There's No Way I'm Not Related to the Absentminded Professor

Let's play find my wallet!

Purse? Nope.
Work bag? Uh-uh.
Gym bag? Double check with all those compartments and no.

Hmmm...

Coat pocket? Counter top? No...and no.

Let's think about this logically...

Refrigerator! Yup, yup...there it is!

The Two Kid and The Warewolf

A story from 5th grade Lauren...Happy Halloween!

Once there was a little boy. His name was Timmothy. He has a big dog. One day his dog ran into the woods.

"Have you seen my dog", ask Timmothy.
"No" remarked his friend Sam
"Darn" whimpered Timmothy.

He asked others if they had seen his dog. One thought she saw it go into the woods.

Timmothy had heard there was a warewolf in the woods. But he went in anyway. He walked and walked it got darker and darker and Aaaah!

He looked back. When nothing was there he walked awhile.

Then he saw his dog with a hurt nose and a bloody leg. A wolf with a human face and hair with sharp teeth was running after the dog. His dog ran towrd him. They ran out of the woods.

A few days later a little girl went into the woods with her puppy. Suddenly there was a scream. She ran towad the scream. She saw a wolf half human, half wolf.

She screamed and ran. Her puppy ran to. When they got out of the woods, Ow-Ow-Ow-ow, her puppy was hurt.

A few days later another dog went in and got killed. From that day forth only big black dogs or a white puppy with brown spots would be killed on Halloween.

Flight Safety

It's so great that the Flight Safety Manuals on airplanes have such descriptive pictures to explain everything you need to know in case of an emergency, no matter what language you speak. No one could possibly interpret these pictures incorrectly.

For example:

Pregnant women may remove their wombs to use as a pillow.

Inflatable Infants! On Sale Now!

Warning: LSD may cause hallucinations and strange dreams, even in infants.

Use your laser vision to start fires and tear through metal!

Protect your baby from the drug-crazed toddler next to you. Addicted children are unpredictable and potentially dangerous.

The Latest Craze

My friends and I were talking about the new craze amongst high school and college kids: alcohol enemas. Seriously, just take a couple shots, you'll get drunk fast enough. And it won't leak out later.

We were talking about which kinds of alcohol to use to minimize stainage. Someone mentioned gin, and I decided, maybe I understand these kids a little bit after all.
  

I would rather put gin in my asshole than in my mouth because it tastes like pine trees.

Number One Cause of Obesity

Maybe you thought it was the endless supply of breakfast pastries, or the double portions and Ensure with meals.

No. Not quite.

"I know why that girl is so fat. It is because there is a boa constrictor that has gone into her vagina."

Now, doesn't that make waaaaaaay more sense?

How Nice!

I've posted a lot of insults from patients, but they come up with some very amusing compliments as well.

One of my patients told me, "Hey! I like your incisors!" As she walked away she murmured to herself, "Those sure are nice..."

Comics

My sister just found these comics that I made in college using PowerPoint. Check out my skills!

A reference to my bird problems

Say What?

Tasty

On my way to the gym today, I saw a girl lick a tree...

Professional Charting

I love it when I'm doing my charting and I get to quote angry patients who are cussing. How many other opportunities are you going to have to drop the f-bomb in a legal document?

Night of the Living Dead!

If you think about it, Jesus was kind of a zombie. This changes some things about how I'm going to decorate for Easter next year...

Lauren's Day Off

For the second time this summer, I showed up to work on my day off.

Last time, I attempted to be super-productive. As I was driving home from non-work, I decided to fill up on gas. But I pulled my car up with my driver's side by the pump. My gas tank is on the passenger side. Mind you, I've driven the same car since I was sixteen....Lets just say I needed some caffeine. Maybe it was a good thing I wasn't taking care of patients that day.

Today I was actually productive. I made pickles. Cleaned the floor. Unclogged the shower. And bought a label maker. I'm hoping that it has some magical powers so that after I label everything clearly, I will suddenly become able to keep it all organized.

You Scream, I Scream

Does anyone else think it's weird that there's an ice cream truck cruising my neighborhood at 9pm when it's dark out?

I'm pretty much sure it's the one with the creepy-looking imitation of Tom & Jerry painted on the back next to the warning,  "Watch For Children!"

I love ice cream and all, but this particular vehicle makes me shudder a little...

Lunch Conversation

Here are some tidbits from lunch with my coworkers. This is why I love them.

"Hot dogs give you headaches."

"I get sushi waaay too much. If I start having memory problems, just tell me to stop eating sushi, because I probably have mercury poisoning."

"Onions are so sneaky."

"Pimps do have problems with consistency."

"Can we start a fire in the office, and roast those s'mores that Jackie brought?"

Business Plan

Someday I'm going to open a restaurant called "The Grilled Cheese Palace" that will feature pretty much every option of grilled cheese sandwiches you can think of. And some you've probably never considered.

Like grilled cheese and peanut butter. Has to be American cheese. Don't you dare try it with cheddar.

Also, if the temperature exceeds 90 degrees, patrons will get a complimentary scoop of ice cream that day.

The Pains of Being the Mittl Child

Here are a couple of excerpts from my diary. Oh, woe.

 

In the picture, she is sticking out her "mittl finger."

 

 (Dear Diare, my little sister dos not like me becus she sleeps on the rong side of bed. and I stil love her.)

In Case You Forgot...

Let's Play a Game: Round Two

Which of these come from staff, and which come from psych patients?

"If Bob Barker can be loud, then why can't I?"

"So, I was watching this show about orangutans that they were sneaking Valium to, mixing it in soda or food, so they could sedate them to put them in cages for transport. Do they ever do that here when they transfer patients?"

"What the hell is this sticker you left for me that says 'BBQ?'"

"Superstitious is delicious!"

My Mom Is Special

On Mother's Day, we went through a box of drawings, cards, etc. that we had given my mom as kids.

This one was written by Corinne:

Say What?!

I'm really good at mishearing things. When my sisters and I get together, it gets ridiculous. Here are some examples:

"I had too much sugar, and it's hurting my tampon."
"I had too much sugar, and it's hurting my stomach."

"Lord's glittery."
"The floor is glittery."

"I'll get you a gyrating chicken."
"I'll get you some Thai basil chicken."

"He could be a walking Al Pacino, and I wouldn't trust him not to cheat on me."
"He could be the most wonderful person..."

"They have ponchos for daisies."
"They have punches for daisies." (Like a hole-punch, but daisy-shaped...for crafty crap)

"Hello, wheat-stealer!"
"Hello, my teenager!"

"My greatest regret from grade school is that I did not learn to ride a jackal"
"....learn to juggle."

Life Lesson

1. Just because flour and milk looks like pancake batter, doesn't mean it is.....

2. On a related note, label your storage containers.

How To Dry A Swimsuit

It was very humid on my vacation in Punta Cana, so I came up with this brilliant technique for squeezing as much water out of my swimsuit as possible before hanging it up to dry/become less moist:

Wrap it in a towel and stand on it.

Monica walked out of the bathroom while to find me like this. She was like, "What the hell are you doing?"

Name Confusion

I used to think that JC Penny and Jenny Craig were one and the same.

You know, the commercial jingle "1-800-94-Jenny!"

I just kind of deleted the C and the P.

You are feeling veeery sleeepy...

Today we did Mother's Day at my Grandma's retirement home. I don't know what they spray into the air there...some kind of aerosolized sedative. As soon as I walk in, all I want to do is sleep. Swear to God, it has nothing to do with eating large amounts of food...

I need to get a hold of some of this stuff for my unit.

Vacation Equations

I got back yesterday from a week's vacation to the Dominican Republic with my Monica, and I came up with the following equations to summarize the trip:

















(Warm Weather + Sister Time + Delicious Food + SCUBA + Tan+ New Friends)-(Falling On My Ass + Getting Sick) = Still An Awesome Vacation

What's That Called Again?

Sometimes, I start a sentence thinking that I will come up with the words for whatever clever thought I just had.....and then I just have to stop in the middle of the sentence and say, "uh...nevermind..."

Unfortunately, sometimes people take this as a sign that I was about to tell them something really juicy but got embarrassed. And they're like, "No! You can't do that! You have to say it now!" But I got nothin'.

I just went to Baskin' Robbins and requested, "Can I please have a Peanut Butter n Chocolate....uhh... where you mix it up..."

"You mean a Reese's?"

"No...I can't remember the word..." I was basically doing charades while frantically scanning the menu for the word I could not remember: milkshake.

But I was also too nervous to read, so gave up and asked for a scoop instead.

Edamame

Sally loves edamame. Not to eat. It is a toy.

She stole some from me last night. She kept hopping up on the table, trying to bat at it. I must have pushed her onto the floor 50 times. But she darted up real quick, grabbed a pod, and bolted off to the closet.

I just found it in my shoe...

Liar Liar, Pants on Fire!

One year in grade school, we put together an "All About Me" book. It was a collection of writing samples, drawings, etc that we had completed throughout the school year.

One of our writing prompts was, "Write one page about something you learned to do recently."

I couldn't think of anything interesting, so I totally BS-ed it. I wrote all about my grandma teaching me how to knit. I think she had tried once to teach me a couple of years earlier, but I didn't really get it. In my paper, however, I wrote all about how she had successfully taught me to knit, and how I practiced all the time and was someday going to knit her a sweater. Frankly, my only concern was finishing the paper so I could go hunt for frogs in the neighbor's window well.

I had all but forgotten the "All About Me" book by the next time we visited my grandparents, but my mom had been very touched by the knitting story. As we were driving to Dekalb for the weekend she said, "Oh Lauren! I brought that book you made at school to show Grandma and Grandpa. I just know Grandma's going to love that one you wrote about her! I marked it with a post it note so she can read it."

Surely I was going to get it. Grandma would recognize my fabrication and tell my mom that I had lied to my teacher and I would be grounded and no one would ever trust me again! I think my heart was racing and my face burning for the next 24 hours, until I realized that Grandma wasn't going to rat me out. Bless her little heart.

I'm Like an Old Lady

So, I signed up to do a half marathon in July. I know. Crazy, since I'm not all that much of a runner. One of the reasons why swimming is my favorite is because the sweat just gets rinsed right off. I do think I'm built for distance, though. For the first 20 minutes of a workout I'm dragging, but after I've been at it for an hour, I don't want to stop. I'm all pumped and ready to go!

Last week, I started going to training sessions. Lots of weight lifting and squats and lunges. Soooo sore.

On Saturday, I picked up my Grandma in Dekalb on my way to Peoria for Easter. Never in my life have I been so thrilled to see a geriatric toilet. You know, the kind where the seat is raised up about 5 inches? They're glorious! My quads were very pleased.

The couch was much more difficult. I got about 3/4 of the way down and just had to plop. My Grandma was like, "Hey, now that's how I sit down!"

Something to look forward to.

Eggs

I picked up my first CSA egg share last night! There's something kind of magical about having eggs that are all different shades and sizes.

Unfortunately (or, actually, fortunately, because I love me some eggs) I thought the CSA started next week, so I bought a carton of 18 eggs on Monday. So, I was daydreaming about egg recipes. I think that over-easy egg pizza is happening Friday night.

I remember the first time I made deviled eggs on my own: for a potluck my last week of nursing school. I had forgotten that older eggs peel more easily than fresh eggs after being hard-boiled.

It was kind of disastrous. It took forever, and they were not pretty.

When I took them to school, I set the deviled eggs on the back seat of my car, where they were flat and safe from harm. Alas, physics prevailed when some jerk cut me off and I had to slam on my brakes. I heard the plate tumble to the floor.

For the next five minutes until I arrived at school, I was fuming about my precious eggs and imagining the mess in the back seat.

But Glad Press and Seal Saved the day! The plate was upside down, but the eggs were all pretty much intact. And they tasted delicious, as is the habit of deviled eggs.


I considered a career as a spokesperson for Glad. It could have been glamorous.

Shine On

Right after college, before nursing school, I briefly worked at Bath and Body Works for a holiday season. It was a fun place to work, great manager, nice co-workers. Lotion Emergencies were extremely rare. But retail ain't my thang.

I've always hated selling things. Girl Scout cookie time used to be tortuous. I would come up with any excuse not to go door-to-door. Like, "Oh, my ankle hurts too much to walk," or "I have to do my math homework," or "It's getting dark out soon, and that's dangerous." (In a neighborhood where it was totally normal to go next door and ask for a cup of sugar.)

Mostly, I just wanted to work the register, not the floor. One night, we had a little lull and I started to restock the shelves in the gift basket section. A man came in, walked over and said, "I want to get some gift baskets for the ladies that work in my office. How much do those big ones cost?"

"They're thirty dollars."

"Alright, I need fifteen of them. Any scent. A variety."

I shrink-wrapped and ribbon-ed those suckers up all pretty. It ended up totaling around $500 dollars, and my manager and manager-in-training were very pleased that I had made such a great sale. In reality, all I had done was happen to be standing by the gift baskets.

My manager asked her trainee, "Mary! Do you think we should keep Lauren on the registers, or let her continue to shine in Zone One?!"

With great pep in her step, Mary turned to me and nodded, "Ok, Lauren! Continue to shine in Zone One!"

Let me tell you, it was a great effort not to laugh in her face.

Tuna Helper

Tuna Helper casserole for dinner tonight. For a hot minute there I thought I was just going to be eating "Helper," but thankfully it turned out that the tuna was just hiding behind the peanut butter.

I was already short one ingredient-milk. I decided that a glop of ricotta and some extra water was a good substitute....

Time to go grocery shopping?



I feel like that description of my dinner sounds a little disgusting. Let me make up for it by saying that I also made Apple Jack cupcakes.

Should I Go Bald?

I can't tell if Sally loves my new shampoo or hates it.

Any time I leave my hair wet after a shower, she gets very excited and starts to nuzzle my head. And then chew my hair. And then try to scalp me with her teeth.

Hybrids

I had tomato basil salmon sausage for lunch today, and it was amazing.

Social worker Liz said, "It's like a pig and a salmon had a baby, and you're eating it."

I thought, "What would that look like?"

This is what I came up with:

Soon I was getting requests for all sorts of hybrids, including

and

And then a cross-breed skeptic said, "I bet you can't do a guinea pig pterodactyl." Believe, Ashley. Believe.

Well That's The Pits!

Conversation between a mother and her young son in the deodorant aisle at Target:

"Mom, why do you have to smell all  of them."

"Well, I want to pick one that smells good."

"Who's going to smell your armpits?!"

Sympathy

At my hospital, if an employee or nun in the system passes away someone sends out a memorial email to inform other employees of their passing, funeral details, etc. Usually, this email is entitled "RIP So-And-So" or something nice like that.

Recently, we received a message where the email subject said:

Death.

Bar Bathrooms

Bar bathrooms are the location of some of the most interesting/entertaining/bitchy conversations you will ever hear.

I went out on Saturday, and the theme of the night was "Stalls That Do Not Lock." Starting with the bathroom door at my apartment. This is why I lock Sally up during parties. Because as soon as a door is shut, she has to go push it open.

But I digress.

So. What do you do when the stall does not lock? You hold it shut, right? Some girls do not know this.

I was in my stall in a modified football stance to keep the door shut, and the other stall was occupied by a barfer.

This other girl walks into the bathroom and announces, "Ummm, so I have to pee, like, really bad. Just so you know. If you can just hurry, that would be great. So you know."

I finished up and walked out of the stall and washed my hands. She gets into the stall and says, "Ummmmm, how do I close this door?!"

"Oh, it doesn't lock."

"It doesn't?"

"Nope."

"Ummm, then how am I going to keep it shut?!"

"Uh, I'll hold it for you."

"Okay, thank you sooooooooo much. I didn't know what to do. I'll be done in just, like, twoooooo minutes.......Ummm, why do I hear my boyfriend talking to someone else? He's gonna get it."

When she came out of the stall, she commented, "Ummm, there's a girl in there that is not okay. (indicating the barfer). I can hear her in there. And she is not okay."


My only regret with this post is that I'm too lazy to figure out how to put audio up, so you can't hear the inflection that she had. It was great.

You Poor Unicorn

This picture, which was hanging in the nurses' station today was given to us by a patient.

 

The poor thing has been afflicted with raging herpes. Or HPV. 

Maybe it's scamps.....

Let's Play a Game!

Okay! Here's the challenge: guess which quotes are from patients, and which are from staff.

"Do giraffes make you nervous? I mean, they run, like, a thousand miles an hour!"

"I'm a sandwich!"

"There was a pool of blood, deep enough for a three year old to swim in it!"

"I love my dog's ears. When he dies, I'm going to cut them off and carry them around with me."

"You're pregnant, hon. You can see it in your face, you've got the butterfly pattern."

"If I'm in a room full of men, I can't even tell which are the hot ones anymore."

Sinus Disasters: Chapter 2 (Why I Hated Neti Pots)

This is a story about sinus rinses.

Back in college, I was seeing an allergy/asthma specialist who recommended daily sinus rinses for me. She gave me a starter kit with a squirt bottle. I was home for the summer, and I used it sporadically for a couple of months before abandoning it hatefully in the back of my closet.

Fast forward to spring break. Great time for allergies. And I had just finished two rounds of antibiotics for a sinus infection. I decided I might as well try the sinus rinse again. This time, I swore I would diligently use it every day for the rest of eternity.

So, there I was, squirting saline up my nose as I gagged and sputtered. I was almost done. Despite my watery eyes, I could tell there was some saline left in the bottle, but it didn't seem to want to come out. I squeezed the bottle harder, crumpling it in half. Mildly successful at squirting some more saline in.

And then the idea hit me. "I shouldn't be getting more by squashing this thing in half. The straw goes all the way to the bottom, so bending it like this should make me not be able to get anything out."

I jerked the bottle away from my nose to examine it. To my horror, the straw had disintegrated and ended about halfway down the bottle with a jagged edge. There were chunks of plastic floating in the bottom of the bottle. A quick mental calculation told me that the plastic in the bottom was not nearly enough to have composed the rest of that straw.

"SHIT!"

Didn't just think it. Said it out loud.

I had chunks of freaking plastic in my sinuses.

Foreign body + Sinuses + Bacteria left from that other infection = Certain Doom

So I made an emergency trip to CVS to buy a neti pot. I got back to my house and started opening it when I realized that the expiration date on the bottom of the box has passed six months before. Not wanting to inject any more risks into my skull, I drove back to CVS to exchange it.

Chunks of plastic fell into the sink. I used at least 3 rinses before not getting any more debris. And then did another just to be sure. It was torture, and I think it kind of scarred me.

So, the moral of this story is: When the instructions say to replace the bottle every 90 days, do it.

Sinus Disasters: Chapter 1

Remember that lovely menthol Zicam nasal spray I mentioned the other day?

Well, I used it this morning before heading out the door. I enjoyed being able to smell something for once. Menthol reminds me of childhood and Tic-Tacs. And I delighted in the cooling sensation.

Until I stepped into the freezing-degreed outdoors and inhaled.

My nose and sinuses were freeze-burning!

It was like someone had shoved some dry ice up my nose and then punched me. I felt like I was going to start bleeding everywhere. It was great.

Achoo!

I think I almost just lost my spleen from sneezing after that all-you-can-eat sushi...

Sally's Near Death Experience

A few years ago, when Sally was just a young kitten, I had a very scary experience with her. She had been acting kind of funny, meowing a lot.

I woke up in the middle of the night, as I am wont to do.

I heard Sally rustling around in the closet.

In my half-awake stupor, I started panicking.

I thought, "Oh noooooo! Sally crawled off into the closet to die alone!!!!"

I was confused and tearful as I started frantically searching for her. I couldn't find her. I sat on my bed and started bawling.

Hearing the ruckus, she came out of hiding and stared up at me like, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

She did not die.

Twilight Zone

If the SciFi channel ever wants another revival of the Twilight Zone, I've got some dreams they could use as plot lines....

A mother and father take their 2 young children to their lake house to go fishing. They are cooking sausages on the grill, watching the water. A huge dragon flies out of the water and gouges the little boy's left eye out. Then the dragon turns into a pirate and steals the little girl's left eye with the aid of some fancy eye-theft headphones that leave a distinctive scar on the left temple.  The parents recall that their small niece is also missing her left eye and has the scar.

They drive home, agonizing about how their life is going to change. When they get back to the city, they go downtown. They're walking the streets and see a cab driver leaning on his car, which is parked outside of a church. They get closer and realize that he only has one eye. The left eye is missing.

They get to talking and figure out that a pirate also took the cabbie's eye. He is amazed by this revelation and says, "We have to tell my brother! He owns this costume shop here by the church!"

And then the terrifying pirate shows up. Turns out that it's the cabbie's brother. What a jerk, stealing his own brother's eye like that! And then lying to him for all those years, saying he was going to avenge him? So, cabbie is super-pissed.

The cab driver and the family march into the church, the mother encouraging her children to take off their eye patches to show that there's nothing to be ashamed of.

The people in the church start murmuring. They're saying, "I wonder if it was a pirate?" We then realize that there are several people inside the church who have lost an eye. For the first time in their lives, they are acknowledging to others how they lost their left eye. They didn't want to tell anyone before because they (naturally) assumed that no one would believe them.

An angry mob forms, and they rush out of the church. They find the pirate outside, surround him, and beat him to death.

The parents of the children end up separating. The dad sinks into a terrible depression. The mom starts having an affair with the cabbie, who now has tons of money and owns a casino. She is addicted to pills, which she began using to control her anxiety about having a pirate steal her childrens' eyes and ruin her perfect life.

The End

Vitamins

The sinus infection war rages on. The antibiotics and I are losing.

At the recommendation of one of my friends, I got some Zicam. I got the menthol nasal spray (which is very pleasant and soothing) and the oral mist in Arctic Mint flavor. They try to claim, "Great taste!"

Lies. Cruel lies. Zinc does not taste good. Never has. Probably never will. A more honest statement advertisement would be, "It's still kinda gross, but hopefully we've disguised it enough that you won't gag."

I remember my first traumatizing experience with zinc. It all started with me hating to take vitamins.

My parents had decided that I should graduate from Flintstones chewables to "grown up" pills. To say I rebelled is an understatement. I would do anything to avoid taking vitamins. I thought I was pretty good at pretending to swallow them, but my parents quickly caught on.

They started checking my pockets after dinner. Soon, even my socks weren't a safe hiding place. Of course, I came up with a few ways to get around that. When I was in college, we found a collection of vitamins in the pockets of an Advent calendar, placed there years before by yours truly.

Finally, my dad got sick of it. He sat me down one night after dinner with a multivitamin and a glass of water. He said, "Lauren, you are not leaving this table without taking this vitamin. You have two choices. You can swallow the pill. Or, you can dissolve it in the glass of water and drink it.

"Haha!" I thought. "Dissolving it won't be so bad. Dad thinks I can't get through life not learning to swallow pills. I'll show him!"

"I'll drink it," I said.

"Okaaay," he drawled, "It's not going to taste very good."

"That's what I want to do." It couldn't be that bad....

WRONG. It. Was. Totally. Disgusting. I took me several minutes to force down 2 gulps. And I couldn't manage any more. My dad had other things to do, so he let me go for the night.

But the next evening, I was faced with the same choice.

I learned how to swallow pills.


My next task is learning to tolerate sinus irrigation. I freaking hate it. It makes me gag. But the same friend who recommended the Zicam assured me that he can now use a neti pot without any ill effects. And it only took a year to get used to it....

That's some serious dedication. But after more that three months of this crap, I'm ready to not be sick anymore.

Lockout!

Today I locked my keys in my car, and I had to hang out in my garage for about an hour waiting for a locksmith to come let me in.

But it could have been a lot worse. It could have been like that one time in college.

I was on the swim team, and every year the team took a training trip to Florida after Christmas. Except the year my coach was about to pop out a baby. We got to stay in steamin' Bloomington, IL. Of course, we still took beach pictures:

On the second-to-last day of our "trip," Coach told us that we had earned the next day off. Winter training was done! I hadn't felt homesick since going to college, until that moment. I was exhausted, grumpy, and in pain. 


I only lived an hour away, so I packed up a few things and went out to my car. There had been an ice storm a few days earlier, and my car was coated in an inch-thick layer. Of course, my ice scraper was in my trunk, which was impossible to access. 


Being very resourceful, I quickly discovered that my big plastic comb was perfect for chipping away the ice. I cleared the driver's side door, started the car, and loaded my belongings in. I made sure that the doors were unlocked, and then started going to town on the front windshield. 

I'd been chipping away for at least 10 minutes, enough to clear half the windshield, when I heard "CLICK." I shuffled over to my door and tried the handle. For reasons that remain a mystery to me, Dorothy had locked herself.


Everything was inside the car. My dorm keys. My phone. Campus was closed and deserted. All I had was that stupid comb. And my shoulders hurt like a bitch.

I tried the handle again. Like my wishful thinking was going to magically unlock the door.

I waddled across the street to the athletic center, hoping against hope that my coach was still there. No luck. 

I was walking back to my car, deciding my next move. I would see if there was anyone at the security office. If not, I could use the phone at Walgreens. I just felt like crying. Actually, I may have. I wanted to be at home, in my warm bed, pumped up with Advil.

Then I saw a girl from my dorm unlocking the back door to the building. She was from out of state, moving back in a day early. She let me use her phone, my mom came to Bloomington with an extra key, and I made it back to Peoria for an extra day with my family. So the story has a happy ending, but it was moderately tortuous.


So, today was actually pretty good. Weather wasn't too bad. I had a phone. The locksmith was nice. And then I got to watch Arrested Development all afternoon while eating gelato.

Scamps

One year, there was a toy that I really really wanted for Christmas. Actually, that was every year.

But that year, it was a toy puppy. He had a slit in his stomach that you could use to attach him to his "leash." It was like a push toy, and it it would bark when you took the dog for a walk.

We have the video of me finding this gift under the tree. I'm hugging the dog and dancing around as I say, "At last! Santa gave me Scamps!"

It sounds like slang for some new STD.

Personal Space Issues

Conversation in the nurse's station about the long-term effects of growing up with parents who force you to give weird Aunt Gertrude a hug and kiss, even if you don't want to:

Coworker 1: "Just because a coworker asks for a hug, doesn't mean you have to give it."

Coworker 2: "But it feels rude not to. I don't want to offend someone."

Coworker 3: "No! You shouldn't have to touch people you don't feel comfortable touching. Forget if they feel offended, they need to respect your bubble."

Coworker 1: "See, this is how women get raped."

Coworker 4: "And how kids get herpes!"

Maybe I'm Not So Clumsy After All?

I routinely make fun of the fact that I trip over my own feet at least twice an hour. Coordination has never been a super strength of mine. But I pulled off quite a feat yesterday.

I'm becoming a more organized person (it's been a work in progress for about 10 years now), and I got one of those shelf things that you can put those canvas baskets into and things look all organized and beautiful like in the magazines. Of course, the people who live in magazines also have half the volume of belongings as 93% of the people who are looking at said magazines.

Anyway, the shelving unit came in a 3x1 foot box weighing about 45 pounds. This girl not only managed to hold the box while unlocking and opening the door, but also succeeded at balancing on one foot while using the other to pull the door shut by its handle.

I feel pretty awesome.

Still can't walk in a straight line....

BEEP!

I hate beeping noises. Especially microwaves that continue on with all four "I'm done" chimes even after you open the door. Yes, microwave! I know! Food's done, now shut up!

I was charge nurse the other day, and as I was checking the crash cart, I started hearing this steady buzzing noise. I tried to find the source, checking every piece of equipment I could find. I looked in the storage room, the nurses' stations, the day room TVs, the printers and fax machines, the elevators, everywhere. And I could not find the source of that stupid noise!

Finally, I gave up and had to get some work done. One of the other nurses came into the nurses' station and asked, "What's that buzzing noise?"

"I have no idea! It's driving me nuts! I've looked all over the unit, and I can't figure out where it's coming from."

"No, it's just in the nurses station...It sounds like a phone..."

I pulled out my hospital cell phone. The buzzing that had been annoying the daylights out of me for the past half hour was in my freaking pocket the whole time...

Snake in a House

I came home from swim practice one evening in high school. On my way to put my towels in the dryer, I noticed a fake rubber snake lying on the floor of the hallway. My dad likes to play practical jokes. He has fake poop and barf and all sorts of fun stuff, so I wasn't too shocked.

As I was passing it on the way out of the laundry room, I stopped for a closer look. It was the most realistic-looking fake snake I had ever seen. "Look at that!," I thought, "They must have used black beads for the eyes or something...they look so real!"

And I started wondering, "Is it really fake?" I stood there staring at it for several minutes, and it was as still as a rock. But I still had my suspicions.

So, I reached down veeeery slooooowly and lightly poked it's side. It slithered forward a few inches.

"Hey, Mom, there's a snake here in the hallway."

"What? Yeah, right."

"No, come here and look at it."

"Lauren, it's fake."

"No! I just touched it, and it moved!"

"Nice try."

"No, look! Watch!" I reached down and poked it again.

This time it decided to flee behind the refrigerator. Eventually it reemerged, and we trapped it under a plastic box. We tried to transfer it to a big glass jar so that my sister could take it to school with her the next day, but that snake was pissed and did not cooperate. So we let him go in the back yard.

House of Horrors

House on the Rock is basically an eclectic museum of collections in Wisconsin. 

We took a "girls day" trip there with my mom when I was in high school. One of the displays is a doll collection. It's petrifying. I swear to God, some of them had fangs. For real. They had teeth, and they were not shaped like squares. They were definitely sharp, menacing little mouth triangles.

Any girl that plays with old-fashioned dolls is seriously brave. Especially if she sleeps with them in her room while they stare at her all night.

Monica used to tell me that her American Girl doll, Molly, had a little knife that she would cut me with while I was sleeping. "That's what happens when you have cuts or bruises and you don't know where they came from. It's Molly. So don't annoy me, or she'll come after you."

Overloaded

You know you watch too many forensic shows when it is not an uncommon occurrence for you to recognize a crime on one program after seeing an episode about it on a different program....

And when you can recognize the voice of the Burger King commercial narrator because he also narrates Forensic Files.

Career Change?

One of my coworkers recently asked me, "Do you sing?"

"Not even in the shower." (Probably partly because of that time I was singing in the shower in high school and my little sister started pounding on the door, begging me to stop the torture).

"Because if you sing, you would have the perfect alto voice. It has a very nice quality."

Surprisingly, it's not the first time I've heard this comment.

There was a cabbie one time who insisted that I sing for him while he was giving me a ride. After 5 minutes of begging, I actually did sing. I figured, "I'm never going to see this guy again, I might as well prove him wrong..." And at the end of the ride, he gave me his digits and made me promise that I would call him in 3 days after practicing. I "lost his number" almost immediately after getting out of the cab.

And when I was a lifeguard in high school, one of the pool dads suggested that I go into broadcasting or read books on tape.

So my coworker suggested that if I ever want a career change, I should definitely consider being a professional narrator. It sounds like it could be a pretty glamorous lifestyle. Wouldn't that be great, for people to have no idea who you are until you speak and they're like, "OH MY GOD!!! I know you!!!"

I don't think I'll be the next David Attenborough, but I can dream....

Sinus Infection Cure

I've been getting this stinkin' recurring sinus infection since October.

My attempts at home remedy include the usual. Decongestants. Fluids. Humidifier. Neti pot (gag). 

Also, spicy food. As in, a 16 oz jar of hot giardiniera within a 24 hour period. Plus sushi with plenty of wasabi. Can't say that it was very effective. But it sure was tasty!

Lets hope this third round of antibiotics licks it for good...

Quotes From the Psych Unit

"You like my hair? Gracias, amiga! I put my panties on my head. You see? I wash them in the sink, and then I put them on my head."

"I feel much happier now. Maybe I can go get some pizza when I go home. I need new socks."

"Can I please have a medium-long banana?"

"I ain't no infidant!"

From a patient who was trying to find her social worker, "Hey, Christine. Are you Liz?"

"You're all a bunch %^@*@!# of Nazi Jews!"

From a patient who was planning to lead a Bible study in the day room, when provided The Book:
"Oh, thank God! I'm gonna Bible the whore out of that bitch!"

Fact of the Day

Bayer originally developed heroin as a "more effective" (faster acting) form of morphine.

Lies I Have Believed

1. "You need to eat your bread crust. It has more nutrients than the rest of the bread."

A very creative ploy to stop me from wasting half the sandwich. I had this one so drilled into my head that it wasn't until high school that I really thought about it and realized it wasn't true. But without this lie I may never have realized that edges are where it's at.

2. If you pierce your belly button, it will make your period shorter.

This is about 87% of why I got my belly button pierced when I was 16. The other 13% was because people would never expect it. In my defense, one of my sisters' friends gave me a first-hand report of shortened periods. Plus, with those vomit-inducing cramps I got, I was a little desperate.

3. "Those scratches and bruises that you get that you don't remember how you got? It's Molly. She comes into your room in the middle of the night with a little knife..." Monica frightening me with tales about  her American Girl Doll.


Here's what's not a lie: Dolls are creepy.