once he politely declined the 3,000th cup, the waitress decided that she didn't need to come back to our table for anything at all.

Now, if you know anything about my eating quirks, you know that I can rarely finish my food if I don't have accompanying beverage to wash it down with. Hence, my beloved double-side of hashbrown casserole could not be completely consumed.


This? Bountiful. Tea? Not so much.

Then, I went home, did some cleaning, then began watching the UF-Ole Miss game, which, if I talk about much here, will make my eyes start to bleed. Again. I'm just glad we have Mercy! Percy!, the one they call the Baby Rhino, and the littlest big man on kick returns, pictured below:


Brandon James, hauling ass 55 yards on a kick return. The player trying to give chase would then...


Tear at James' jersey like he was in a catfight, trying to shamefully expose his boob. (I mean, really now.)

Suffice it to say that I'm glad we came away with a win, it was valuable road game experience for the boys, and Urban will probably be tearing a whole bunch of people new assholes during practice this week because of all the penalties they amassed.

Anyway, after watching the first half at home, Ben and I made our way to Danhole's during halftime, where we watched the rest of the malady. From there, we headed to Sonny's BBQ, where we concurrently watched the Michigan-Penn State game (gah), the LSU-South Carolina game (double-gah), and the Michigan State-Notre Dame game (which, at the time was gah, but ended up being not-gah). The three of us then proceeded to go against all laws of decency and good digestive health and opted to get All-You-Can-Eat plates.

Did I mention that Sonny's will actually refill your food and drinks, and their drinks are almost the size of paint cans? And I was so happy that someone would actually refill my beverage with regularity, that my food consumption matched it?


You feelin' me, Murtaugh?

Oh dear, sweet, baby Jesus, that was hours ago, and I'm still hurting. And I'm burping up barbecue sauce like there's no tomorrow. The only consolation I have is that Danhole gave me the permission to smack him should he ever decide to break the his vow of "never ordering All You Can Eat again." Mind you, this is a vow he makes every time we go to Sonny's, and he breaks it, every time. I can't wait to go Baby Rhino on him.


No, Baby Rhino, despite your spirit and excitability, you can't do it for me. Otherwise,I'll have to tell his family how we managed to break Dan.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go pass out.

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