Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Of Booblings, Scroticles and the VJJ [aka how men are titty-babies]

So, at the tender age of 42 (which is right now), I finally had my first mammogram.  Yesterday I posted that I was having my breasticles mashed and a male friend commented that it wasn't so bad.  Not as bad, let's say, as having a hernia exam.  And this is where I give you the gory details of what men go through versus what women go through.  EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR.

To the men, the doctor says: "Please bend over and cough. Thank you.  Okay, I need to slip my finger in....I'm sorry about that. We're all done here."

And here's what we get to do once a year:

For the pap sear, the doctor says:  "Please lay back and put your feet in the stirrups. Now, slide allll the way down until your bottom is at the edge of the bed.  Thank you.  Now let your legs relax...no... MORE please. There we go.  Okay, a little pressure....this instrument will be a little cold [instrument in question is probably twice the size of your average penis, thankyouverymuch...also, ice cold]. No, don't tense up, please RELAX THE VAGINA. [FML, are you kidding?] Okay, a little more pressure and.... [SNIP - they steal a piece of cervix in a ninja move]...okay. Now, let me just [sneak attack into the bunghole with a slimy finger] and you can scoot back now. Please lay still while I check your uterus [2 fingers up the VJJ pressing upward, the other hand pressing downward]. Okay, this feels fine [more pressing and finger roaming in the 'giner]. Okay. Do you do monthly self-breast exams?  Let's have a feel [uncovers one breast, pressing down all around the breast - repeat process for second breast].  SO [snapping off gloves] I may have felt a little something and I'd like you to have a quick ultrasound.  Do you have time for that now?  Yes?  Good.  Okay, go next door and check in with the tech."

Part 2 of pap smear [same doc appointment, by the way]: "Hi. You can leave your top on, but I need you to undress from the waist down and cover up with this paper sheet.....all done?  Okay, please lay back and put your feet in the stirrups. Now, slide allll the way down until your bottom is at the edge of the bed.  Thank you.  Now let your legs relax...  Okay. This WAND will be a little cold...just relax....[insert jelly-lubed phallic wand up into vag. For anyone who thinks this is like masturbating, you'd be totally wrong]. So, I'm just going to go around and have a look.  Feel free to watch on the TV monitor [wand goes around the innards and the tech stops here and there to take stills and measurements.  Wand stay in there going around and around for a quite uncomfortable 10 minutes or so].  Okay, we're all done.  You can wipe up all the jelly and goo with that paper sheet and then you can get dressed.  The doctor will call you with any results.  Have a GREAT day!"

[walk gingerly to the car since you feel a bit like a horseback riding event gone horribly wrong, still slightly slick inside the thighs with lube and feeling oddly bloated]

BUT WAIT BOYS!  There's MORE!!!  I haven't even gotten to the mammogram yet. You still think your little ball pat and pinky in the recty is akin to what we get to do every year? 

The mammogram machine is like a sideways, Plexiglas vice grip. The tech literally positions your breasts, one at a time, onto the bottom platform and, with a foot pedal, brings the top platform down onto the breast....as low as you can stand it.  This goes on for 2 or 3 different angles and pictures.  The next time, fellas, you put your balls in a vice grip and have someone smash down on them, lemme know so we can compare notes.

Listen, I completely understand that most men are titty-babies when it comes to medical stuff and pain and whatnot.  But PLEASE don't insult us by even daring to suggest that your exams are anything like ours.  I mean, I didn't even get into the whole childbirth stuff, what with the mucous plug and the snail trail and the leaky collostom and the spinal tap and the placenta and the stitches, etc....  You're welcome.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

That bird at my door last night wasn't a bird

The following excerpt was borrowed from USA Today:

An enormous brood of cicadas that covers parts of 16 states is beginning to wake from its 13-year slumber underground.

The inch-long insects, which are sometimes mistakenly called 17-year locusts, have been reported hatching in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and Arkansas. They will appear farther north as soil temperatures reach 64 degrees. [and fucking TEXAS]

The cicadas don't bite or sting and only suck liquid from tree branches, but their sheer numbers, and the din they make when the males start singing as they search for mates, can be annoying. [annoying?!!? it's like torture....won't they just SHUT UP  and get laid already?!]

Enjoy them, says Gene Kritsky, editor of the journal AmericanEntomologist. "It's like watching a nature video in your backyard." [oh, we'll see about THAT, Gene]

For those who find walking through bugs to be the ultimate gross out, there's good news: The cicadas will die in a month, and the next generation won't emerge until 2024. Scientists call these cicadas the Great Southern Brood or Brood XIX. It is the world's largest "periodical" brood, one that surfaces after years.

Cicadas aren't dangerous, and are non-toxic and even edible, says Kritsky, a biology professor at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati. "The Iroquois ate them all the time." [they couldn't find a decent bison? they had to eat big ass nasty BUGS? C'mon man...]

Even so, the bugs are annoying: They get in people's hair, their cars, their picnics and their houses. [not in these here parts, Pardner.]

In all there are 15 broods, as the offspring groups are known: 12 of the 17-year variety and three of the 13-year kind. So most years, there is a brood hatching somewhere. Greg Hoover, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University, says there was none in 2009 or 2010, which means the arrival of this year's Brood XIX "could kind of come as a surprise to people."

Here is a picture of the nasty little bastards.



The USA Today thinks its so smart....they never even discussed the flammability of cicadas.  It has been proven (in my backyard) that cicada wings are HIGHLY flammable.  Their legs and feet , not so flammable. And frankly, he's only gonna live a couple more weeks according to this article...he can live wingless, I say.  I wonder how that mating song goes without wings? Nasty motherfuckers....

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

I'm not really what you'd call "maternal"

Last year when I picked up my 12-year old son from football practice, he was complaining about pain in his elbow.  Do you have any kids?  If you have kids you KNOW what a hypochondriac is.  There's a new damn ailment every.single.fricken.day. He's always complaining about his knee or his some stupid paper cut or some other phantom injury.  So, naturally, I ignored this elbow pain.

As I'm preparing dinner I tell the boy to go sit down at the table and do his homework. He complies. Hmmmm...that's weird. Since when doesn't he fight me on having to do menial unimportant things like homework? This is very curious. I can see that he's very quietly writing his math equations, albeit at a very strange writing angle. Er...

ME:  C'mere boy.

Son: [comes over to the stove]

Me: [big dramatic sighhhhh]  Okay, so what's this about your arm hurting?  How'd you hurt it?

Son: [holding his upper arm in his other hand]  I dunno.  When I went to tackle one kid, my arm kinda snapped backwards. And now my elbow hurts.

Me: [overly dramatic eye rolling] Lemme see...huh. [touching around the elbow] Ummmm. wait.  Is that a bone sticking out right there?

Son:  [shrug} I dunno.  It just kinda hurts.

Me: [grabbing my purse] CARRRRRMEN! Get in the car!! We need to take your brother to the hospital.

We go the nearest Urgent Care clinic. The doctor examines him and says, "I think it's just probably a tendon or a bad sprain" and it's funny because as much inner hate and torture that I was wanting to unleash on the doctor, I very calmly said, "no.  It's broken.  I need you to take an x-ray. I know my son's bones and this one isn't right."

After the x-ray came back, the doctor declared that the elbow was, indeed, broken and son would likely need a cast or surgery.

Moral of this story: if your child is holding how own limb, probably you should call a doctor.

I am loathe to admit this, but I have a similar story for my daughter....  When my daughter was about 16 mos old, she had the flu. It was such a wicked flu that she wouldn't really eat anything and she'd barf up the meds I was trying to give her to keep her fever down.  I did still take her to day care because I had to work, but they called me and said to come get her because she was just unnaturally listless and wouldn't eat. I spent the next 2 days on the couch with her trying to keep her cool and shoving Advil bullet suppositories up her rectum. Poor little cherub looked horrible...she was all sad and she'd look at me like "hhhhelllpppp mmmeeee....." and I just sat there shoving weird shit into her and waiting for the fever to break.  I can't remember what the reason was....maybe someone suggested it...but I finally took her to the hospital affiliated urgent care up the street.

Me: [with baby in the stroller] Hi, I need my baby checked out.  She's had the flu for a few days and she just isn't doing well.

Doctor: Let's see here....

Baby:  gggguuuuuuu *HURL*

Doctor:  OH! OH dear!!

Me:  OMG! That's just NASTY! What is that?! She hasn't even eaten in 2 days! Is that...soup??

Doctor:  Let's get a towel....  No, that's not soup.  That's phlegm. Please go downstairs for an immediate chest x-ray.  I believe your daughter has pneumonia.

Me:  [deer in the fucking headlights]

-after the chest x-ray-

Doctor:  [looking slightly smug and judgy]  Yes, just as I suspected. Your daughter has pneumonia.  Please take this envelope of chest x-rays and drive immediately to the hospital. 

And so that's the story of how we almost spent Christmas in the hospital. Three or so days of IV treatment and they sprung us on Christmas Eve.

Moral of THAT story? Pay a-goddam-tention to your kid.

Signed, World's Most Unmaternal Mom

Friday, August 5, 2011

Precious Moments of an Intoxicated Child

Son 13-yo is having surgery.  I mean, he is currently having surgery right this exact instant. I'm in the pediatric waiting room. There's a woman sitting behind me - we're separated by glass.  However, she's so close she could read what I'm writing right now. It's disconcerting. Also, why is it so cold in here? I feel like I'm sitting in a very colorful and sparkly server room.

While in pre-op, the nurse gave my son some versed to keep him relaxed before the procedure.  He drank it down and we waited.  For a short 5 minutes or so.  He insisted that he didn't feel a thiiiiing and he then mentioned something about Mr. T.

Me: You mean Dr. T. [the surgeon's name is too long to pronounce, so everyone calls him dr. T]

Son: Yeah.  Mr. T.

Son: stares off into the horizon....He pities the fool.

Mmmmm'kay baby.  I think the versed has kicked in.

Son lays back in the bed and then suddenly leans out of it to lay his head on my leg.

Son: Hambone, hambone....unghgf

Son:  what's hambone.

Son slides off the bed.... I need help now. Aso, I like theversed.  Maybe I need an intervention...

This is the best day ever.  It's the last time I'll ever watch him get high, laugh about it and insist he's more high than he thinks he is.  I shall miss this day once it's over.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

I am Terrified of Spontaneous Human Combustion

I have succeeded in terrifying myself to the point that I'm afraid to even sit here and write this.

My car has no air conditioning at the moment.  It is 100+ degrees in Houston and has been kissing 100 degrees for about the past 8-9 weeks, every single day. I have taken to driving home from work with a big Ziploc bag of ice.  My coworkers know when it's almost 5pm because they call it "getting my a/c" from the office ice maker. It is so hot on my afternoon commute that I'm not even nearly ashamed that I walk around with a bag of ice. 

The other day I picked up my daughter from day care.  We were remarking about how hot it was in the car.  Even with all the windows down and the sunroof open, we still pass the leftover ice bag back and forth between us to reduce the chance of overheating.  Which, to my dismay, led my daughter to ask me if spontaneous human combustion was possible.  It's days like these I wish I had been a drinker when I was pregnant with this child.  She is far smarter than your average 8 year old and I am very very exhausted by her intelligence. Anyway, her question about combustion was pretty benign.  I didn't really have an answer except to say that I've heard of it, but there is some question as to how real spontaneous human combustion is.

Ever since that conversation, I've been trying to ignore the nagging fear in my bowels. I mean, let's be honest.  How often does a person really combust? What needs to be inside a person to trigger or promote combustion? I probably don't have any of those flammable elements.  Expect maybe for the wine.  Is wine very flammable?  Not to mention I'm 42 and I do get hot flashes a couple times per week.  What if I had a hot flash at night after 1/2 a bottle of wine? How fast would the bed go up? Should I keep a fire extinguisher by the bed and tell Baby to sleep lightly in case of combustion? He's very hairy.  If I go up, he doesn't stand a fighting chance.

I started to wonder where I might find combustion information and to my horror, YouTube is the best source.  As you probably know, YouTube is the source for everything any more.  I learned how to change my VW headlight from a YouTube video.  You can learn how to set up a bong, how to dance like a stripper, how to grown your hair....and how to combust.



I am now convinced that I will probably die any day from internal combustion. My family won't have anything to bury expect my hands and feet.  However, they'll save a whole shitload on cremation fees. If it wasn't so hot out I'd go shop for a lovely vase or urn.  But I'd probably combust in the car on the way to the urn shoppe (shoppe instead of shop because I'm sure it's a fancy specialty type place). I wonder if there's an online urn shoppe. Once the online urn is delivered, maybe the family can recycle the bubble wrap for shipping and delivery of my un-combusted hands and feet to the crematorium. I wonder how much it costs to cremate just the extremities?

I'll be spending the rest of the day scribbling out a will. Just in case.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Some Ex-Spouses should be set ablaze

My exhusband has 2 kids with his first wife. In 1997, when the kids were 4 and 7, she split and she left the kids with my exhusband...said exhusband was shacking up with me at the time (we met well after their divorce - I'm a harlot, not a homewrecker). Exhusband and I had a son in July 1998 and a daughter in August 2002.  In 2009, after 12 fucked up years, I left exhusband, taking my 2 kids and my stepdaughter. In 2010, ex moved back to California.

Okay, are we all caught up?  Exxxxxcellent.  This information is germane to the rest of this post.  It is a true story and only the names have been changed to protect the innocent (namely, my kids).

Last Friday was ex's birthday. My daughter was set to call him in the afternoon after day care to wish him a happy birthday.  Stepdaughter texted him in the morning. My son, whose birthday was 2 weeks ago, received a call from his dad some time Friday on his own cell phone.  Strangely, there was a message on the home phone from ex with the greeting "Hi Ken and Nicole" which is only 1/2 correct.  Ken is our shared son and Nicole hasn't lived with me for over a year.  He got OUR daughter's name wrong.  Which is quite common. He spells it wrong all the time.  It's quite shameful.  But I digress (for now).  After picking up my daughter, she tried to call her dad, but his cell phone was not on (overdue bill probably).  On the way home from day care, however, he was able to borrow a phone and he called my cell in search of daughter.

*ring ring* I hand the phone to daughter since it's ex's area code and I KNOW he isn't calling for me.

Daughter:  Hey dad. Happy birthday!

*insert drunken slurring from ex* [we're on speaker because she can't hear him on the handset for some odd reason]

SOB:  Hi baby. How are ya. Lemme talk to your mom.

ME: (FML)

Daughter: (clearly nervous, hands me the cell phone)

ME: Hi.

SOB: Issss mah bithday.

ME:  Yes.  I know.  Happy birthday. (Keep it cool, girl.  Your kid is in the car)

SOB: Um, c'you pay my phone?

ME:  I'm sorry? What was that?? (Barely able to keep the laugh in)

SOB: C'you plea pay mah phone bill.  Isss mah birfday.

ME:  (choking down the hysteria) I'm sorry.  I can not do that.

SOB: Ungh. 'Kay. (random gurgling) Lemm talk to Daughter.

They chatted for about another 20 seconds and then he hung up.  When I got home Ken asked if his dad had called me.  He mentioned that his dad had called him and asked for my cell number.

I asked son, "did he tell you it was is birthday?"

Son: Yeah. Of course.

Me:  Did you mention to him that he forgot to call you on YOUR birthday 2 weeks ago?

Son: No, Mom. I'm not that kind of person.

Me:  Hopefully you'll grow into being that kind of person, babe. It's just not okay.

I used to want my ex to quietly pass away on the couch. Nowadays, I don't care if he goes out screaming...so long as he goes out. Yeah.  I said that shit.