A Humorous Take On A Less-Than Humorous Day

Today was one of the worst days I've had in awhile. Everything from having to go to the dentist (HISS!) to funky blood sugars and other lame health stuff that was really kicking my butt.

But since it's in the past, and since laughter is the best medicine, I'm going to try to do a humorous run-down of how today panned out.

So, before my dentist appointment, I had to get gas. I got a new car earlier this summer, and I love it, but the one design flaw is the fuel door is on the right. Don't get me started on how wrong that is. Which I totally forgot until I actually pulled up to a pump on my left and realized, yeeeeah, this isn't going to work. The pumps on the other side were all full, so I had to pull into a parking spot and wait, giving all bystanders solid evidence that I'm weird.

I arrived at the dentist (turns out I just had to get an old filling re-done) and started my usual routine of listening to Josh Groban and getting all hopped up on nitrous. The first novicane shot didn't numb me up quite enough, so they gave me another one, and it wasn't long before the right side of my face was numb all the way up to my eye.

Having a numb eye is, hands down, one of the weirdest experiences a person can have. Just saying.

I had planned on dropping off an Etsy package at the post office right by the dentist after my appointment. However, there were two little details I completely forgot to factor into my plan. The first detail was the fact that I would have no control over half of my face after the filling, and would therefore look like I was having a stroke. (One time I had an audiology appointment right after a filling, and the audi took one look at my face and freaked out.) So I went into the post office wearing my scarf over my face. I felt like Wilson on “Home Improvement.”

The second detail was the fact that I was away from home for more than an hour without food I could eat. I always always ALWAYS have my food bag and some glucose tabs in my purse, but again, I didn't have control over half my mouth. I didn't factor that into the equation when I was packing my food bag for the day, so this translated into having plenty of food in my purse and no food that I could actually eat.

I briefly considered driving across the road to the coffee shop and getting a smoothie or something with a straw, but my other health issues chose that moment to unleash a wave of fatigue and nausea. And since it was the lunch hour, I knew it would be quicker to just drive home, assuming I could find a way to treat the low. I looked through my food bag, trying to see if there was anything I could suck on to make it easier to chew. After a failed attempt to soften an almond by sucking on it, I realized the only thing in my purse that I'd be able to suck on was glucose tablets.

What's more disgusting than eating a glucose tablet? Sucking on one! Seriously, it was gross. I wouldn't have done that if I wasn't driving. If I was anywhere else, I would've eaten actual food instead of chalk masquerading as candy.  But since this was a matter of safety, so I had to insert something gross into my face.  

And now that all this is in the past, and today is almost yesterday, I just can't stop laughing.

Hell Hath No Fury

I'm sure you're all familiar with Shakespeare's famous quote, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."  Lately I've been rather irritated with different aspects of everyday life.  Not seriously irritated, but irritated enough to want to get it out of the system.  I thought it would be funny to express all this in statements that start with "hell hath no fury..."  So here goes:

Hell hath no fury like a woman who wishes her cat would actually do something about all these darn flies.  Hell hath no fury like a woman with a flyswatter.

Hell hath no fury like a twentysomething who is sick to death of wearing her night retainer.  Hell hath no fury like a woman who is sick of discussing the possibility of future braces with her dentist.  (After all, orthodontia is for teenagers, and the last thing I need is something to make me look younger than I already do.)

Hell hath no fury like the woman who somehow managed to bonk herself in the nose.

Okay, I think that's about all I've got.  It's late.  Feel free to add your own endings to "hell hath no fury" in the comment section if you're so inclined! G'nite, everyone!

 

Things That Weird Me Out

1. Bow-tie pasta. Why would pasta need to don formal wear before it gets digested?

2. Pregnancy websites and books that compare the baby to fruits at various stages of development. I get that you have to compare it to something because you want a mental picture of the bundle of joy that is borrowing your body for 9 months. I get that the image of different kinds of fruit is pretty vivid right off the bat. But for some reason, I don’t understand this whole idea of comparing the baby to fruit. Maybe it’s one of those things you have to be pregnant to understand. But right now, I’m not pregnant and I think it’s weird. So it’s on the list.

3. When I see the following warning on a jar of peanut butter: “Allergy warning: contains nuts.” I don’t even know how to respond to this one.

4. Jellyfish. They don’t look like fish. They don’t even really look like jelly. I don’t think they are even scientifically in the fish category.

To Everything, There Is A Season...

A time to sing along to the Veggie Tales rendition of “Footloose” while cruising down the freeway.

A time to say up until midnight watching “Downton Abbey” because you are hooked, and every episode ends with a cliffhanger, and it's driving you insane.

A time to talk baby talk to your cat.

A time to drop everything and bake a cake.

A time to drop everything and eat chocolate.

And no, these have all most certainly NOT happened to me in the last week or so!

Why would you think that? :p

Bird Conspiracy Complex

A few weeks ago, my husband and I got a new car.  It was time to say goodbye to his '94 Saturn, and with his current work schedule we can't be a one-car couple right now without some serious headaches.  We really wanted an SUV, and we found the model we wanted at the price we wanted, thanks to my church networking group.  

Now, I am not a car person, or a driving person.  I never really enjoyed driving to begin with, and having a serious accident made me like it even less.  But I fell head over heels in love with our new car.  I feel so much more comfortable when I drive now.  When we got this car, a teeny part of me understood (sort of) why some people get so into cars.  Seriously, I was having a love affair with this car.

Which was why I was less than thrilled to find that some bird had left a gift right in the middle of my windshield earlier this week.  

If the bird crap had been anywhere else on my windshield, it wouldn't have fazed me.  I would've thought, "Meh, everybody poops" and leave it at that.  But there is no such thing as accidentally pooping right in the middle of a windshield.  I mean, really.  Think about all the things you can do by accident.  You can accidentally miss your exit.  You can accidentally forget to clean the litterbox.    You can accidentally slip on a banana peel.  But you can't accidentally poop right in the middle of someone's windshield.  

So to quote Taylor on Gilmore Girls, "I dare say these birds seem to be doing it on purpose."  

Yeah, I'm mature :P. 

Why Having Cats is Like Raising Toddlers

I came up with a list of reasons why having cats is like raising toddlers.  Here it is:

1.)  They hate being bathed and groomed.

2.)  They want whatever it is they want RIGHT NOW.

3.)  If there’s more than one, sharing is often a struggle.

4.)  Every now and then, you have to drop everything and clean up whatever they’ve gotten into this time.

5.)  They’re more interested in stuff that’s best left alone than in their own toys.

6.)  They can play the same game 50 times in a row and not get tired of it.

 

The One Time I Actually WANT Someone to think I'm 17

I'm one of those people who couldn't look their age if their life depended on it.  If I walked into a high school, I'd be mistaken for a student.  I have been hanging out on this planet for 25 years, a whole quarter of a century, and I don't look it.  I know this full well because people comment more on my youthful appearance than they do on my headcovering and hearing loss combined!  I thought my wedding ring would put a stop to that, but nope.  I started getting comments along the lines of "Aren't you a little young to be married?"  Ishkabibble!

I found out that my local library has this new program where you can "read down" your late fees.  Now THAT's my kind of program.  I could read my late fees into oblivion in no time.  Unfortunately, this program is only open to children ages 17 and under.  Irrational Kati began coming up with all kinds of reasons why I should be considered youthful enough to participate in this program:

Sometimes I look like I'm about 17.

I still have to wear a retainer at night.

Coloring is awesome.

I can act extremely childish (just about everyone who knows me can vouch for this one!)


I don't plan on trying to crash this program.  But I will allow myself a moment of frustration since I feel I have been unfairly discriminated against on acount of my age :P.

Smack-Your-Forehead Moments

When I was a kid, I firmly believed that grown-ups never did anything stupid.  Where I got that idea, I don't know.  This post would be more aptly named, "Confessions of a stupid grown-up."  

I am downright AMAZED at some of the smack-your-forehead stupid things I've done during my adult years.  I've used the phrase "because I said so!" countless times when working in the church nursery, after I swore to myself I would never use the phrase "because I said so!"  I've made some other mistakes that weren't quite as comical as that one.

Sometimes I get so stubborn that the only thing distinguishing me from a three-year-old is my size.  A few weeks ago i was driving home and I felt a low coming on.  I have mastered the art of opening the outer pocket on my purse and getting the glucose tabs while driving, but that only goes so far when you've forgotten to fill up the tube and fill your purse with snacks.  (Smack-your-forehead moment #1: Leaving home without glucose tabs and LOADS of snacks when you know FULL WELL that you go low at the drop of a hat.)  There was any number of places I could have stopped to get food, but my stupid pride got in the way of considering that option.  (That would've been smack-your-forehead moment #2, since driving with low blood sugar is about as safe is driving drunk.)  I reasoned that I should be able to drive non-stop for 20 minutes as well as the next person.  I managed to get home, crawl across my apartment to the kitchen, and get the chocolate out of the fridge just in time to avoid passing out on the kitchen floor.  I recovered pretty quickly, but I felt like I'd run a marathon and I decided I would never be that stupid again.

Thankfully, I learned from the blood sugar blunder and I am much more cautious about preventing lows on the go.  Unfortunately, that hasn't made me immune to having other smack-your-forehead moments.

Today I was getting coffee with a friend.  My coffee was ring-of-fire hot.  I tried to cool it down by stirring it a bunch, but that didn't work. (Smack-your-forehead moment #3:  I decided to just take little sips.)  I was running on about five hours of sleep, so I wasn't quite all there upstairs.  If I was, I would have some up with some sort of ridiculously simple solution like, oh I don't know, getting a few ice cubes or putting a splash of ice water in the coffee.  But no, I had to keep sipping on this bonkers hot coffee.  I was too smack-your-forehead stupid to predict what was going to happen next.  And now the roof of my mouth is covered in blistering burns, and for the rest of the day, the only things i could put in my mouth without wanting to scream were ice water and yogurt.  

I'll never do that again, but by now I know better than to say I'll never do stupid things again.  I'm not a parent, and i'm definitely not a parenting expert, but I think we do kids a great disservice when we give them the impression of having it all together and never messing up.  

An Angry Owl Moment

 If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s getting worked up at the drop of a hat.  If I’m upset with someone, it takes every ounce of my willpower to not give them the business end of a hissyfit.  My loved ones know this all too well.

My husband and I have started referring to hissyfits as “angry owl moments,” both because we saw this video and because Esther’s ears go back like an owl if she freaks out over a loud noise. 

Side note #1: Esther is our cat, not a human child.  Just thought I would throw that in there to avoid giving new readers disturbing mental images, haha!

Side note #2: Although I am not diabetic, I do have hypoglycemic tendencies as a result of having struggled with an eating disorder, so I can identify with this video. I have no idea why the phrase “angry owl moment” works, but it does.

Okay, now that I have the side notes out of the way, I am going to share the angry owl moment I had earlier today.  I have been throwing fits over little things since I first figured out how to yell.  But now that I’m at the ripe old age of 25, my angry owl moments are much shorter and I’m laughing at myself a lot more than I used to.

Today I was really feeling the need for rest, so I’d resolved to do only the basic chores and then tuck in with a book.  Suddenly the intercom buzzed, causing Esther’s owl persona to emerge.  Now, there are a couple things you have to know about this intercom.  One, it’s so loud the deaf population of Tanzania can probably hear it.  Second of all, it’s broken in such a way that I can talk to the person at the door but all I get is static when they talk.  So if someone buzzes, I have to walk down there to find out what they want.  I didn’t see a UPS truck and I wasn’t expecting a package. So I chalked it up to young whippersnappers playing with the intercom buttons AGAIN, and decided it wasn’t worth wasting my precious energy to go outside and get barbecued.  

When Justin came home from work, he found a UPS notice on the front door.  I went into angry owl mode in a heartbeat.  Seriously?!  How can there be a UPS package without a UPS truck??  Who, besides kids, buzzes an intercom more than once?  What the heck is in this package, anyway?  I didn’t order a package!

Then we went online and found out that the package contains our new Red Cross emergency radio.  We’d ordered one ages ago and it was defective, so we asked for a replacement.  Now, after what feels like decades, apparently we’re finally getting one.  The angry owl moment continued:  Why are they only just replacing it now?  Why couldn’t they just send us one that worked in the first place and save both of us a lot of trouble??  Do they know how many storms we’ve had to go through without this thing??  Is everyone in the world completely incompetent??

At this point, Esther decided to bring me back to reality with a cold nose on my leg.  I started laughing at myself, and I couldn’t stop.  Being able to laugh at my angry owl moments is a huge milestone. 

If you struggle with angry owl moments, don’t despair.  They happen to the best of us.  The older you get, the easier it will get to laugh at yourself and move on :)