We spent the night in the ER only to learn that Alex has cellulitis. Poor guy.

I’ve mentioned before that after Ben was born, I was struggling mightily with what to Do (with a capitol D) for the rest of my life. Whomever thought that the 18-20 year old bracket was the appropriate age for people to decide what to Do should be strung out and shot somewhere, because, hi, at 20? I was still a blithering idiot.

Difference was, now I was pregnant. And looking to make paychecks larger than so-and-so-measly dollars every week so that Ben and I could (gasp!) move out of my parents’ house. My standards weren’t particularly high, but my options were limited.

Before I decided on nursing, my mom shelled out 20 clams for me to take some sort of career figurer-outer class at the community college. Perfect, I thought as I left my screaming child behind. I just KNOW that the people running this class will see my inherent star quality! Perhaps they will just HAND me a diploma and maybe even put me on Star Search! I just KNOW I’m miles ahead of the rest of the knuckle-draggers in this class!

I showed up to a motley band of scraggly people all sitting rather reluctantly in a small classroom. I was instantly confused. I mean, why would someone PAY to voluntarily subject themselves to this and be unhappy about it later?

I took a seat at a table by a large no-nonsense looking woman with extremely long fuchsia fingernails. Each had a nice sunset scene carefully painted upon it and I was semi-jealous. I’d never considered my fingernails as a medium for such wonderousness. I thought about telling her how much I dug her nails, but one look at the beady mean eyes peering out of her doughy face told me that I should keep my goddamned mouth shut.

Undeterred, but still sort of unsure if I was in the right place, I carefully pulled out some scratch paper from my backpack and waited patiently for the instructor to come in and recognize my obvious superiority.

I waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, about 20 minutes after the class was set to begin, our instructor breezed in. Rather than scan the room to find the superstar among the drones (that would be me. The superstar, not the drones), he simply began passing out a big fat folder crammed with papers.

Once the folders were all passed out, he simply told us to begin filling out the test within the folder. Use the pencil, he warned us, or the Scantron machine wouldn’t be able to score it.

Well, okay, I said to myself. I like tests. I’m really GOOD at tests. I bet this TEST will tell me that I rule and that I should just bypass school entirely and become an heiress. Fucking SWEET.

I happily opened the test up and prepared to meet my destiny (or density. Whatever).

I noticed unhappily that the test was one of those gradient ones where I had to say from 1-4 how interested (one being least and 4 being most) I was in the statement. Like this:

1 2 3 4 I am interested in becoming a ditch digger.

Okay, I thought, brow furrowed in concentration. Is this a trick question? It sounds like a trick question. I mean, who would want to become a ditch digger? And wait, aren’t they called something more PC now, like a Hole Management Expert?

I looked around the room, expecting to see a sea of confused faces and to my dismay, everyone else was studiously filling out the form.

I furiously scratched a line into 1, praying this wasn’t a trick question, and went on to the next question.

1 2 3 4 I am interested in tracking statistical marketing data.

Uh…uh…uh, I thought frantically. Are they talking about the people who stalk you at the mall, begging you to do taste tests and surveys? EW. No thanks. That’s one of those jobs you just sort of fall into, not something that you aspired to.

1 2 3 4 I am interested in hosting parties.

Finally, I cried to myself, FINALLY! Something I could totally do! I LOVE hosting parties! Hooray!

I furiously scribbled a 4 and went on to the next.

1 2 3 4 People would call me a methodical person.

Hmmm….I thought. Is this a trick question? I don’t know that anyone that would think of me in those terms. I scribbled a 3, just guessing what people might say about me and moved on.

I spent the rest of the test, all 232 questions, in much the same vein. Finally, it was over and we were instructed to go on break. I took that opportunity to visit the computer lab and check my email. I laughed my way through a couple of those forward How Well Do You Know Me emails (which turned, I must add, into meme’s years later) and when it was time, slunk back in to the room.

My star quality was no longer sparkling.

The instructor passed out sheets of paper with our results on it, a certain combination of letters. Those letters, he explained, would correspond to a set of jobs that I was uniquely qualified for.

I frantically searched through page after page of letter combinations until I got to mine. My eyes rested on the job I would be happiest with:

Veterinarian (poultry).

Yes. A chicken doctor. Wow. The possibilities. Wow.

That must be a glitch, I said to myself. On down the line I went.

Brick Layer.

My third?

Mosaic Tile Layer.

Uh. Jesus. Uh. Yeah.

*blink, blink, blink*

I was uniquely qualified to become Becky Sherrick, Doctor Of Chickens or Becky Sherrick, Layer of Bricks. Fucking awesome.

I was not even REMOTELY of Star Quality ™. No one was going to beat down my door to be on Wheel Of Fortune or American Idol. No one was going to have me bikini model cars or become a sexy astrophysicist. No one was going to beat down my door: period.

Unless they happened to wear feathers and cluck a lot.

It’s safe to say that I don’t know a whole lot about sacrifice.

Sure, I didn’t get to go out binge drinking and pub crawling a hell of a lot, instead pulling all-nighters with a drooling, balding man (Ben, I mean, not The Daver. Who would like me to inform you that he does NOT drool). Maybe I didn’t get to spend my early twenties being frivolous and stupid(er), maybe I changed the entire course of what I had planned to do with my life for the fruit of my loins.

So fucking what?

The sacrifices I made are nothing, and I mean by nothing “whatever is possibly less than nothing, maybe like chicken poo or something” and while I occasionally I do bemoan them, even I know I don’t really mean it or deserve sympathy.

On a day like today, all that I can think about is sacrifice. REAL sacrifice. Throwing your own life on the line to protect something you believe in. That, THAT, is bravery.

I don’t know a lot of soldiers, but I do know that one of these days I’m going to get off my fat ass and start sending care packages to them, because they do something so beyond brave that I cannot comprehend it. As someone who occasionally expects sympathy cards for bug-bites and ingrown toenails, it’s safe to say that I am whatever the opposite of brave is.

My grandfather is the only one close to me who has served overseas. He died when I was eleven and the older I get, the more I realize how much I missed by not getting to know him. My middle son is named after him–the Joseph, not the Alexander part of his name–and I sometimes regret that I didn’t name him Joseph Alexander instead of the other way around.

What I know about him I’ve Frankenstein-ed from family members and I’m certain I have some of the facts wrong.

He graduated high school at 15, Harvard at 17 going on to graduate from Johns Hopkins Medical school at 21. At some point in his career, he contracted TB and had to spend my father’s childhood holed up in a sanitarium in the mountains somewhere.

My grandfather left his family to go serve in World War II as a doctor on the front lines, pulling out bullets and putting rogue guts back into their body cavity.

When the Allies invaded and Germany surrendered, my grandfather, whom my son is named for, helped liberate the concentration camps. My grandfather cared for those who were left as the walking dead, and he saw that the piles of dead were treated with more dignity in death than they had been in life. He saw horrors unimaginable and refused to speak beyond what I have shared with you.

But I loved him as a child not for his bravery but because he called me the apple of his eye. I loved him because he bought me the fancy train set that I’d coveted one Christmas. I loved him because I knew he worked as head of the pathology department at a major hospital and I thought that was wicked cool.

The older I get, though, the more I love him for all the things I hadn’t known of him in life. That my parents still have a pair of forceps somewhere that they use to get stuff off of shelves–they’re quite handy! Somewhere, I have his old dissection kit. That he tried out the new-fangled X-ray technology on my grandmother while she was pregnant with my father and as a result, we have a picture of my father in-utero. That he loved going to the symphony and loved fried chicken.

(who doesn’t love fried chicken?)

That he was the bravest person I know, and that I slouch here today at my computer, pecking out words about “bravery” and “sacrifice” onto my stupid little blog, no matter how brave and tough I am not, I still have his blood coursing through my veins.

Today, that makes me sit up a little straighter.

Today I remember.

—————

Who are you remembering today?

The product of 3 sets of grandparents without any other grandchildren is that my house is overflowing with toys. I have so many toys that I frequently round some up and take them down to the Salvation Army and donate them rather than have a Garage Sale, something I’d rather never experience ever. I just can’t haggle with someone over a 50 cent coffee mug and still maintain my already-tenuous grasp on sanity.

But Alex has chosen, out of the piles of colorful plastic toys, this small wooden car.

That he would find this car and choose it above all other toys touches me.

This car is a time-capsule.

I’ve made mention before that Ben had chosen my mother as His Person, which (thank you Internet) you all told me is a pretty common thing for autistic kids to do. You have no idea how much that relieved me to know that it wasn’t just my son picking up on my inherent Asshole-ness.

But I probably didn’t tell you that Ben chose another person as His Person. That person, of course, was The Daver.

We met Dave in the winter of 2003-2004 and Ben, my normally silent, distant child was immediately captivated by him. They hadn’t met until I took Ben to the airport to pick Dave up from wherever he was returning from, but once I had, it was like the heavens had opened up for that child. And The Daver too.

The entire ride back home to St. Charles (sans The Daver), Ben strung together one of only a few sentences he had in the most forlorn voice I’d heard, “Oh, bye Dave.” He didn’t say “Mommy” but he immediately learned “Dave.”

Several months after that, Dave and I packed Ben up in the car and we took a road trip up nort’ dere hey to northern Wisconsin to visit a friend of his. Ben fell in love with a marble contraption thingy made by the Amish who live up there and on the way home, Dave insisted that we stop and get Ben one.

Ben was asleep in the car, so he and I stayed outside while Dave went into the Amish store and awhile later he emerged triumphant, the marble contraption thingy in his hand. After he packed it into the trunk to be given to Ben after he awoke, he got into the driver’s seat of my car and opened up his hand to me.

There, in the palm of his hand was this wooden car.

Even knowing that the child he’s always thought of as his son wouldn’t play crash-bang-boom Drive The Car Off The Couch pow-zap with it like a normal child, instead using it to make intricate lines of toys snaking around the house, he bought Ben a car. Like a normal child would like.

That car was used in elaborate designs, sometimes as a stand-in for Io, sometimes as one of many cars in a long line of toys, sometimes perched on the stairs, where Ben would carefully line toys up, row after ever-loving row.

That car moved with us, carelessly thrown into a random box of toys, to three or four places. The puppy teethed on it, Alex gnawed on it, I imagine that Amelia will also probably chomp on it too. It’s been here for our best moments and our worst.

I find it fitting that our second son, Ben’s brute of a baby brother, would take the car and use it in the way that his father once thought his brother might. That the child we hadn’t even talked about conceiving would fall in love with this toy.

It feels like some circle is now complete.

There are days like today, when my eldest gets in trouble for the third time this week for disobeying rules, where my middle child’s diaper busts a seem and leaks silica all over the carpet, where I learn that the help I’d arranged for Daver’s trip to London is going to flake on me, where the dog pees on the carpet and all of the Miracle Blankets are covered in goo. Days like this that I need a reminder of where I’ve been.

And where I’m going.

————–

What about you?

When my eldest child was 2, he was referred by an Asshole Pediatrician (do I sense a common theme among my doctors or what?) to Early Interventions for speech therapy.

He wasn’t talking, you see, and that coupled with his incredible love for the planets–which, I should add, the MD didn’t know about–made for a strange child. It took a couple months for a case worker to be assigned and ages after that to get the initial evaluations done, because like any state program, the need is greater than the ability to provide services.

When he was finally tentatively diagnosed with autism, I will be completely honest, I was relieved. It sounds weird, to be thankful my child has a disability, but it was the first thing about him that made sense to me.

My son had been rejecting me since he was born and my heart was not only broken, it was smashed to bits by his second birthday. He loved my mother, yes, but not me. If I never came back home, I promise you, he’d not have cared.

Ben and Mommy (colon) It’s Complicated.

He didn’t care for me, and while I’d like to say that it was because he sensed that I was an asshole, his brother certainly (still) cannot get enough of me. At some point I finally realized that it’s him, not me, that has the problem. But parents, of course, always blame themselves and it took years for me to be able to see that.

Ben was in therapy for years, many times a week, both speech and occupational, and it helped. My life isn’t a Lifetime Movie, where I’m played by Tori Spelling and Ben is played by that cute kid that I kinda wanted to strangle from Jerry Maguire, so you know that things still aren’t exactly normal, but they’re more…manageable.

Ben and Mom (Colon) It’s Still Complicated.

—————

Today I owned up to my old demons and pushed the fucking denial aside and called to set up a caseworker for Amelia for Early Interventions.

I did it because it’s the right thing to do. Like it or not.

Maybe, like some of you suggested, her extra brain matter was just her Awesomeness being uncontainable in her skull. A sign of high intelligence. I like that explanation best, I think.

It’s the right thing to do. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Dear Aunt Becky,

Is Dr. William Sears evil?

Signed,
“The Baby Book” Makes Me Cry

Dear He Who Makes Me Giggle,

Now, dear reader, “evil” is a word that Aunt Becky uses sparingly and in reference to things like “butter,” and “dressing room lighting,” and even occasionally “Cosmo Magazine.” So I’m not certain if “evil” belongs in the same sentence as “Dr. Sears.”

That is, of course, unless you don’t co-sleep, don’t breastfeed your child until they’re 15, and consider using a pacifier on your beloved child. After all, YOUR nipple should be the pacifier. Then you might call him evil.

Because he is hyper-critical of mothers who don’t sleep in a family bed. Those who might use formula (his own wife breastfed their adopted kids! Get off YOUR ass and nurse yours!). Those who do not wear their babies. The un-crunchy (plastic?) set.

New parents, Fair Reader, need to be judged like they need another sleepless night.

Yours,

Aunt Becky

——————-

Dear Aunt Becky,

I am considering constructing a room to hang sausage. As the Patron Saint of Sausages, what advice to you have for me?

xoxo,

Sausage-a-holic

Dear Encased Meat Lover,

First off, let me tell you how amazing it is to hear from a fellow lover of tube-shaped meat. There is nothing on the planet that makes me happier than a plate of grilled up hot-dogs or sausages, except, perhaps, a new Chanel Bag. But that’s neither here nor there.

I’m afraid, however, that I don’t have a whole lot of advice to give you.

You see, while I am an avid Queen of The Sausages, and my home may be known as The Sausage Factory, I don’t actually hang my encased meats in a room. I prefer, in fact, to allow the men-folk of my house use their beds rather than the rafters. I know, I know, Fellow Meat Lover, I am too kind.

My suggestion to you, my new friend, is that you go to Wisconsin. They’re known for their cheese and their weenies up yonder dere, and I’m imagining that they might actually know what a room full of sausages might look like. And not in the It’s Dinner Time At Aunt Becky’s House kind of way.

Smootches,

Aunt Becky

—————————

Auntie Becky,

Why does my cat (sic: put her) butt (sic: in) face?

Love,

Felis catus
Dear Cat Fancy,

I can only presume that your cat, like my own, has a camera implanted firmly up his (or her, let’s not be sexist here) butt-hole. Maybe it’s connected to the CIA database, maybe it’s your in-laws spying on you, or maybe it’s for a sexy adult video site, I just don’t know.

But when your cat sticks his (or her) puckered poo-hole into your face, what he (or she) is doing is saying to you, “SPEAK INTO MY MICROPHONE.” Alternately, “SMILE FOR THE CAMERA.”

Please, avid reader, PLEASE be careful what you tell your cat’s ass. You never know who is watching.

Signed,

Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Out To Get You

If you can believe it, Amelia will be 4 months old on the 28th. Which, holy shit, where the fcuk did time go? I guess the constant sleep deprivation which is constantly making me wonder what season it is again as I put on my gardening gloves is making me a wee bit spacey. Or perhaps I am just stupid. Doesn’t matter.

Today marks Visit 2 from the Home Heath Nurse. When we were in the NICU, Amelia’s diagnosis was flagged. Bolded, red flagged, signed, sealed and delivered. It seems as though every single department of the state knows about her encephalocele and I imagine when I go in for my driver’s license renewal in a (blessed) couple of years, I think the clerk will say “Oh YOUR daughter has the encephalocele!” If that gets me a better spot in the (wrong) line, well, then that will be the bright spot in this whole mess.

Developmentally, though, my daughter seems fine. I had a number of people tell me that the synapses in wee brain’s can regenerate much better than those of adults (which, yeah, duh, look at me. Obviously my synapses are dying left and right. Some might say it’s a direct result of my three kids and I would heartily agree).

It’s really easy to forget how serious her diagnosis was until I look at things like this:

Forgive the terrible quality of this picture. It was taken right before Amelia was taken back to surgery and right after the nurse had come in with a gown designed for probably a three or four year old. She apologized, saying that this was the smallest gown they had. Which really bothered me more than it should have.

And then I look at this:

I don’t have many pictures of Amelia’s encephalocele because I couldn’t bear to look at it without taking a couple of Xanax beforehand. But you can see the area where her brain was hanging out of her head pretty well on this handy MRI that I was given copies of.

Which. Yeah. Wigged me out. I don’t relish looking at spirally sections of my kids’ brain. As my mother would say, “I don’t know why NOT.” She’s a pistol, my mother.

This is what it looks like today, although the picture makes it look more muted and subdued than it is in the flesh. It’s VERY red and incredibly angry looking. I find that fitting.

She’s just like any other baby.

But…

The nurse was concerned by my daughter’s inability to travel in the car. See, now, both of my boys were assholes in the car, but as babies they were Assholes Period, so it didn’t make a difference what we were doing. Driving illicited the same unpleasant response as breathing.

Amelia, however, is an excellent baby. Sure, she has a temper and admirable lung strength (in addition to an iron clad will), but the times she spends honking each day is measured in minutes, not hours. Unless, of course, we go in the car.

The minute we start moving in the car, she screams. And I don’t mean some pansy-ass little whimpers, I mean full-on hollering. Like she’s in horrible pain. Having seen my daughter in incredible pain before, I know the sound. The swing we have moves her from side-to-side and doesn’t bother her, and we don’t do the stroller because I don’t know why we don’t. My kids all seem to hate the stroller.

(For someone who had her brain sliced and diced, she’s an awfully big crybaby when it comes to shots)

See, her encephalocele was in the parietal lobe of her brain, and among other things…

(hear that? That’s the sound of a zillion bored readers clicking away from here)

…it controls proprioception, which is a fancy word for the feeling of her body in space. No, not OUTER space, but the feeling that tells you, “Hey, you’re standing up” or alternately, “Hey, you’re NOT standing up.”

If your eyeballs just fuzed shut in boredom, I am sincerely sorry.

So it would make sense that the backwards movement in the car would bother her. We’ve been desperate enough to buy different car seats to try and see if that was the problem, we’ve driven quickly, we’ve driven slowly, nothing seems to help. Which means that we’re not effectively shut-in’s just as we’ve gotten Alex okay with the car. Figures.

But the nurse, she was concerned. Not about my shut-in status, because I’m pretty sure she’s here for my daughter and not for me. Unless, of course, she saw that I was turning my cats into bonsai kitties or building a shrine to Britney Spears (note to self: hide Britney shrine). Then I imagine she would be highly concerned.

So, it looks like it’s likely back to the neurologist with us. While this in and of itself isn’t a huge deal–save for the fact that he is an asshole and will probably make me cry –it’s discouraging and it’s a reminder that maybe we didn’t skate by problems as easily as we’d thought.

I don’t really have a clever or witty end to this post so I’ll distract you…

LOOK, A CUTE BABY PICTURE!!

When Ben was about 2 and a half–maybe a little closer to 3–Potty Training began in earnest. We lived with my then-boyfriend The Daver part time and we made sure that any time that we used the bathroom, Ben was dragged in with us. Just so he got the idea.

(perhaps, as an aside here, if I may–and I always may–this is why my children all flock to the bathroom the moment my pants are unzipped. It’s the hang out spot in my house)

We were especially vigilant to make sure that whenever the other member of our household with a penis (this would be The Daver) used the can, Ben was there. Because he also had a penis. And a weenis for a father. Nat was too wrapped up in his hatred of me to bother handling the potty training.

So Sausages UNITE! was the bathroom motto. We made sure that we answered any questions Ben had, made sure that we weren’t too prude about our bodies lest he get all squigged out by them, and allowed him to help with whatever function he could. Just so he got the idea. My parents ARE hippies after all.

This included, flushing, washing hands, and grabbing toilet paper when needed. With this kind of prep, I’m amazed that wiping his ass isn’t more of a thrill for him. But I digress.

One day, as Dave was peeing, Ben got the idea in his head that he wanted to help Daver aim it. So he asked nicely if he could. My poor flustered soon-to-be husband didn’t know what to do so he agreed. I was standing in the doorway watching this and I can tell you that I’ve not seen Dave so red-faced before. And he never allowed Ben to do it again.

A couple of weeks later, we took Ben out to dinner in Oak Park, near Dave’s apartment.

(Oak Park, for those not in the know, is a town filled with a weird yuppie/hippie hybrid. Often, these people engage in competitions to see who can be greener and shop and Whole Foods more often. While driving Escalades. It’s a strange mix of people.)

During dinner, The Daver had to use the bathroom, and per our arrangement, he took Ben in with him (I always took him in with me, too, but this isn’t really pertinent to the story save to assure you that I did my share of potty training work). I’d gotten the check as they were off having a Sausage Party and had thrown my card down to pay for it and relishing the relative silence.

Like a whirlwind, a red-faced Dave and an oblivious looking Ben flew out of the bathroom and Dave practically shrieked “We need to leave NOW!” Dave is easily the most even-tempered person I know and not prone to hysterics or teeth-gnashing, so I was taken aback. I immediately assumed that he’d plugged up the toilet and a mixture of poo-soup was now overtaking the bathroom.

I signed the check and bundled up, preparing to go out to the car.

As we hustled out, he told me what had happened in a panicked, rushed voice, looking over his shoulder every couple of seconds.

“I was peeing, right? And Ben was standing RIGHT THERE. And I was JUST PEEING. And all of a sudden, Ben goes, clear as day, ‘Dave, can I hold your penis?'”

I started laughing, the tears springing easily from my eyes. This was a typical Ben thing to want to do.

“Okay, well, okay.” I gasped, laughing harder than I could ever recall.

“THEN, I realized THAT WE WEREN’T ALONE IN THE BATHROOM! Some guy was in there LISTENING to my son CALL me DAVE and ASK TO HOLD MY PENIS.”

I rubbed my side where a cramp had formed from laughing so heartily and continued laughing. I had a perfect picture of what had happened.

“We had to leave before that dude called the police or something, looking for a child molester!”

The tears were freezing in the wind, but I couldn’t hold it in. The hilarity of the situation was just too much for me. I was thisclose to peeing my pants. The LAST person on the planet to molest a child is The Daver and the ONLY person who’d come up with such a weird thing to ask is Ben.

To his credit, though, Dave maintained his sanity. And as for me, I laughed until Ben spent a good 20 minutes in the Target bathroom with me, chronicling the descent of his poop to a bathroom audience.

Then I didn’t laugh so hard.

————

Tell me I’m not the only one to have such a thing happen to them. My kids are ALWAYS trying to outdo each other in terms of things they can embarrass me for.

About 5 years ago now, I had been taking antibiotics for something or other I’d picked up during my clinical rotations and got the subsequent yeast infection.

So after school one Friday, I trundled off to the pharmacy and absentmindedly grabbed the cheapest Monistat cream–hey, I was a poor college student–I could find and headed back home, eager for some relief.

I’d had a case of the yeasties before, but never one that was quite so…irritating. If you haven’t had one, be grateful. It’s itchy and uncomfortable and gross all in one big pile. And there’s no good way to itch oneself in public without drawing major attention to it and I’ve never had the luxury of staying home to lay around with a fan blowing on my naked crotch.

This may have been the only time I’ve ever prayed for camel toe.

I’ve never been so happy to go home and shove something gross up my vagina before. After I’d inserted the first of seven pre-filled applicators, I noticed a little tube of what I can only describe here as ‘œClit Cream.’ I’d never used it before, but man, it sounded pretty good. I would have happily slathered horseradish down there if I had any idea it would relieve my pain.

I sat back, lubed myself up, and laid down for a nap. I fucking heart naps.

Several hours later, I was abruptly awakened to an even MORE uncomfortable feeling; it felt as though my entire crotch was on fire. I rushed to the bathroom, quickly applied more ‘œClit Cream,’ figuring this was a particularly nasty bug, and took a look at my privates. (not something I ever relish doing, TRUST ME)

Even taking a crap post 4th degree tear (thank you, enormous baby head) has not made me scream so loudly. My mother came running. I kept screaming. My delicate girly bits had swollen to the size of a fucking grapefruit.

It was Friday at about 4:30 PM. My doctor’s office was about to close.

I hobbled my broken crotch down the stairs, crying out from the pain as I made my way to the phone. I couldn’t imagine going to the ER or Urgent Care for a broken vagina and I wasn’t about to use any more over the counter shit.

I got Pinhead, RN who was ready to leave for the day and most unhappy that I was asking for a prescription for Diflucan.

An approximate recounting of the conversation:

Me: “I have a yeast infection. I need a prescription for Diflucan.”

Her: “Take a hot bath.”

Me: “I need a prescription for Diflucan. My crotch is busted.”

Her: “Eat some yogurt.”

Me: “I need a prescription for Diflucan. I’m in pain.”

Her: “Get some over the counter Monistat.”

Me: “I had an allergic reaction to that. My crotch is now the size of an inter-tube. I am not putting any more stuff up there. Now I NEED a prescription for Diflucan.”

You would have thought I was asking for a Dilauded drip.

Since it was Friday, Ben and I were heading out to our apartment in Oak Park (ed note: this was the norm back then), so I had the nurse call the coveted prescription in to the Osco out there. I was also instructed to get a vinegar douching kit and some hemorrhoid pads. Can we talk about sexy shopping lists or WHAT?

Ben and I got bundled up to combat the January cold. To provide some relief, I shoved a plastic baggie full of ice in my pants. At the time, my car was a manual transmission vehicle, and during the first 5 minutes of our hour long trek the bag busted a leak.

I was now sitting in a pool of cold ice water, in January, with an aching burning crotch. Every time I had to shift–which was about every 3 seconds–more water spilled out onto my pants. I have never been more done with a day.

The icing on the cake was that I had Benner with me. I had to look for The Worst Shopping List of All Time while trying:

a) not to noticeably drip water down my leg so that it looked like I had totally had an accident and

b) wrangle a 2 and a half year old child while

c) alone.

Ben jaunted happily up and down the aisles, playing the bongos on a couple of packs of Depends while I slowly realized what being pecked to death by a chicken would be like.

By the time I got back to our apartment, I had given up on being upset about the whole thing and decided to see the intrinsic humor in the whole situation.

After locking myself in the bathroom for awhile to take care of my crotchal region (imagine me gesturing wildly. It’d be funnier) I rummaged through our kitchen to find a Sharpee.

Rather than try and be all discrete and shit, I festooned the container of Tucks with the phrase, ‘œASS PADS!!!’ which I left out for all to see, proudly displayed on top of our toilet tank. If your privates are swollen and aching, they might as well be PROUD privates, right? More importantly, I wanted to see what other people would do if face-to-face with such a container. The reactions could have been Pure Comedy Gold.

The only people who managed to see it, though, were my super-conservative in-laws, who probably never had seen such vulgarity until The Daver brought me home. Is it any wonder they don’t adore me?

Don’t answer that.

Okay, bitches, your turn.

After writing this post (last year), I’m pretty sure I’m going to get turned away from the airport and sent squarely back to the Midwest. But I’m gonna try, dammit, to make it past the airport this time. June 19-22, my hammy arms are goin’ back to Cali so that I may wrap them around my friend Heather.

Every winter, ’bout this time, when the cold days have dragged on and on to the point where a 100 degree day (Celsius even!) sounds more tolerable than bundling up the kids AGAIN and having the boogies in my nose freeze for the forty-millionth time that day, and when getting the mail at the end of my driveway seems like a drastic undertaking, I start to have this fantasy in which we move to more temperate climates.

And because, in my fantasy-land, I am also slightly practical and don’t have visions of moving to a completely foreign country and having to learn a new language (you mean people don’t speak American EVERYWHERE?), I envision us moving to one of the coasts.

For a good 290 days of the year, I like where I live, honestly I do (and probably in part as a defense mechanism, as moving out of state would be brutal as far as custody arrangements go for The Big One), and besides a small jaunt away from here several years ago, I have lived in the same town most of my life. It’s a sweet river town, full of character and pep (and a number of the exact same strip malls), and it’s great BECAUSE I KNOW WHERE EVERYTHING IS.

But, for as teeny as my family is, I do happen to have some that live out of state in California, where I have been any number of times. And I genuinely love it out there, it’s interesting, it’s clean, people are nice, and if it weren’t for such amazingly high property prices, we might live out there for reals.

Well, the cost of living AND the fact that I am not positive that I am good-looking enough.

California is weird like that, and I’ll never forget being there as a teenager to attend my cousin’s wedding. A busboy (a BUSBOY!) in the joint where we were dining nearly caused me to choke on my steak, so uncanny was his resemblance to Brad Pitt (the 12 Monkeys/Seven version, whom I had many a naughty fantasy about).

A couple of years later, I was back again, and I noticed that even the bums on The Haight were sexy. BUMS were SEXY! Even the one who flashed me his penis was good looking (and well hung)!

It was like entering an alternate universe.

As I got older and every time I went back to Cali, I noticed more and more unlikely and attractive people. Airport baggage claim guys were hot! The chick at the rental car place looked as though she’d stepped off the runway to make my car rental experience a complete nightmare. I kept expecting the dude who took my toll money to start selling me shampoo, so magnificent was his shiny mane of hair, so full of body and style.

Just based on experience (and without real knowledge), I would even venture to guess that the people who worked at the DMV were extras on a movie set in their spare time (away from being nasty to people who were stupid enough to get into the wrong line– EVEN THOUGH IT WASN’T LABELED).

I don’t know about your state, but typically the DMV workers are thought to be the bitchy Missing Link anthropologists are always harping on about (I wonder if their studies would take them to the DMV, because it should), but I would venture a guess that in California, they, too, are beautiful, attractive, and of the highest genetic pedigree.

Even if I were rich enough to buy a shack in California, I’m fairly certain we’d be turned away at the border for being undesirably unattractive.

For now, I will take comfort living here in the Midwest, just outside of Chicago, knowing that while we may be ugly and dumpy, at least we’re landlocked, so no hurricane will make it to our doorstep.

DENIED ENTRY INTO CALIFORNIA DUE TO EXCESSIVE UNFLATTERING GENES.