I finally told someone off

I just got a call with the same caller ID of the company that tried to take advantage of my mom.  It's been a little over a three years ago that I spent several days writing letters, making calls and rejoicing in the righteous indignation of calling bad people bad names. 

I couldn't believe they were calling back.  Seeing the name and the number triggered some kind of primal monster. 

Before the representative could speak I attacked. 

"I can't believe you're calling.  Scumbags sure keep great records..."

"I'm sorry sir--

"Listen, I just want to remind you that I'll spend another week of my life ruining your life and that of your nincomf*@k coworkers..."

"Sir, today we're..."

"Unwind your vagina, princess.  You're a bunch of f@*king scumbags and I'm really more amazed than anything that you've decided to call.  My mom's dead and while I can't attribute that directly to you, I can't say you made a hard time any better.  Take me off your list and, please, f#*k off."

I hung up and I've never felt better.  That "unwind your vagina" line is one I use on this really big dude at one of the warehouses I deliver to and I've been dying to use it outside of work.  Everything else, the F words, its variations and other insults came off exactly how I always hoped they would.  Usually it's just me saying them to myself as I walk away from a situation requiring retaliation.  I couldn't wait to call Sarah and tell her about it.

And then the phone rang again.  It was the same caller ID.  Wow.  I had to think of some more insults. 

I answered with, "You really have some brass to call back again!"

I gave her a chance to reply. 

"Sir, I'm with the Postal Inspector's Office and we're investigating claims of fraud with this business.  We've frozen their assets and seized their inventory.   I apologize because we're calling from their location.   We found your complaints and wanted to inquire about the experience." 

Huge Weekend for the Big Guy

The pediatrician has finally conceded that he's healthy, he's active and he's smart.  He's just a little on the small side.  I  contend that she wanted all that body fluid to create one of her own.  So this weekend we took him to the one place where anyone can feel big, Tiny Town.  (I actually saw an entire family of Little People; grandpa, daughter, kids.  I tried not to stare but I wanted to see if they were making loud, stomping noises around the buildings.)

And, oh yah, Ms. Kid Doctor, mangler of parental esteem, look at the big guy rake in the chicks:

And if that's not enough, his cultural palette craves the refined taste of the social elite.

I'm hot and sticky

I'm still delivering plastic.  It's not that you needed to know that, but that's what I'm doing.  And if you happened to be the white Nissan Sentra waiting to turn at about Hampden and Broadway and you were wondering, "Was that guy in the white truck sreaming?"  Yes, I was.  And let me say this, and very clearly, it doesn't matter how skinny the bottom of a cup is or how wide its top, it is not wise to drive and drink coffee unless you have a lid. 

don't know sh*t

It's day three of Q's flu.  I called the pediatrician to make an appointment.  She thinks he'll be fine but during her questioning I couldn't think of the word for 'poop'.  She'd asked how his diapers were and I said we'd changed some wet ones but there wasn't any...and I didn't know what to say.  All I could think of was "shit", but that wouldn't make me sound like a good parent.  I didn't want to say "number 2" or "twosie".  I wanted to sound as smart as possible so the doctor would stop talking to me like a child.   But what is the medical term, the doctor lingo for poop?  She's a pediatrician so she might use "poopy".  The phrase "fecal matter" didn't come to mind, but I did think up "fecally".  My sentence was, "he hasn't been fecally." I thought it but didn't say it.  I exited the long pause with, "just wet." 

I hung up and it hit me—"Bowel Movement!" I shouted. 

guys club members hijacked

I've been away a lot so it was nice to get to have the day with Q.  He's sick, so that's no good, and we spent the time staying warm and doing the necessary doctor dance.  It's the parental ritual where you know exactly what the doctor will tell you--"if it lasts longer than three days then bring him in.  Keep him hydrated"--but you have to call because doctors have earned the right to smugly state the obvious.  If it lasts longer than three minutes I'm dousing him with fluid.  And you're imagining the worst.  Of course I worry for Quin, especially since he can't tell me what's wrong, and I always see myself on the evening news exposed as the neglectful parent who didn't call to hear that a human as hot as 104 is a bad thing. 

At least today was a good time to win some of my turf back.  While I've been gone Sarah has co-opted my "guys" of Guys Club into something she calls the Snuggly Cuddlers.  (it might be Cuddly Snugglers.  Either way, it's not good for their rep.) 

While you don't sound like the most intimidating adversary, Snuggly Cuddlers, I concede.  I want you to enjoy each others company.  You get a sick baby and a dog who rolls in poo.  

Yah, that's poo.  These pictures were taken after a funeral. 

I was on my way to the fun, wake part of it when Paco found some cows.  The children of the deceased helped me hold him while I used their Suave to cut through the crap.  

The next time I see Sarah she'll be covered in skidmarks and be dealing with the flu.  By then she'll want to stay with her exclusive Girls Club.

They shoot horses, don't they?

I don't know if the modern medical system is ready for my father.  The two times I stopped to see him he was flirting with the nurses, the sheet covering only his shattered leg and his tighty whities.  On the second trip I was asked to stop by the house and pick up some horse probiotics and cranberry concentrate.  Apparently it's a good mix for the human tummy.  I'm just wondering how it'll meld with Western medicine.  
 
The old man broke his leg.  He was working on a roof and the ladder gave way.  He got his leg caught between the rungs and it snapped like a Joe Theisman twig.  At least that's how I envision it.  My dad, my brother and I watched New York Giant linebacker Lawrence Taylor end the promising career of the Washington Redskins quarterback.  Snap.  One part of his leg was still standing while the other lay down.  It's called a compound fracture and suddenly everybody knew a lot about compound fractures.  I kept thinking how immediate it was that his career really was over.  A lot of people break legs and come back to play.  
 
My sister said it best.  "Forty years of chainsaws and bears and he hurts himself on a ladder."  Now my dad has hurt himself before.  He's broken his nose a couple of times.   When you fasten a load of logs on a truck the binders sometimes snap back and whack you in the face.  But he took it in stride, too much so probably.  I remember my mom taking us to town where she'd do laundry and we'd scavenge for enough change for the soda machine.  We were about out of the driveway when here comes my dad's truck rumbling our way.  He was supposed to be taking a load down the canyon but instead he'd come home to show us his new face.  My poor mother rolled down her window to greet him and was instead horrified by her husband playfully pushing his smashed glasses up his flattened nose.  "Can I help you?" he asked in a fake, nasal voice.  
 
As kids we all thought it was pretty cool.  Mom must have wanted to punch him.
 
One time he cut his leg with the chainsaw.   After a brief self-examination he cut his jeans away from the wound and kept on working.  
 
So to see this guy in the sanitary confines of the Medical Center of the Rockies doesn't seem right.  Everything's gleaming and white and smells too clean.  Suspicious clean.  The gas cans, oil stains and the bench seat covered in dog hair are left in an orderly line of vehicles outside the steel and glass structure.  There's an outlet mall right next door.  
 
His wife tries and help him eat.  He doesn't like it much.  He wanted to hold the hamburger by himself, but the fall broke his left wrist.  His other arm is busy with IVs.  He's been red flagged by the staff.  The first time ever in his life to come out of surgical anesthetic had him ripping out all his tubes and causing enough of a stir to warrant restraints.  
 
A little regression is natural.  I think the hardest part about these things isn't your bone sticking out of your leg or the two-hour ambulance ride to civilization.  It's gotta be the forty years of backbreaking work and now all anyone will talk about is your broken leg.  
                                        
And the buzz is out.  Before I stopped by the house to get the horse medicine I had a chance to stop by the bar.  The owner, Dean Blevins, bought me a beer just so we'd have time to talk about the accident.  I gave him the Joe Theisman comparison.  He mentioned a broken leg could bring empathy votes for the county commissioner race.  
 
That's what'll make people really talk, a comeback. 

ow, my eye

Last week I was removing ceiling tiles at the plastics shop and the first one I pulled down dumped about fifty years of accumulated gunk onto my face.  I inhaled a few decades of dust, debris and two generations of cigarette smoke.  I thought of Salem and their promise of being the refreshest.  These must not of have been Salem. 

I got down off the ladder and hacked my way to the sink.  I flushed all my facial orifices repeatedly.  I even blew chunks out my nose.  And that makes investigating the Kleenex so much more justifiable.  Otherwise I don't know why we do it.    

I went home and my eye felt a little scratchy.  The next morning it felt scratchier.  By that afternoon I was wearing a suit and tie and trying to impress upon the CEO of a start-up that he needed to advertise with me while uncontrollably crying out of my left eye.  I thought it would help.  It didn't, and the constant winking just made everybody uncomfortable.  

So the evening before we were to take off for Vegas, I could neither close or open my eye without wanting to pull it out and scrub it.  I went to Urgent Care and they pulled my lids wide open and poked around.  I imagined that this doctor had been sent by Dick Cheney to plunge a big thought needle deep into my brain.  I squirmed and the nurse gave me a towel to hug.  She was in on it, too, I figured, but her conscience was starting to get the best of her.  Should I fight back, I wondered? 

And then the Urgent Care doctor, someone who makes you wonder why he's been relegated to off hours at the clinic who'll take anyone, shouted, "I did it!  I can't believe it but I've done you some good!"  And with that he used a Q-Tip to sweep a little fragment across my eye.  From my perspective it was the size of a garden tool.

It's the kind of thing you always imagine when something is buggering your eye or your tonsils or some hard to reach place:  There's just some cocklebur or thorny insect that need only be plucked from your ear and you'll feel better. 

I felt better.  And I told the doctor he probably shouldn't celebrate so much when he helps someone.  It's like in football when they say you should remain calm when you score a touchdown.  You need to act like you're there all the time and it's no big deal.  At least that's what our football coach used to tell us.  Although the one time we did get there we went fricken nuts. 

All is well now except Workman's Comp has some issues about paying.  They say I didn't go to one of their preferred clinics.  I told them it was urgent so I chose Urgent Care.  They are unfazed.   They want me to go to one of their doctors to get another checkup.  To me that doesn't sound like a money-saving plan, and has me even more so believing that Dick Cheney as something to do with it.