Less than ten hours from the time I left my very succinct message for my landlord, the message where I threatened to catch one of my new rodent friends and leave it’s crucified remains nailed to the front of his business, I got a call from Paul the Rat Killer. He doesn’t actually go by that Rat Killer moniker but I figure that’s what he does and all, he kills rats, and trying to be all inoffensive about it just grates my nerves a little. To say you’re with Arkansas Pest Control is very misleading because I consider my neighbor’s children to be pests and if you caught me in the right mood I might contact you for a little pest removal of the human (under eight) variety so just to be as clear as possible I think it’s best to remove any ambiguity found in the title of your business. If you were a hooker you wouldn’t tell your friend in the Lexus that you work for the Anonymous Gratification Company, you’d tell him that you’ll love him long time for five dollar. Very simple concept plus you know you’re reaching the right customer base.
Paul the Rat Killer droned on and on for quite some time, rambling about how he was sorry he didn’t make it in my apartment when he was there earlier in the week but the landlord didn’t have a key to my apartment. I’d call his bluff here but I know for a fact he was in every single other apartment and I know this because he walked in on my upstairs neighbor while she was in the shower, much to her utter dismay. I also have little to no faith in my management company thanks to the biannual festivities involving me, no air conditioning and lots of angry sweat. So I took him at his word and asked when he was available to come by, anxious as I was to watch a herd of rodents die a miserable, convulsing, foaming death.
He quickly informed me he didn’t work weekends but this coming Tuesday was free. I’m not one to split hairs with the individual involved in my Rat Killing so I told him I’d meet him at my place ‘round 6pm and drinks were on me. He didn’t really get my joke, which to be honest wasn’t so much a joke as it was a singing homage to my inability to function in uncomfortable situations. I mean, the guy had just spent nearly half my lunch break talking about stuffing steel wool in the rat holes so they’d gnaw on it and then bleed to death internally which was a very painful process but not to feel sorry for the buggers ‘cause they breed like crazy anyway and the Mama Rat will just go make some more. And instead of verbally nodding and keeping my mouth shut I tried to make light of the upcoming massacre and made an attempt at a joke and all that guy did was tell me he was a Baptist and didn’t believe in the drinking. In case you’re keeping score, I listened to twenty minutes of Rat Death talk AND got shot down by a 60-year-old Baptist pest control guy. WINNER.
This afternoon I raced home after work, driving the speed limit obviously because the cops round these here parts are starting to go all CHiPS on me but not a single one of them have been swayed by low cut tops or outright begging, which I think is doing their CHiPS legacy a true disservice because Erik Estrada so would have let me off. Once home I gave my apartment the once over with some Pledge because a) it smells nice and b) I wanted nice clean print-free surfaces available for my Rat Killer Man, just in case the CSI folk needed to do a dust-down later. I wouldn’t want them to confuse the Rat Killer’s prints with my neighbors boyfriend’s prints and it’s not that I’m judging anyone, I’m just saying you got to be prepared when strange folk are coming in your house, especially ones that choose careers involving killing.
Paul the Rat Killer showed up right on time and made himself at home with his roach spray by soaking every available baseboard in the semi-clear goop. He was quite proud of the orange smell and asked me repeatedly to affirm that the roach spray was just like opening up an orange and all I could think to tell him was ‘Yeah, that sure does smell like, um, oranges’ and then ask him why he’s spraying for roaches when I’ve got a blessed colony of rodents that are right this very second spewing forth future spawn that will find the titanic-sized bag of cat food a tasty treat. He then puts his hands on his BRIGHT ASS RED SUSPENDERS and gives them one good solid pop! and chortles merrily to himself all the while I’m mentally gauging the distance between me, him and the butcher knife in the kitchen when he says:
“I’d done forgot all about them rats!”
Oh dear lord, and I’d almost forgotten why I lived in Arkansas.
So he finishes up with the roach spray because he “might as well, an’all” and then lumbers out to his pickup for a big black box of rat poison. Back inside the apartment he breaks off these big squares that remind me of those No-Bake cookies that people always try to pass off as tasty because they’ve got peanut butter in them and usually some oats and nuts and sugar, which I’m sure seem like perfectly tasty ingredients to you but I hate peanut butter, as in hate it so much I’d rather eat it, vomit it up and then snort it up my nose. I might be over exaggerating just a bit but it really doesn’t matter if I like the poison blocks or not, it matters that the Vicious Attack Rodents like it, eat it and then DIE. Preferably outside amongst a lot of nature and a really heavy wind.
After Paul the Rat Killer finished off his display-o-poison in my cabinets he tells me that he’s never had a cat go for the poison but should I notice that they’ve eaten a piece, the antidote is vitamin K. And while I’m taking a few seconds to digest this whole ‘antidote’ scenario and wondering how I’m going to know if the cats have eaten the poison he then proceeds to tell me all about the poison.
“Do you know what a coagulant is?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure I know what a coagulant is.”
“What is it?”
God, what is this, fifth grade? “A coagulant is something that aids in the clotting process.”
“Very good!” Bite me asshole. “So if you know what a coagulant is, can you guess what an anticoagulant is?” He’s serious. This is like those scenes in movies where they cut to a dream sequence where the hero gets to beat the Annoying Guy with a large bat and then cut! right back to the normal scene, Annoying Guy’s head still intact.
“It would be the opposite of ‘to clot.’”
“Very good! Now this poison is an anticoagulant. Basically, it makes the rats bleed internally until it rots out their gut and they die. Normally takes about three to seven days.”
Oh goody.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Elves And Fairies and VICIOUS ATTACK RODENTS, pt 2
I realized almost immediately that standing on my bed, knife in hand, was bound to get me nowhere good so I sat down on the edge with my feet dangling over the side and then I had a very surreal flashback to 1989 and watching Pet Cemetery at my friend Bridget’s birthday party. I’d managed to skip most of the really terrifying parts by cowering in the vacant kitchen and pretending to get a snack which probably fooled, um, let’s count: NO ONE as I distinctly remember mounds upon mounds of hot dogs and this kid right here doesn’t eat hot dogs, no ma’am, have you ever seen the Discovery Channel special on meat processing? No? Well you should stop watching porn and watch something educational now and again.
Now I realize that Gage and his desire to play with YOU, if You is really me, doesn’t so much relate to a Rodent of Unusual Size careening around the corner into the kitchen but cut me some slack, I’d just yanked a knife from between my mattress and stood screaming on my bed for 4.5 seconds and there was probably some residual traumatization which hastened along some really unsettling flashbacks to that Gage kid hiding under Grampa’s bed with that handy dandy scalpel and look at the delicate achilles heel! Fresh for the cutting!
So just to ascertain that there was no Gage hiding under my bed or maybe even some leftover Rat Friends who were too drunk to leave the party, I laid on my belly and scooted my torso over the edge where I made some loud noise and waived my knife around in the black depths because I figure Under The Bed Things are afraid of loud noises and knife waiving. I then attempted to peek my little eyeballs under there but the thing about my bed is that it’s wicked far off the ground so I ended up very ungracefully planting both my hands on the wooden floor which gave me a very clear view of the Under The Bed Area but if I’d needed to, say, react quickly like bunny, things could have ended very badly.
Once I’d righted myself, feet planted on the floor this time, I walked silently out of the bedroom and into the archway of the darkened kitchen. Both of The Demonspawn were eerily still on opposite sides of the refrigerator for what I can only assume was a strategically coordinated double-team move designed to give them more face time with their new live toy. Not even the sudden glare of the overhead light was enough to startle them though it definitely took away the creepy green-gold glowing eye thing they’d had going on.
As I was tip toeing into the kitchen, Llama made a quick paw swiping move under the fridge and I showed how much I supported him by jumping on top of the nearest kitchen chair. I didn’t want him to think that my trust for him had waned, I wanted it clear that I was giving him full reign to find that rat and tear his insides apart with his saber kitty teeth and tiger claws. But his paw came back empty and I suppressed my vocal disappointment by scooting the chair across the rug to the cabinet under the sink, a cabinet far, far away from that refrigerator where I keep my tile cleaner with bleach and my sink cleaner with bleach and my whole gallon jug of bleach because one can never have too much bleach, do not judge me.
But there, in the back of the cabinet, was the industrial size bottle of pet-friendly bug killer and I rationalized that rats were like bugs, only bigger and more mammalian-like and without those crunchy exoskeletons and maybe if someone just did the math in her head and said the bug is THIS big so I use THIS much pesticide so if the rodent is THAT big then I use THAT much pesticide and voila! No more rodent!
I really should stop listening to myself when I rationalize these things because just two weeks ago I rationalized that since my weekend had given me a bit too much sun and hence a wee bit of the peeling action, perhaps I would just speed up the peeling process by pumicing my forehead. Note to self: do not use pumice on delicate forehead skin as will only leave area with an unattractive mottled look that will force others to ask if you’d been recently mauled and burned with a strangely shaped curling iron.
But rationalize I did, which explains how at 1am I found myself crouching on top of a chair and pointing the spray nozzle of the Pet Friendly! pesticide directly under the fridge, turning my head and pressing the nozzle which was simultaneously met with a really high pitched rat scream and a lot of bumping noises but no actual rat appearance. I figure if someone sprayed roach killer in my face I’d scream too but don’t you go thinking I was starting to feel sympathetic to it’s plight, I was only hoping it would gimp home and tell all his friends about the crazy lady in 4D with the spray fire that burns out your eye-holes.
Five minutes later with no sign of Mr. Bojangles and I was so over the whole rodent killing thing because I went to school for communications, not The Proper Methods of Rodent Extermination and HELLO, don’t people get paid to get rid of these things? Isn’t that someone’s job? Wait, I know who’s job it is! It’s my landlords job!
So I hopped off my chair and kind of skittered back to my bedroom because it was late and I was tired and what if that had been my one night to sleep and it had been ruined by the sudden squealing appearance of an overgrown (and vicious) hamster?
Don’t think I didn’t call my landlord and leave him a really special message about that.
Now I realize that Gage and his desire to play with YOU, if You is really me, doesn’t so much relate to a Rodent of Unusual Size careening around the corner into the kitchen but cut me some slack, I’d just yanked a knife from between my mattress and stood screaming on my bed for 4.5 seconds and there was probably some residual traumatization which hastened along some really unsettling flashbacks to that Gage kid hiding under Grampa’s bed with that handy dandy scalpel and look at the delicate achilles heel! Fresh for the cutting!
So just to ascertain that there was no Gage hiding under my bed or maybe even some leftover Rat Friends who were too drunk to leave the party, I laid on my belly and scooted my torso over the edge where I made some loud noise and waived my knife around in the black depths because I figure Under The Bed Things are afraid of loud noises and knife waiving. I then attempted to peek my little eyeballs under there but the thing about my bed is that it’s wicked far off the ground so I ended up very ungracefully planting both my hands on the wooden floor which gave me a very clear view of the Under The Bed Area but if I’d needed to, say, react quickly like bunny, things could have ended very badly.
Once I’d righted myself, feet planted on the floor this time, I walked silently out of the bedroom and into the archway of the darkened kitchen. Both of The Demonspawn were eerily still on opposite sides of the refrigerator for what I can only assume was a strategically coordinated double-team move designed to give them more face time with their new live toy. Not even the sudden glare of the overhead light was enough to startle them though it definitely took away the creepy green-gold glowing eye thing they’d had going on.
As I was tip toeing into the kitchen, Llama made a quick paw swiping move under the fridge and I showed how much I supported him by jumping on top of the nearest kitchen chair. I didn’t want him to think that my trust for him had waned, I wanted it clear that I was giving him full reign to find that rat and tear his insides apart with his saber kitty teeth and tiger claws. But his paw came back empty and I suppressed my vocal disappointment by scooting the chair across the rug to the cabinet under the sink, a cabinet far, far away from that refrigerator where I keep my tile cleaner with bleach and my sink cleaner with bleach and my whole gallon jug of bleach because one can never have too much bleach, do not judge me.
But there, in the back of the cabinet, was the industrial size bottle of pet-friendly bug killer and I rationalized that rats were like bugs, only bigger and more mammalian-like and without those crunchy exoskeletons and maybe if someone just did the math in her head and said the bug is THIS big so I use THIS much pesticide so if the rodent is THAT big then I use THAT much pesticide and voila! No more rodent!
I really should stop listening to myself when I rationalize these things because just two weeks ago I rationalized that since my weekend had given me a bit too much sun and hence a wee bit of the peeling action, perhaps I would just speed up the peeling process by pumicing my forehead. Note to self: do not use pumice on delicate forehead skin as will only leave area with an unattractive mottled look that will force others to ask if you’d been recently mauled and burned with a strangely shaped curling iron.
But rationalize I did, which explains how at 1am I found myself crouching on top of a chair and pointing the spray nozzle of the Pet Friendly! pesticide directly under the fridge, turning my head and pressing the nozzle which was simultaneously met with a really high pitched rat scream and a lot of bumping noises but no actual rat appearance. I figure if someone sprayed roach killer in my face I’d scream too but don’t you go thinking I was starting to feel sympathetic to it’s plight, I was only hoping it would gimp home and tell all his friends about the crazy lady in 4D with the spray fire that burns out your eye-holes.
Five minutes later with no sign of Mr. Bojangles and I was so over the whole rodent killing thing because I went to school for communications, not The Proper Methods of Rodent Extermination and HELLO, don’t people get paid to get rid of these things? Isn’t that someone’s job? Wait, I know who’s job it is! It’s my landlords job!
So I hopped off my chair and kind of skittered back to my bedroom because it was late and I was tired and what if that had been my one night to sleep and it had been ruined by the sudden squealing appearance of an overgrown (and vicious) hamster?
Don’t think I didn’t call my landlord and leave him a really special message about that.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Elves And Fairies and VICIOUS ATTACK RODENTS, pt 1
We were still living in Texas when I was eight years old, in a small town in a small subdivision in a relatively small house. Truth be told I always liked that house the best and not because my mother had stenciled small blue birds and red hearts and green vines around my window but because it was the last house at the bottom of the subdivision, a real live subdivision, one full of families who all managed to get knocked up within the same year, spewing forth cute little girls ripe for afternoons of Girl Scouting, bike riding and sandbox digging. Sometimes I even acquiesced to Barbie-doll playing but only after much coercion and after formal agreements were signed indicating I could chop off their hair, rip off their heads and stuff bits of trash and leftover firecrackers in their hollow bodies. Now, of course, I’d sooner put a cheese grater to my face than live in a subdivision but as an eight-year-old, Quail Lane was the height of Cool.
For my eighth birthday party I invited the entire Girl Scout Troop for a sleepover, the kind where your mother prepares for weeks in advance; cleaning house, hanging streamers, baking cakes and cookies and buying hot dogs from the crazy bulk aisle at Sam’s because nineteen little girls can eat hella amounts of food. This is the same kind of party where your dad hides out in the shed in the back, venturing forth only if someone screams bloody murder for at least twenty seconds because a 10 second scream is really only like a warning beacon but twenty seconds indicates severe bodily injury. It’s not like I judge the shed-hiding though because, hello, that many pre-pubescent little girls are bound to make anyone nervous.
That night we threw our sleeping bags haphazardly across the living room floor, giggling amongst ourselves the way all little Southern girls do. I mean, little Northern girls may giggle as well but I always kind of associated ‘north’ with ‘cold barren wasteland’ and I figured it was probably quite hard just to stay warm much less do something as useless as giggle or braid hair.
Much later that night, when the room was completely silent save for steady breathing and the occasional snore, I was awakened by the strangest of sensations. A weight upon my forehead, one both warm and kind of prickly. Not trickly, prickly. As I was coming out of my peaceful slumber I was slowly taking inventory of the kinds of things that my friends could have placed on my forehead. It wasn’t toothpaste or salt or a frozen panty wad because all those things, I imagined, would have very distinct feelings associated with them and as I couldn’t detect any toothpaste running or salt spilling or frozen panty melting, I could effectively eliminate those objects from the list of possible things adorning my forehead.
It was about that time that I started to become fully awake, no longer half-heartedly wondering about that prickly and unstable weight but truly and quite concernedly wondering what the Hello Kitty was going on up there and as I crinkled my brow in confusion I felt a squirming furry body launch itself from my crown and into the quiet black air around me, realizing instantly that the prickly sensation was attributed to wee small claws and HOLY SPACEBALLS THERE WAS SOMETHING WITH CLAWS AND FUR ON MY FOREHEAD, NOW IS THE TIME TO AWAKEN EVERYONE WITH MY SCREAMING.
Naturally as soon as one eight-year-old starts screaming then any eight-year-old within a forty mile radius will join in as well because we are nothing if not supportive of each other’s vocal ability. I mean, it’s not like you have many skills at eight. Sometimes you can make some bead jewelry or beat your younger siblings without mom catching on but as far as True Skills go, screaming’s all you got. So as I was struggling out of my sleeping bag the other eighteen girls were struggling out of theirs as well, vocal chords a-trembling in unified terror. And as soon as the others became aware of the scampering furry wee-clawed rodent running around, that terror got ramped up to DEFCON 500, which is wicked more important than DEFCON 5 because, LIKE DUH, there is a rodent on the lam.
Someone flicked on the lights and out of the corner of my eye I caught some quick and covert movement along the baseboard against the far wall and I opened my mouth to express my ongoing and now amplified fear when it dawned on me, just as the scream was beginning to break free, that this was no ordinary furry rodent, this one was kind of pretty. Kind of like the color of caramel or creamy coffee or… wait for it…
BUTTERSCOTCH.
Amidst the screaming and couch jumping and confused panic I made my way to the baseboard in the far corner of the room where the wee little rodent was cowering in abject fear. I gently reached down and grabbed him ‘round his soft belly, pulling him up against my neck for a nice warm cuddle, his wee scratchy claws grabbing onto any available flesh.
As soon as I showed the other girls the pretty little furball in my hands, a cute little hamster by the name of Butterscotch, they calmed down considerably. He’d apparently escaped by launching himself from the top of his spinning wheel and squeezing between the crevice at the top, jumping from the elevated terrarium located in my bedroom in a bid for freedom only to find mounds of warm sleeping bodies in what probably looked like an endless string of Body Jungle. I imagine he stopped atop my forehead for a bit of a rest and regroup, rethinking his escape route and now total lack of cedar shavings and green hamster nuggets not to mention his long-time companion, Valentine. Though now that I think of it, Valentine may have been a deciding factor in his escape attempt as we later had to separate the two after Valentine clawed out both of Butterscotch’s eyes.
No, I’m not kidding.
And yes I believed my father when he told me he would send Butterscotch off to a research facility that would do their best to figure out why my hamster had dried up eye sockets.
And while I’d like to tell you that the scream from the mouth of this 26-year-old last night was all in vain, all due to the long lost cousin of dear Butterscotch, I Cannot Tell A Lie. At least about rodents, other subjects are fair game. So it began that at 12:45am I was lounging sleepless in my bed complete with earplugs and sleep mask, attempting to ignore the continued antics of the strangely active Demonspawn and the fact that I was just at the cusp of breaking a sweat in an apartment supposedly outfitted with a brand new compressor less than a month ago. I finally lost patience with the Cat Circus and Sweltering Heat and whipped out the ear plugs, intent on telling anything within earshot about my all-consuming desire to shove my broomstick into any available ass when I heard the unmistakable sounds of a squealing rodent, one who was running helter skelter down my hallway floor, chased by the undeniably gleeful felines.
I caught the glint of it’s beady black eye as it hightailed it around the corner into the kitchen and before I knew it, I’d whipped out the knife from under my bed and jumped to my feet on top of the mattress, full scream ahead.
For my eighth birthday party I invited the entire Girl Scout Troop for a sleepover, the kind where your mother prepares for weeks in advance; cleaning house, hanging streamers, baking cakes and cookies and buying hot dogs from the crazy bulk aisle at Sam’s because nineteen little girls can eat hella amounts of food. This is the same kind of party where your dad hides out in the shed in the back, venturing forth only if someone screams bloody murder for at least twenty seconds because a 10 second scream is really only like a warning beacon but twenty seconds indicates severe bodily injury. It’s not like I judge the shed-hiding though because, hello, that many pre-pubescent little girls are bound to make anyone nervous.
That night we threw our sleeping bags haphazardly across the living room floor, giggling amongst ourselves the way all little Southern girls do. I mean, little Northern girls may giggle as well but I always kind of associated ‘north’ with ‘cold barren wasteland’ and I figured it was probably quite hard just to stay warm much less do something as useless as giggle or braid hair.
Much later that night, when the room was completely silent save for steady breathing and the occasional snore, I was awakened by the strangest of sensations. A weight upon my forehead, one both warm and kind of prickly. Not trickly, prickly. As I was coming out of my peaceful slumber I was slowly taking inventory of the kinds of things that my friends could have placed on my forehead. It wasn’t toothpaste or salt or a frozen panty wad because all those things, I imagined, would have very distinct feelings associated with them and as I couldn’t detect any toothpaste running or salt spilling or frozen panty melting, I could effectively eliminate those objects from the list of possible things adorning my forehead.
It was about that time that I started to become fully awake, no longer half-heartedly wondering about that prickly and unstable weight but truly and quite concernedly wondering what the Hello Kitty was going on up there and as I crinkled my brow in confusion I felt a squirming furry body launch itself from my crown and into the quiet black air around me, realizing instantly that the prickly sensation was attributed to wee small claws and HOLY SPACEBALLS THERE WAS SOMETHING WITH CLAWS AND FUR ON MY FOREHEAD, NOW IS THE TIME TO AWAKEN EVERYONE WITH MY SCREAMING.
Naturally as soon as one eight-year-old starts screaming then any eight-year-old within a forty mile radius will join in as well because we are nothing if not supportive of each other’s vocal ability. I mean, it’s not like you have many skills at eight. Sometimes you can make some bead jewelry or beat your younger siblings without mom catching on but as far as True Skills go, screaming’s all you got. So as I was struggling out of my sleeping bag the other eighteen girls were struggling out of theirs as well, vocal chords a-trembling in unified terror. And as soon as the others became aware of the scampering furry wee-clawed rodent running around, that terror got ramped up to DEFCON 500, which is wicked more important than DEFCON 5 because, LIKE DUH, there is a rodent on the lam.
Someone flicked on the lights and out of the corner of my eye I caught some quick and covert movement along the baseboard against the far wall and I opened my mouth to express my ongoing and now amplified fear when it dawned on me, just as the scream was beginning to break free, that this was no ordinary furry rodent, this one was kind of pretty. Kind of like the color of caramel or creamy coffee or… wait for it…
BUTTERSCOTCH.
Amidst the screaming and couch jumping and confused panic I made my way to the baseboard in the far corner of the room where the wee little rodent was cowering in abject fear. I gently reached down and grabbed him ‘round his soft belly, pulling him up against my neck for a nice warm cuddle, his wee scratchy claws grabbing onto any available flesh.
As soon as I showed the other girls the pretty little furball in my hands, a cute little hamster by the name of Butterscotch, they calmed down considerably. He’d apparently escaped by launching himself from the top of his spinning wheel and squeezing between the crevice at the top, jumping from the elevated terrarium located in my bedroom in a bid for freedom only to find mounds of warm sleeping bodies in what probably looked like an endless string of Body Jungle. I imagine he stopped atop my forehead for a bit of a rest and regroup, rethinking his escape route and now total lack of cedar shavings and green hamster nuggets not to mention his long-time companion, Valentine. Though now that I think of it, Valentine may have been a deciding factor in his escape attempt as we later had to separate the two after Valentine clawed out both of Butterscotch’s eyes.
No, I’m not kidding.
And yes I believed my father when he told me he would send Butterscotch off to a research facility that would do their best to figure out why my hamster had dried up eye sockets.
And while I’d like to tell you that the scream from the mouth of this 26-year-old last night was all in vain, all due to the long lost cousin of dear Butterscotch, I Cannot Tell A Lie. At least about rodents, other subjects are fair game. So it began that at 12:45am I was lounging sleepless in my bed complete with earplugs and sleep mask, attempting to ignore the continued antics of the strangely active Demonspawn and the fact that I was just at the cusp of breaking a sweat in an apartment supposedly outfitted with a brand new compressor less than a month ago. I finally lost patience with the Cat Circus and Sweltering Heat and whipped out the ear plugs, intent on telling anything within earshot about my all-consuming desire to shove my broomstick into any available ass when I heard the unmistakable sounds of a squealing rodent, one who was running helter skelter down my hallway floor, chased by the undeniably gleeful felines.
I caught the glint of it’s beady black eye as it hightailed it around the corner into the kitchen and before I knew it, I’d whipped out the knife from under my bed and jumped to my feet on top of the mattress, full scream ahead.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Breadpudding
I’m sitting in the doctor’s office yesterday, perched uncomfortably on the edge of one of those vinyl covered raised beds with the thin and crispy white paper crunching under my ass as I fidget with my toes and hands and yank on the poor mistreated strand of hair that’s been abused since the early nineties. The nurse with the half grown-out perm and purple scrubs keeps asking me questions and I can tell from the tone of her voice that she thinks I’m crazy or that I’m just taking up space in her room, hoping to score some Xanax. I want to tell her I have no interest in Xanax or in being crazy and that I can feel her Judging Vibes emanating from her person like stank on a skunk and yes, I may have judged her for her lackluster perm but she makes up for it with some of the prettiest brown hair I’ve ever seen, all shiny and smooth, at least on the part that’s grown free of the perm’s wrath. But the room is so chilly and quiet and deep down I know that offering up more than the date of my last menstrual cycle or my list of drug allergies is going to be met with an even deader dead stare so my mouth, it stays shut and I just stifle back the jaw-cracking yawn waiting to make it’s grand debut.
I don’t tell the nurse much more than the normal “I’m not sleeping well” speech, the one that involves just the barest of details, like how I once put a pencil and paper beside my pillow and each time I woke up I just made a nice little tick-mark and when I got up the next morning, guess how many swipes I’d made at that little paper? Seventeen. Now ask me again why I’m always tired. Ask me.
So the doctor comes in and while he acts concerned, he’s skeptical that someone would be able to function if they slept as little as I say I do and then I tell him about the time that I hallucinated bloody beating hearts on my pretty oak floor and his first thought is probably which anti-psychotic to put me on but I try and make it perfectly clear that I’m not crazy, I’m just crazy tired and for the love of everything holy, just give me something to make me sleep. I tell him I’d give up The Crush, The Demonspawn AND pepperjack cheese for one good solid night of blissful slumber and it’s then, naturally, that I tear up because this doctor is ignoring almost everything I’m saying and is handing me a questionnaire that I’m supposed to fill out, one which will magically indicate if I’m at risk for becoming a serial killer due to my depressive nature.
When I’m finished I hand the paper back and he scans my responses and finally admits that I’m probably not depressed and I reign in my urge to scream in frustration because This Is What I’ve Been Telling Him, over and over and over. Look, I’m on Brooke Shields side here. If a little bit of Zoloft or Lithium or Welbutrin gets you out of bed in the morning then by all means, take it. I support you. And I realize this man only sees me when I’m sneezing out infected green globules and maybe I just don’t do a good job of making myself clear but please understand, Mr. Doctor-Man, that I’m not one to circumvent something and should I feel like question ten, the one where I had to rate my desire to keep living, is bordering on something below a 9.8, don’t worry, I’ll tell you.
So he leaves the room and comes back with a trial pack of something-or-other and tells me that we’re going to try this version first and to come back in a month to reevaluate this whole not sleeping thing and I literally skip out to my car, if skipping is really just a slightly faster than normal walk, because I realize I’ve only got four short hours before I can pop open this package and cuddle up in my bed for some Blissful Slumber. I make it through the last hour at work and then the two hours at the animal shelter (for my speeding sins) and then I’m walking in the front door with that packet in hand, already ripping off the back cover and popping a small white pill into my hand.
And all I got to say is that Children’s Tylenol has more game than this shit and if you think I’m waiting until August to reevaluate ‘this whole not sleeping thing’ then THINK AGAIN, Mr. Doctor-Man.
I don’t tell the nurse much more than the normal “I’m not sleeping well” speech, the one that involves just the barest of details, like how I once put a pencil and paper beside my pillow and each time I woke up I just made a nice little tick-mark and when I got up the next morning, guess how many swipes I’d made at that little paper? Seventeen. Now ask me again why I’m always tired. Ask me.
So the doctor comes in and while he acts concerned, he’s skeptical that someone would be able to function if they slept as little as I say I do and then I tell him about the time that I hallucinated bloody beating hearts on my pretty oak floor and his first thought is probably which anti-psychotic to put me on but I try and make it perfectly clear that I’m not crazy, I’m just crazy tired and for the love of everything holy, just give me something to make me sleep. I tell him I’d give up The Crush, The Demonspawn AND pepperjack cheese for one good solid night of blissful slumber and it’s then, naturally, that I tear up because this doctor is ignoring almost everything I’m saying and is handing me a questionnaire that I’m supposed to fill out, one which will magically indicate if I’m at risk for becoming a serial killer due to my depressive nature.
When I’m finished I hand the paper back and he scans my responses and finally admits that I’m probably not depressed and I reign in my urge to scream in frustration because This Is What I’ve Been Telling Him, over and over and over. Look, I’m on Brooke Shields side here. If a little bit of Zoloft or Lithium or Welbutrin gets you out of bed in the morning then by all means, take it. I support you. And I realize this man only sees me when I’m sneezing out infected green globules and maybe I just don’t do a good job of making myself clear but please understand, Mr. Doctor-Man, that I’m not one to circumvent something and should I feel like question ten, the one where I had to rate my desire to keep living, is bordering on something below a 9.8, don’t worry, I’ll tell you.
So he leaves the room and comes back with a trial pack of something-or-other and tells me that we’re going to try this version first and to come back in a month to reevaluate this whole not sleeping thing and I literally skip out to my car, if skipping is really just a slightly faster than normal walk, because I realize I’ve only got four short hours before I can pop open this package and cuddle up in my bed for some Blissful Slumber. I make it through the last hour at work and then the two hours at the animal shelter (for my speeding sins) and then I’m walking in the front door with that packet in hand, already ripping off the back cover and popping a small white pill into my hand.
And all I got to say is that Children’s Tylenol has more game than this shit and if you think I’m waiting until August to reevaluate ‘this whole not sleeping thing’ then THINK AGAIN, Mr. Doctor-Man.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Hemingway Was Just A Mean Drunk
A couple of weeks ago my boss hosted a class, the kind of class where you get a test at the end and I got so excited I clapped my hands for joy. And if you think I'm kidding then you haven't been paying attention 'tall, now have you?
So at the end of the class we all filed diligently out of the conference room, none so focused upon finishing that test in a precise and timely manner than yours truly. Blame it on The Sickness, the one that involves methodically eating wee boxes of tic tacs and hitting all the radio preset buttons in a row, even if I've found a song in which I'd like my ears to partake. This sickness extends to test taking as well and it's really just best if you not come between me, my pen and my paper because I'll be slapped upside the head and called Billy Bob before I let someone beat me.
It's not necessarily that I don't want people to beat me it's just that I don't want to be last, or second to last or within spitting distance of last. If everyone gets the answers right then kudos to us all but should it appear that everyone gets it but ME, well then, we've got a verified flashback to 7th grade Algebra and the many, many hours I spent threatening to disembowel my father because his explanations were coming from the mind of a 45-year-old engineer who happens to think numbers are the coolest while I just wanted him to tell me the answer already so I could go finish The Old Man and the Freaking Sea.
So when I watched everyone turning in their tests that morning I could feel my neck start to get itchy and my blood pressure start to rise because these people were not only turning in their tests before I'd made it to question two, they weren't even stressed about it and then here's me, dropping f-bombs like rabbit pellets because I'm convinced I've got every question wrong and my boss just cannot know that I'm a total reject.
And that's basically what it boils down to: Not being the throwback DKNY sweater that gets sent to TJ Maxx to languish in the half-off bin.
All of this drivel has been the world's longest lead-in to my continued inability to go to sleep. I mean, I know how sleep works. I know all about the different stages and the REM and the right amount of hours and the good bedtime habits. I know I shouldn't eat right before bed or watch lots of television or drink too much or set the neighborhood cats on fire because that's totally bad karma. So if I understand all about the process and I see everyone around me being able to do it normally, at least a majority of the time, you can bet your collection of Ninja Turtles that it's going to piss me off. Someone's doing something way better than me and this isn't like someone is a wicked good soccer player and I'm just regular old me because I have no desire to be a wicked good soccer player so being regular old me isn't an issue. But hearing someone talking about sleeping a whole night through is like telling the girl who placed 19th out of 20 in the Miss Arkansas pageant that what really counts is her good personality when we all know damn good and well that the swimsuit competition is way more important.
You're probably not following my reasoning on that one and to be honest, I'm probably not either but the cool thing about not sleeping is that you get to blame nonsensical analogies on The Insomnia.
And just because I cannot have anyone thinking I got the questions on that test wrong, I totally won the candy bar my boss dangled in front of us as a reward for being the first to finish with all the correct answers.
So at the end of the class we all filed diligently out of the conference room, none so focused upon finishing that test in a precise and timely manner than yours truly. Blame it on The Sickness, the one that involves methodically eating wee boxes of tic tacs and hitting all the radio preset buttons in a row, even if I've found a song in which I'd like my ears to partake. This sickness extends to test taking as well and it's really just best if you not come between me, my pen and my paper because I'll be slapped upside the head and called Billy Bob before I let someone beat me.
It's not necessarily that I don't want people to beat me it's just that I don't want to be last, or second to last or within spitting distance of last. If everyone gets the answers right then kudos to us all but should it appear that everyone gets it but ME, well then, we've got a verified flashback to 7th grade Algebra and the many, many hours I spent threatening to disembowel my father because his explanations were coming from the mind of a 45-year-old engineer who happens to think numbers are the coolest while I just wanted him to tell me the answer already so I could go finish The Old Man and the Freaking Sea.
So when I watched everyone turning in their tests that morning I could feel my neck start to get itchy and my blood pressure start to rise because these people were not only turning in their tests before I'd made it to question two, they weren't even stressed about it and then here's me, dropping f-bombs like rabbit pellets because I'm convinced I've got every question wrong and my boss just cannot know that I'm a total reject.
And that's basically what it boils down to: Not being the throwback DKNY sweater that gets sent to TJ Maxx to languish in the half-off bin.
All of this drivel has been the world's longest lead-in to my continued inability to go to sleep. I mean, I know how sleep works. I know all about the different stages and the REM and the right amount of hours and the good bedtime habits. I know I shouldn't eat right before bed or watch lots of television or drink too much or set the neighborhood cats on fire because that's totally bad karma. So if I understand all about the process and I see everyone around me being able to do it normally, at least a majority of the time, you can bet your collection of Ninja Turtles that it's going to piss me off. Someone's doing something way better than me and this isn't like someone is a wicked good soccer player and I'm just regular old me because I have no desire to be a wicked good soccer player so being regular old me isn't an issue. But hearing someone talking about sleeping a whole night through is like telling the girl who placed 19th out of 20 in the Miss Arkansas pageant that what really counts is her good personality when we all know damn good and well that the swimsuit competition is way more important.
You're probably not following my reasoning on that one and to be honest, I'm probably not either but the cool thing about not sleeping is that you get to blame nonsensical analogies on The Insomnia.
And just because I cannot have anyone thinking I got the questions on that test wrong, I totally won the candy bar my boss dangled in front of us as a reward for being the first to finish with all the correct answers.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Atlas shrugged and said "Bite Me"
If you look to the right you'll see, right under the spot where I gave up my anonymity, that I live in an apartment with creaky wooden floors and the occasional leak. And here's the thing: I don't mind that the floors creak in the winter and the summer and all the indistinguishable seasons in between. I don't mind that my air conditioning has picked the two hottest weeks known to man, two consecutive years in a row, to pack up and leave for greener pastures. I don't even mind that I had to move the bag of cat food out of the wee midget closet under the kitchen window to a more secure area because some toothy woodland-turned-urban creature ate an actual hole in the floorboard and started stealing the tuna-flavored nuggets from the extra large bag I buy for The Demonspawn. And just let it be known that while my cats may be lazy-ass indoor felines, they don't play with folk who steal their tuna nuggets which should sort of explain the dry hardened rodent foot I found under the kitchen rug a few weeks ago but I really just don't like to think too hard about that. Because it's not really the severed foot that bothers me it's the fact that I sure as hell haven't found the owner of that severed foot so on one hand I've got a pissed off footless rodent gimping around and on the other I've got a dead rodent decomposing in some unknown apartment locale and I'm not entirely sure which is worse.
What this all comes down to is earlier this evening as I was standing in my bathroom, patiently drying my hair. This isn't a normal occurrence because it takes a damn long time to get all of it dry which should hopefully explain to my fellow coworkers why I roll into work with wet hair every day. It's not that I don't like drying my hair it's that I like sleeping way more and when it's down to having pretty hair and sleeping I'm probably going to pick sleeping. So as I'm drying my hair I feel a big fat drop of water go plop! right there on my arm. No big deal, right? I mean, I just got out of the shower so there's bound to be stray droplets of moisture, like, accumulating on, like, shower curtains, right?
I continue with the hair drying because there's nothing worse than half dried hair. It's like eating a half cooked biscuit, all yummy and crunchy on the outside but disturbingly gummy and doughy in the center. No good. But then I feel another cold plop! and I start to get a little concerned. Because it's a way bigger droplet than anything my hair could have produced and the shower curtain doesn't seem to be producing attacking water molecules so I raise my gaze heavenwards, towards the bathroom ceiling, the ceiling which is now sporting a decidedly unflattering crack right down the middle. And it's then that the vague thoughts I'd had about the bath mat being wet first thing in the morning, you know, before I'd even had a shower, start to congeal into one big coherent thought and I realize I'm staring at the multitude of little bitty water droplets that kind of roll together into the big mama drop and look, there it goes, PLOP, right on my pink bath mat.
And for whatever reason this annoys me more than the rodent friend, the fickle a/c and the creaky floors. It even annoys me more than the two gunshots I heard last week because I'm prepared for those. I mean, hello, I live downtown. Plus it's summertime and folk get all crazy-like when it's hot outside. Someone goes and pisses you off, what are you going to do? Let them get away with it? HELL NO! Shoot his ass! This is a viable solution!
But back to the leaky ceiling: Yeah, I'm pretty damn annoyed about that.
What this all comes down to is earlier this evening as I was standing in my bathroom, patiently drying my hair. This isn't a normal occurrence because it takes a damn long time to get all of it dry which should hopefully explain to my fellow coworkers why I roll into work with wet hair every day. It's not that I don't like drying my hair it's that I like sleeping way more and when it's down to having pretty hair and sleeping I'm probably going to pick sleeping. So as I'm drying my hair I feel a big fat drop of water go plop! right there on my arm. No big deal, right? I mean, I just got out of the shower so there's bound to be stray droplets of moisture, like, accumulating on, like, shower curtains, right?
I continue with the hair drying because there's nothing worse than half dried hair. It's like eating a half cooked biscuit, all yummy and crunchy on the outside but disturbingly gummy and doughy in the center. No good. But then I feel another cold plop! and I start to get a little concerned. Because it's a way bigger droplet than anything my hair could have produced and the shower curtain doesn't seem to be producing attacking water molecules so I raise my gaze heavenwards, towards the bathroom ceiling, the ceiling which is now sporting a decidedly unflattering crack right down the middle. And it's then that the vague thoughts I'd had about the bath mat being wet first thing in the morning, you know, before I'd even had a shower, start to congeal into one big coherent thought and I realize I'm staring at the multitude of little bitty water droplets that kind of roll together into the big mama drop and look, there it goes, PLOP, right on my pink bath mat.
And for whatever reason this annoys me more than the rodent friend, the fickle a/c and the creaky floors. It even annoys me more than the two gunshots I heard last week because I'm prepared for those. I mean, hello, I live downtown. Plus it's summertime and folk get all crazy-like when it's hot outside. Someone goes and pisses you off, what are you going to do? Let them get away with it? HELL NO! Shoot his ass! This is a viable solution!
But back to the leaky ceiling: Yeah, I'm pretty damn annoyed about that.
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