Tag Archives: parasite

There’s no dog, but there IS a baboon!

What a big, exciting weekend. I got the Ren & Stimpy DVDs I’ve been coveting for so long! And then whaddya know, one of my favorite episodes was on TV for free yesterday. Rip. Big rip. Then Mr. H made me go to Linens N’ Things. I guess we need things. He always wants crap like throw blankets. I ran around like a child who has slipped its leash while he evaluated thread counts. Look! They have candy! Do you see! Candy! We left with some candy. You are a true friend, Stimpy.

I’d say more (or less? since whatever I was going to say is hardly substantial. it probably has to do with food.), but I was up all night with a migraine (not related to the candy, honest). And people have started doing that mega-annoying thing where they call all our assorted phone numbers in quick succession if we don’t answer right away, because clearly that will help them gain faster access to Important News. If you want Important News, try CNN. Or the Boston Globe, where they only confuse “its” and “it’s” 50% of the time. The only people here are us firedogs.

Advice! Yes, please!

I went to meet a pediatrician this morning. I had picked the most attractive person in the practice, but she was busy, which left Miss First Runner Up. So Stunt Double presented me with a photocopied booklet with line art of a demonic teddy bear on it. I knew right then that I would die inside when I opened it. I hadn’t even considered that bad graphic design might muscle in and blot out the sun. But you can’t plan on some things, like nostril pimples or getting audited.

I did, however, expect a blank stare when I mentioned having the baby outside a hospital. I expected the googly eyes when I mentioned that we’d be delaying/selectively vaccinating. Check checkity check. When I got home, I read through the booklet. It had a Dos and Don’ts section, and I was all primed to see photos of anonymous people wearing fanny packs or ripped tights, but it turned out that only happens in Glamour Magazine.

Instead, I read:

“DON’T put baby face down on a waterbed.”

That really hit home. I can’t believe I was planning on storing her that way. The more you know…. ding DING dee….

Then the business card fell out. COMIC SANS. Hi, hi!

I am just not taking the parasite to the doctor, ever. There’s nothing a little colloidal silver and homemade Botox can’t fix, right?

It’s like Ed Norton decorated our bathroom

That’s an IKEA joke. Badum. I would punch Ed Norton too.

Note to greater universe: calling or emailing me every day does not make the parasite come out any faster. In fact, each contact initiation adds one day before I will actually tell you any news at all. Three days if the email also contains a lame forward, be it a prayer, recipe (I have a really hard time believing you went and bought fish sauce, Betty Lunchbucket), or “word find” titled “My Mommy and Me are Best Friends.” In fact, that gets you put on the auto-bounce list. Dead to me!

Mr. H is standing around yelling “screws!” There are several thousand of them dumped on the table, but none of them are the right ones. This is also Ed Norton’s fault.

I have to go putty something.

Zero tolerance

Our own problems are always the worst, right? I am an angry wolverine, ready to bite the next person who says they’ve had a hard day when what they really mean is “They were out of toasted coconut iced coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts.”

Whatever. At least I can poo, even with a parasite attempting to force all my internal organs up into my left arm somewhere. There are people in this world who don’t poo, you know. Poor kids in China. We’ll always have regularity.

My mother sadistically gave my email address to an aunt, and that aunt has been bombarding me with religious spam. Funny, right after this started, I GOT FORCED OUT OF MY HOUSE. Thanks, St. Theresa. Today’s installment slipped past the junk filter, and it also contains a gem about her grandson’s neck fold staph infection and her son and “his use of coffee grounds to grow beautiful blueberry bushes in his yard.” My cup, my cup, my cup runneth. Over. And around. And through. Behind and before. My cups actually leak now. That’s another problem for another day. The solution is a humiliating system of bra stuffing.

How many more disgusting things can I put in one post? I am dying to see what the sponsored links comes up with to go next to this one. Speaking of which, I am so glad I am monetized. No fair that you get to enjoy my bad mood for free!

A flashlight, a map, and a trusted Indian guide

The parasite has decided to turn sideways again. This means I am supposed to hang upside down like a bat to encourage her to do the same. Seems contradictory to gravity, but so far it’s shoved her “this end up” a few times. She likes to torment by hanging out in the perfect position for weeks, then turning. For the uninitiated in the ways of parasitism: sideways means “can’t get theyah from heyah.” I would really prefer not to cap off nine months of existential panic with major surgery after all that planning on extruding her into a comfortable hot tub at my house.

In the natural birth world, any deviation from normal = It Must Be the Mother’s Fault. Surely I have been thinking bad thoughts or sitting wrong or not Trusting My Baby, Trusting My Body. In the medical world, any deviation from normal = There, There, Dear, a Doctor Can Fix This, Lie Back and Think of England. Can’t fucking win, as each option is equally insulting. Gonna move to that cave.

Maybe she flipped overnight because we watched that wicked traumatic “Grey’s Anatomy” episode last night that left both Mr. H and I weeping when the pregnant lady died on the operating table after a car accident. That lady’s baby came out early, and “didn’t look so good,” so clearly my parasite is digging in sideways and holding on until it’s really time. Yes, I know TV is for shit.

Or maybe she’s traumatized because yesterday we learned how to prevent choking by whacking a plastic infant on the back. I think I’ll just never allow her anything but a liquid diet. Hey, it works for Kirstie Alley. OK, I promise we won’t whack you on the back, you little potato. It’s not for sport. You’re not about to be born into “The Most Dangerous Game” or anything. Honest. Just try ass-end up for a while. It works so well for Carmen Electra.

She spreads for bread

Sure, it’s been a dirt dog of a week, but did I mention what a good sandwich I had? I had the good sandwich on Wednesday, Thursday, and again today. I tried to make Mr. H have a sandwich with me for dinner last night, so I could get in two good sandwiches in one day, but he didn’t go for it. He looked at me as if I were insane when I described the sandwich. “It doesn’t sound great to me, but I can tell YOU like it.” What’s not to like about 7-grain bread with flax, shmeared lovingly with mayonaise, topped with alfalfa sprouts*, an entire tomato, and all the different end pieces of cheese left in the fridge?

I saw a literal sign of the apocalypse yesterday. Forget invading Iran. Forget Mission Impossible: III. A strip mall outboard motor business with a pointless letter board saw fit to proclaim “I take my wife everywhere, but she keep’s [sic] finding her way back.” Keep’s. Yes, there was an actual plastic apostrophe used. I backed up to be sure. That officially makes it not a typo, which seems to be the excuse of most idiots and people caught making that mistake on the internet. No, the sign wrangler stood at the base of the pole, inhaled traffic fumes deeply, and opted to use one of those long handled tools to carefully insert that apostrophe into that verb. The surgical precision required to be so wrong is delightful.

*A potential listeria risk, according to books like OMG Your Baby Will Totally Die, but who’s counting! I eat sushi too**. Apostrophes are pretty risky, but you don’t hear enough about those, unless you live with me.

**It’s fucking flash frozen, ask your chef. I’d worry more about mercury exposure than foodborne illness unless you are eating it out of a grocery store dumpster.

And in our hearts we fly. Standby.

It started with other people drinking before the sun was over the yardarm. Or maybe it started when Mr. H and I almost threw up on the plane. Turbulence. I don’t know.

At some point, I was asked if “THEY” were “satisfied” with the “progress” that the parasite has made. “No, of course not,” I replied. “I am having a weak and reedy child, sunken of chest. THEY feel I will have to heave a sturdy rock at its hideous visage shortly after birth.” Then there was a discussion of a custom closet system, not my first choice for conversation. “Did you MEASURE?” “No, of course not,” I replied. “Why would I measure to ensure custom results?”

Then there was the problem of more drinking and gross sexual harassment of a waitress and food covered in sauerkraut. I think that was supposed to be delicious. But again with the almost throwing up business. My primary tormentor wolfed down a plate of German potato salad and told a tale of meddling, which stemmed from describing a problem with her inability to gain satisfaction from the help file in Excel. “You have to know how to look things up!” Yes, yes you do. “I was in the checkout the other day, and there was this young kid doing the ringing, and he didn’t know what a Belgian Endive was. So I said ‘Look under witloof.'”

“Witloof?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s the Dutch word.”

“And this would help a checker in an American supermarket?”

“Well, I’ve seen it called that before. At Kroger!”

“Were you at Kroger?”

“No.”

“What were you doing with an endive, anyway?” I was suspicious, as it took this person nearly fifty years to try asparagus.

“It wasn’t mine, the lady in front of me had it.”

“So you injected yourself into someone else’s transaction and offered a bizarre foreign word to be helpful?”

“Well, she thought it was some kind of celery. So I said to try looking under Belgian Endive. And he still couldn’t find it, so I said he should try Endive Comma Belgian.”

“If you had been quiet, he would have entered it under either celery or general merchandise, and you would been able to leave two minutes sooner.”

“But that would screw up their inventory!”

***

It has taken me days to get over this trip. You really can’t go home again. Not without getting bombed back to one’s emotional stone age. There’s the judgment, the paranoia, the incoherent ranting about Big Pharma and how money will be worthless, the revisionist history of wrongs committed in childhood, and the great sucking need for connection that I don’t know how to answer. What does anyone want from me? What do I want from anyone? If someone likes me, is that enough reason to give my time to that person? What if you also owe that person $10,000 that you aren’t really good for? What if you are having a child, and someone assumes he or she will be a part of that child’s life, and all you can think of is how much you hope you don’t do to that child what was done to you? And the very prospect of repeating history keeps you up nights, in a soppy swamp.

Uthless People

Hello, Internet, hello. Last weekend I took a detour through Boringsville. The main export is bladder spasms and strong antibiotics. While there, we also managed to shop for furniture for the parasite. We actually purchased nothing. Was it because the salesman loomed over us and made disparaging remarks about the one thing we liked? We found that odd, but we’ve never let a hick stand between us and Swedish things that are expensive. No, when we walked out, I read the establishment’s slogan on the delivery truck. “Making things easier for Mom’s.” Something something. You can totally see where I tuned out and started muttering. Dead to me!