Monday Morning Mashup

Finding myself patiently sitting in a crowded medical waiting room on Monday morning, I sat staring blankly at a spot just off from the blaring television.  D sat in much the same position on my left.  The lobby area was packed with folks waiting for outpatient procedures or for the patients themselves.

Having had a long night of no sleep and no food or drink, I was less than animated and had been sitting in a fugue state for over an hour when an upcoming broadcast announcement hacked through my fog.

"Fatal crash this morning in Parker.  Happened last night.  Details at ten."  The newscaster boomed.

I blinked as my brain tried to work the calculation to no avail.  I turned to D.

"Wow, that must have been some accident this morning if it happened last night."

Fruit and Alcohol Don't Mix

My man and I decided to drop in to the local Friday's restaurant for some nosh and drinks one Sunday.  The bartender - a lanky, young kid - came over to take our drink order, obviously distracted by his bro who was killing time in front of the game on t.v.

He slipped a couple napkins haphazardly on the table while calling a response over his shoulder then gingerly asked what we'd like.  D ordered his usual tall beer and I decided to try the new blackberry margarita being advertised.

After a bit, he came back over to drop off our drinks and get our order.  While D began selecting a couple appetizers, I noticed that my drink wasn't correct.

"Oh, hon, I don't like salt.  Can you remake that?"

"Oh?"  He seemed thoroughly confused for a moment.  "Okay, sure.  Sorry about that."

As he went to grab the glass, my brain was still calculating the discrepancies.  "Wait...that looks green.  Didn't I order the blackberry?"  I looked to D to make sure I'd actually said my order out loud.  I'm never all that sure that communication between my brain and my vocal mechanism is working properly.
He nodded in confirmation.

The bartender pushed the drink back towards me.  "No, you ordered a regular margarita."

"No I didn't.  I said 'your new blackberry margarita'."  I pushed the small glass back towards him.

He waved as if dismissing the concern.  "No bother," he proclaimed gleefully.  "It's a quick fix, all I have to do is pour some blackberry syrup in it.  I'll be right back."

That made me visibly cringe, but I decided to take the safer approach.  "And, take off the salt.  So you might need to remake it."  Hint hint, dude.  You're gonna have to use a new glass.

"Oh, no.  It'll be fine."  He called as he walked off towards his bar cum chemistry set.

Lovely, I thought and raised my eyebrows at D.  He just shook his head and turned his attention back to the game.

Sooner than expected, a cloudy kinda pink, kinda sickly green drink appeared in front of me.  I turned it around in my hands wondering just what this dude was thinking.

"See?  No problem."  He beamed at me and patiently waited for me to try it.  Joy.

I squared my shoulders and braved a sip.  Immediately, I was overcome with a shudder that went from my mouth down to my knees.  An automatic, guttural sound of disgust poured from my lips.

D chuckled, garnering a quick WTF look from yours truly.

"What?  Is the syrup too much?"  The barkinder asked.

No, dude.  It is NOT too much.  That's not the friggin' problem.  "Um, no.  You can't make a regular margarita, cake the rim and the surface with flake salt, then pour thick, sugary syrup in it."  I tried to reign in my attitude, but in retrospect I realize that it most likely wasn't working.  "You're going to have to remake it."

"So, it is too much."

"What?  No.  It's not the syrup.  It's the everything."  I pushed the glass at him once more, completely grossed out by the fruit-flavored salty lime juice I'd been served.  "Can you just make a new blackberry margarita for me, please?"

"So, you don't like the blackberry?"

The wheels of my mind stopped abruptly, causing my mouth to hang slightly open.  I felt my intellect seep from me like an out-of-body experience, seeing it peer down at me with pity from somewhere high above.

Struck dumb and staring in some twisted Mexican standoff, I briefly wondered which one of us would regain our wits quicker, subconsciously aware that it would be me.  And although not 100% positive, I vaguely remember D re-ordering the drink for me to which our bartender finally seemed to understand.

Some Things Are What They Seem

For days now, we have been plagued with visitors attempting to solicit votes for various political figures in the upcoming election.

Last night, while cleaning up from dinner, the doorbell rang and immediately set off our second-line of defense: hyper-active and very vocal dogs.  Leaving the man on dish-duty, I moved about the excited dogs and cracked open the front door.

A young, tiny, beaming girl stood on the porch cradling a clip-board.  She cheerily greeted me and introduced herself along with her organization.  "I'm wondering if I could speak to Harold, please?"

"Harold?  No, I'm sorry; You have the wrong address.  I guess that man no longer lives here."

I closed the door and headed back in to the kitchen.

"Who was that?"  He was still diligently scrubbing.

"Some political solicitor.  You know, I think we need a "No Soliciting" sign.  They've been coming around a lot.  But they're asking for some dude named Harold, so it gives me an easy-out."  I smiled broadly at him.

The look that passed between us elongated into an almost awkward moment.  "Unless," I began, "they are asking for Jerald but think that since your first name is spelled with a J, you're hispanic and they're trying to respectfully pronounce it correctly."

Our abrupt laughter scared the dogs.

Never Know What You're Capable Of

Because of some serious, recurring neck issues, I had been referred for an EMG of my upper body.  Now, for those of you who are not familiar with the terminology, an EMG is essentially where a licensed Medical Doctor first conducts electricity through your body then literally injects it by way of what can only be described as a knitting needle.

Having previously heard horror stories about this procedure, I originally chickened out of it five months before; however, it had become necessary to provide a "nerve mapping" to the surgeon.  I decided I'd go alone reasoning that if I were to flop around on the table like a frog in a lab, I wasn't all that keen on witnesses.

The discomfort of the electric shock was prevalent but bearable.  The needle, drenched in throbbing electricity and moved about within my muscles, was not.  The further the doctor went up towards my achy neck, the worse the pain got.  At one point I believe I used a rather offensive expletive.  Rather loudly.  But I can't be sure.

Once done, I reached for my cell phone, desperately needing someone to vent to.  Having sufficiently whined to my step-mother, she then handed the phone over to my father.

He got on the phone in his usual cheery disposition.  "Started confessing to the murders and where the bodies were buried and they didn't even know there were bodies, huh?"

"Yeah."  I sniffled.  "Hell, Dad, until he stuck that needle in my neck, I didn't even know there were bodies."

It's Texting - Relatively Speaking...

Working diligently in front of the television one night, my phone chimed off notifying me of a text message.  It was my niece.

Niece: What r u doing?

Me: Working.  What's up honey?

Niece:  Nuthin.  Bored.

Me:  Are you at work?

Niece: Yah.  Inventory.  I'll b here all nite.

Me:  You got plans this weekend?

Niece:  Maybe.  Dunno.  Got school on Saturday tho.

We texted back and forth for quite a while, with longer and longer delays between her responses as she worked.  Towards the wee hours, I finally decided to quit working and call it a night.

In the morning, I got up to find that my niece had responded to me while I slept.  I figured I'd better acknowledge her response and subsequent question.

Me:  Sorry about that, honey.  I fell asleep.  Yes, we'll be home this weekend if you want to come by.

Niece (several hours later): Who is this?

Seriously?

Contact Sport

Hockey.  Love it.  Going to the Saturday night college game at CC, we were all excited.  It was a rather crowded night and there were a lot of "pardon me's" spread around as we made our way to the seats.  A few people were already sitting in the row when we got there and we moved past an elderly couple as best we could.

We were seated above the penalty box and as the game began, I leaned against the railing to get a look towards the opposing corner of the rink.  The next thing I know, this woman next to me places two fingers just above my right breast and presses, saying: "You need to sit back.  I can't see.  You can't lean on the railing, I'm sorry."  Only she wasn't and there was no apology in her tone.

At first, I just stared at her thinking, Oh uh-uh.  I am not your child, lady.

This is what separates a Southern woman from the rest of the world, right there.  Never, and I do mean never, would a grown, Southern lady put her hands on another person and tell him or her what they "needed" to do in that situation.  Maybe if you were hitting on our man in a bar or attempting to correct one of our children without permission...but never on the first attempt to get someone to move.  My mother would have beat me with a shoe in front of them all if I had tried to pull that off.  Even at my grown age of 40.

Of course, being a well-bred and raised Southern lady, I knew I shouldn't flip out on this old biddy with mushroom hair and yellow teeth, so I resorted to a better sort of revenge. Because of a challenge with seating, we had 4 seats available to us where D and I sat and another two over and above us where the boys sat.   Being that our 'boys' were my twenty-something stepson and teenage nephew, at the first period break, I encouraged them to sit with us.  Returning to our seats, I moved past to the last of our four, gesturing for the kids to sit in the seats D and I had previously occupied.  When the oldest boy sat next to our very hospitable row neighbor, my pleasure skyrocketed as I noticed how displeased she was with the situation.

When the opposing team scored a point, I overheard my stepson exclaim rather loudly, "Oh fuck.  C'mon, guys.  Goddamn."  Seeing the Crypt Keeper's lips purse even further at his vulgarity nearly created a buzz in me.  I then also noticed that she was obviously speculating whether or not the boys had a right to be in those seats.

The game was amazing with our team scoring the winning goal just as the clock hit 1:00 remaining.  Settling in at a restaurant for a bite afterwards, our energies were still incredibly high as we recounted the events of the evening.  When we broached the subject of Mrs. Incordial, my stepson smiled broadly and explained, "after what you told me about her, I spent the remainder of the game cussing as loud as I could at every possible opportunity".

One could only hope that she's learned her lesson about asking rather than commanding other people.  But then again, being the karma-loving person I am, I prefer to think that she will continue to be miserable in her life not because she's drawn a bad hand, but because she's not a good player.

Not So Sensible Savings

Visiting the city the other day, I rang up a friend to see if she could break away for lunch.

"Absolutely!"  She agreed.  "Alright, I have a coupon for Indian food and one for Mexican.  You feel like Mexican food?"

I'm from Texas.  I always feel like Mexican food.

We are both bargain shoppers and deal-getters so a coupon for buy-one-get-one-free can send us over the edge.  I think we've even eaten when we weren't really hungry because of one of those danged coupons before.

I traveled the small distance up the road to meet her at a small, local restaurant we'd been to before.  Clean facility, good food, easy prices - can't get much better than that.  We sat down and ordered drinks then began to peruse the menu in search of our buy one get one order.

Li looked at the menu and then looked at the coupon.  "Oh, wait.  The lunch specials aren't valid coupon options."

"Okay."  I agreed without looking up.

"Oh, and it says 'valid only with the purchase of two drinks."  She re-opened her menu.  "I think we can handle that."

"Yep."  As yet undecided, I still did not look up.

"What do you think you'll get?"

"I don't know yet."  I was eyeballing two equally delicious options.

"Me neither, but I'm gonna get some chips and salsa if that's alright with you."

"Oh yeah."

Li looked at the coupon again.  "Oh.  'Total reimbursement not to exceed seven dollars'."

We looked at our menus.

"Great.  And nothing on the menu is only seven bucks."

So we split the combo and threw the coupon away.