I spent a good deal of time yesterday adding things to the Anatomy of a Forum post from yesterday. I’m telling you, I’ve never laughed so hard at comments before – and you guys are good. Like I want to make an award for best! comment! ever! but I’d give it to everyone, which kinda dilutes the whole thing.

Anyway, the post has been updated and will probably be updated again – you Pranksters are hysterical.

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Last week, the hospital called.

I wasn’t sure if it was a matter of wondering where I was, since I hadn’t been in (knocks on wood) for a couple of months. Hell, maybe I’d accrued some frequent flyer miles with which I could purchase a lovely sandwich in the cafeteria!

I answered, my mouth watering with antici….

…pation

It was the dude who schedules shit. Shit like, oh I don’t know, ULTRASOUNDS of my THYROID that may or may not show that I have an evil twin or one of those tumors full of hair and nails. Or the dreaded Neck Baby.

I’d had every intention of calling for the ultrasound…just…sometime else. Like maybe in 20 years or something.

It seems silly to be worked up about learning that my neck was pregnant or something, but after you’ve fallen on the wrong side of statistics enough times, you know that “routine” and “ultrasound” and “thyroid” and “neck baby” don’t go hand in hand. So I was more than a little bit nervous about learning I had a neck baby or an evil twin or something.

On Good Friday, I chose to celebrate the chocolate rabbit rising from the dead by making Dawn and The Guy On My Couch go with me to my ultrasound. I had to promise them cheeseburgers, which, I can’t say I blame them for. Bargaining is an art form.

The ultrasound didn’t show any beating neck baby hearts or teeth or hair, from what I could tell, anyway.

“Your doctor should have the results in two business days,” the tech told me cheerfully as we walked out of the room.

Wait.

Two business days from today? Good Friday is a trading holiday (I’ve been in the financial industry too long, clearly), does that mean radiologists get it off too?

I didn’t know.

So when Monday rolled around, I spent it balled up on the couch, a bundle of nerves with kicky hair. By Monday afternoon, I decided I should call my endocrinologist…just to see if they had the results back. They did! OH HAPPY DAY!

I waited nervously.

I’d been told email = good.

Phone call = bad.

By 4:15 CST, the same time zone my MD lives in, I’d had enough – I called back. I HAD to know if I had a neck baby.

“This office is now closed. To reach the doctor on call…” I was livid. What the fuck kind of doctor CLOSES at 4PM on a MONDAY?

(answer: apparently my endocrinologist)

I thought about all the hackers I knew. Maybe one of THEM could get me my results. I can interpret them (*waves* HI MOM! Thanks for that nursing degree!) , I just needed to see them.

Okay, I thought, most doctors don’t actually leave when the office closes. I bet she’ll call with the results tonight.

When the phone rang as I was watching reruns of Sister Wives, at 8:30, I was just positive it was her. Nope. My mother. Asking how I was.

Eventually, I fell into a nervous sleep.

The following morning, I grabbed my iPad and frantically waded through 837 “Make your penis bigger” emails (responding to them, of course. Who DOESN’T want a bigger wang?). Nada. Fuck.

I plodded over to my computer, ready to put a call into the office when, *zing* it hit my email.

“Hi Rebecca,

Your results were normal.

Thanks!

Nurse’s Name”

Thank the Good Lord of Butter – I am not growing a neck baby.

Kinda sucks about the evil twin thing, tho. I could’ve used an evil alter-ego to blame shit on.

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So, when I’m not staple-gunning things to my walls and watching animated animals play the piano, I run a site you’ve heard me blather on about. It’s called, Band Back Together, which, like five people have noticed, is a direct riff off the Blues Brothers:

Here’s the plan: we get the band back together, do some gigs, earn some bread, bang!

Nothing? Hrms.

Okay, maybe it’s a Chicago thing.

Anyway, the site is a group blog where anyone (YES YOU) can write their stories – stories of anything. Reposts of older posts, new posts you don’t want to share on your own blog, whatever. We pair the posts with a metric fuckton of resource pages (anything from how-to cope with depression to love resources to how to cope with a rape)

(*waves* HI MOM! Thanks for the nursing degree! I’m finally using for things other than diagnosing myself with testicular cancer)

Anyway, this isn’t the elevator pitch for the site. This is an answer to a question that was posed to me via my Go Ask Aunt Becky Form (and yes, I know I need to get back into writing my weekly assvice column – I’ve just been…floundering a bit).

I was asked: “how do I get in on this funfest?” and I don’t have an email address to reply privately, so here goes.

See, Band Back Together only runs because we have 60ish people working behind the scenes. We do everything from our Wednesday #withtheband Twitter Parties to creating pages, to brainstorming new ideas, to fundraising, to commenting, to using social media, to editing.

It’s a big fucking operation. And it’s entirely volunteer run. We’re waiting on our federal non-profit paperwork, but at the moment, since we don’t do ads or other revenue streams, no one makes a cent. In fact, we PAY for server space. Not a big deal.

If you’d like to work with us, and know how to tune your email settings to filter out some of the email (which can be overwhelming at first), shoot chibi@bandbacktogether.com an email. She’ll get you hooked up.

We’re a big dysfunctional family, which means we always need more volunteers.