THE GREAT TONIC WATER INTOXICATION OF 2012

Howdy ho, friends and neighbors.  Before I tell you about my latest exploits, I'd like to thank you for your comments on my last post.  I appreciate each and every one of them, and thank you for your thoughtfulness, your insight, your opinion, and your willingness to share your voice.  You've given me an awful lot to think about. Thank you.

Would it be OK if I moved on to a lighter/sillier topic?  I'm determined to solve the world's problems, but until I am able to fully function as an adult grown-ass woman who doesn't need the supervision of her little sister and a team of highly gifted professionals, I should probably just concentrate on one thing at a time.

Like learning how not to poison myself with either a) a pork chop, b) roasted vegetables, or c) a vat of Canada Dry diet tonic water with quinine.

I've been having a bit of a go with leg cramps, so I got the bright idea to have a little tonic water in the evenings.  (And no, before you ask, I did NOT get the even brighter idea to put GIN in the damn tonic water, which probably would have saved me a LOT of trouble and at least FOUR rounds of total embarrassment in the ER when the brand spanking new doctor had to do his very first heiney exam, and he was so freakin nervous he told me to turn my head to the left and cough and I said "But, Michael!  Despite all evidence to the contrary, I don't have what you're looking for down there, and I'm pretty sure that if I had a prostate, we'd be having and entirely different conversation altogether.)

But I digress......

I made a lovely dinner on Sunday evening, cleaned up the kitchen, patted Stewey on the head, and then promptly ran for the hills with what I presumed to be yet another case of food poisoning.  I seem to be getting pretty good at this, so I wasn't at all alarmed, especially when you consider that whatever the food was that was poisoning me came from my very own kitchen, and I knew that no other innocent parties had been affected.

By Monday evening things had gone from bad to worse, so Aunt Chrissy put my shoes on my and hauled my sorry self the block and a half to the hospital.  (It's gorgeous, by the way, and exactly what you'd want in a hospital if you were inclined to want those kinds of things.  Besides, it's got a Golden Corral right there in the front of it, and despite the fact that I can't get over a restaurant that would use a name that suggested a place for keeping one's cattle, I'm determined to go check out that chocolate fountain.)

Again, with the digressing.

My nurse, Alissa, had been on the job for about seventeen minutes, so she was understandably a little nervous about the enormous spinster on the gurney handing her a sheet of paper with a med list as long as a Walgreens, but she was a real trooper and told me what an impressive specimen I was.  (Or maybe I needed to give an impressive specimen?  I can't remember).  Anywhoose, all I know is that she had been an ER nurse over at the other hospital in town, and had just started her new job at the Golden Corral hospital that very same day.  Poor, poor dear.

Everything was going swell until the resident came in to introduce himself.  Aunt Chrissy and I took one look at him and immediately thought the same thing...."Gee, this guy looks exactly like our cousin Brian"...but I was also noticing that his name was Dr. Phelps.  So, in my stupid little head, I immediately said to MYself "Gee, this guy looks exactly like cousin Brian, but I'm going to call him Michael."  (You know.  Michael.  Michael Phelps.)

Poor Michael.  In addition to having to deal with the fabulous glory that is me, he had to try to figure out just what the heck he was going to do to make me feel better.

So he decided to probe me in my under carriage with a gloved finger and a charge nurse for moral support.

Did I mention that Michael was also new to the hospital and had never conducted this particular examination before?  Poor, poor dear.  I'm pretty sure that it didn't help matters any that I was trying to keep myself calm by chattering away like some kind of circus monkey, and when he corrected me by saying "Um, Miss Rich, my name's not Michael.  It's Nathan." all I could think to say was "Well, honey, as long as you're where you're at, I'm going to keep on calling you Michael.  It'll be better for both of us, I promise."

My God.

A few short hours later, and I was sent on my merry way with instructions to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, and enough pills to make whatever the heck was going on with me go away.  I'm not taking any of them, of course, since I was smart enough to call my regular doc (at the insistence of Aunt Chrissy), and he basically said (as only he can) "Well, it's either food poisoning, too much tonic water, the flu, or something exotic that will take us years to figure out.  Either way, you're going to feel like crap for a few days, so drink plenty of fluids and call me if it doesn't get any better".

(You gotta love that guy, right?)

So here I sit with my Gatorade and my Vitamin water and my diet ginger ale and my caffeine free dietCoke.  I could float a barge, but I'm determined to wash away whatever got in there that wasn't supposed to so that I can get back to the really important things....like napping.  And stitching.

Now if only there was a way to wash away all of the shame over exposing my heiney to Michael.....


Are you all well and warm and safe and dry?  I hope that as we wind down the year you'll have a few moments of pure bliss just for your very self.  Stewey is determined to go caroling this year, so I suppose that I had better find him a traditional costume or we'll never hear the end of it.  Damn dog.

Ciao, for now boys and girls.  Thanks for indulging my need to share my every waking minute with you.  No charge for the awful visuals, by the way....