This magical mess is delighted and slightly obsessed with books.  I started out in life being read to every night until I learned how to figure out the words, then I was off and running.  Nancy Drew was a favorite as were Bible stories and tales of adventure.  On many a road trip I would go to a different world in my books and the time passed quickly.

In the 7th grade I contracted measles and had to stay in bed.  With nothing to do I decided to tackle “Gone with the Wind.”  For two solid weeks I did nothing but nap and read.  It was awesome.

I grew to enjoy John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden”, which I reread every five years.  I don’t know why the five-year increment, but that’s how it always seems to turn out.

The entire tome of Sherlock Holmes consumed the better part of a year; possibly because I was going to college at the time.  And then came Agatha Christie.  I couldn’t get enough of murder and mayhem.  Still can’t.  I don’t necessarily like explicit gore, I just enjoy the sleuthing that goes with the crime.

Then I started to pick out books purely by their title and/or cover.  This lead me to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”  Not my usual type of pick but I couldn’t pass up the name.  And I’m glad I didn’t.  It was filled with nutty adventure, weird characters and the best advice for exploring the galaxy; “All you really need to take with you is a towel.”

What follows is a quote regarding said towel: “A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.  Partly it has great practical value.  You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shin so readily on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow, heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal; and, of course, dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”

Brilliantly written and useful advice too.  Ever since reading this hint thirty years ago, I’ve kept a towel in the trunk of my car.  (And, by the way, I personally would enjoy rafting down a river named Moth.)

One day, while at Barnes and Nobel, I came across the book title “Island of the Sequined Love Nun.”  Oh, I couldn’t leave that one on the shelf.  What a splendiferous title, sure to get your attention and make you start the first page.  And it didn’t disappoint.  Ah, Christopher Moore, how twisted is your mind and I’m so glad.  I can’t really describe his books to you, so you’ll just have to try them.

I immediately moved onto “The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove.”  Again, Christopher outdid himself with a sea monster who falls in love with a diesel truck.  (Their coupling is explosive.)

In wanting to learn more of the world, I moved onto travel logs.  So what did I choose to pick up but “The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific.”  Contrary to the title it truly is about traveling around the South Pacific and landing on the island of Tarawa.  I backed this one up with “Getting Stoned with Savages.”  I know, these are not the sort of titles one would think The Mess would read, but read them I did and learned a lot about an area of the world that is not well known or visited.

When a friend moved to Florida it inspired me to read “Skinny Dip”, by Carl Hiaasen who writes about life in the Everglades.  I picked up this book, opened to the first page and read: “At the stroke of eleven on a cool April night, a woman named Joey Perrone went overboard from a luxury deck of the cruise liner M.V. Sun Duchess.  Plunging toward the dark Atlantic, Joey was too dumbfounded to panic.  I married an asshole, she thought, knifing headfirst into the waves.”  I was hooked.

To this day, though, I am still seeking that one title that can knock “Island of the Sequined Love Nun” off its pedestal as my most favorite title.  If you have a suggestion, please use the comment section of this blog.  I always love a new read.

 

 

 

At the ripe age of sixty-two I have acquired braces.  Yes, braces.  It seems my teeth are shifting and this is throwing off my bite and causing headaches.  If this was ten or fifteen years ago I would be plagued with wires and such in order to move my teeth to their intended spot.  But, I am now able to purchase the Invisalign version and life with braces is much simpler.  Sort of…

Here’s a little story of my morning mess.

Every Monday I travel to the downtown clinic and every Monday I decided I deserve a Starbucks treat.  Grande flat white with a Lemon Loaf.  Delicious in every way.  You must understand that eating with the braces in is impossible.  My teeth are encased in hard, smooth plastic so chewing is not an option, plus my teeth do not line up properly, yet.  I need to take them off every time I eat and then brush before putting them back in.  Most Monday mornings I plan ahead for my Starbucks delight and take them out at home before beginning my commute.  I have my tooth care kit with me and after consuming my treat, I arrive at the downtown destination and brush and floss.

Not this morning.  Oh no, there was no planning ahead as I flew out of the house like it was on fire.  Upon driving up to coffee nirvana and ordering, I realized the trays were still in my mouth.  There sat my grande coffee, all rich, creamy and steaming; and my luscious loaf, all lemony, gooey and just waiting for a bite.

One of the directions for Invisalign is to always put them in their designated cases when they are out of ones mouth.  This morning those cases were not convenient to me while driving, so I pried the trays out of my mouth and flung them in  my purse.  This in a desperate move to get to my breakfast.

All went well, driving, eating, swerving and drinking my way to work.  I pulled in the parking spot and in my characteristic manner grabbed my bags and flung myself out of the car and into the building.  This is when I began to worry that I may not have taken as much care as I should have with the braces.  In the lobby I decided to put my mind at rest and make sure these things were still in my purse.  I arrive at work at 6:30 am and am only one of three people there.  I found the one tray but not the other.  Hmmmm.  I searched and searched, even taking out the contents of my bag to make sure I hadn’t missed it.  After all, they are clear and evidently excel in hiding.  But, no such luck.  So, out to the car I go only to find it sitting on the passenger’s seat in plain sight.

I grabbed the trays and hurried up to the third floor, washed them off and popped them in my mouth.  A few minutes later my supervisor, who is also an early bird at work, came up and handed me my wallet.  Seems that when I emptied my purse looking for the trays, I left my wallet on a chair in the lobby.  I am quite sure I am hanging on by a thread in life and that thread gets shorter and shorter on a daily basis.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am starting to treat the Invisaligns as I do my shoes and bra.  Upon getting home at the end of my day, I fling off these items and wherever they land is where they stay until I clean up before going to bed.  Okay, truthfully, they may stay there longer than that.  The husband and I are empty nesters, so since it’s just us in the house, I’ve become more lax in the picking up of lingerie than before.  If you come over at the end of the day you will find shoes and silkies out on display.

(I’m not sure which items bother the husband more, the shoes placed so he trips over them or the bra hanging on whatever door knob is closest to where I took it off.)

 

As part of a traveling roller hockey team, I spent most of my summers hauling around five to six players in a green minivan, lovingly called The Hockey Mom van.  (In fact my license plates were HKYMOM.  How dedicated can one get?)  This didn’t just involve the players.  No, they came with a tremendous amount of stinky hockey gear in large bags equally as pungent.  That was how they smelled after airing them out and before playing a game.  After putting three to four games under belts with no time to air out the gear, it smelled putrid.  I found it appallingly interesting that each boy had his own funky odor and each bag its own particular smell.

My son would place his hockey bag on the back porch with all the gear laid out in the hopes the sun would deodorized them.  In the summer he left them out all night.  One day we were to travel to Vancouver to a practice and we were running late.  He grabbed the gear, shoved it into the bag and off we went.  It was rush hour and the forty-five minute drive turned into an hour and a half.  On the way I started to smell something sweet and cloying and oh so bad.  I instinctively knew it was the smell of death.  I asked the son to start emptying his bag and as he withdrew item after item, he checked all over for the culprit of the smell.  Finally, he came to the skates and low and behold, a poor little mouse was found, dead as a door nail.  I figure he crept into the skate in the middle of the night hoping to find a home and instead found his demise.  When is a smell so bad it can kill a small rodent?  When it’s a hockey smell.

There were times, though, when this odoriferous situation played in our favor.  Like the time we traveled to Langley, Canada for a four-day tournament.  The boys were probably fifteen at the time and in the zenith of bodily emanations.  Most of the parents were able to attend, but for the few who couldn’t we offered to chaperon.  At that time the husband and I had matching green minivans.  (Don’t ask, long story.)  We loaded the six boys into my van and their gear into the husband’s and traveled up I-5, crossing the border with little trouble.  I had stored their sticks in the ski rack mounted on my van and this did cause some laughter with the Canadian border guard.  The tournament proceeded at a brisk pace, the boys playing anywhere from three to four games a day.

The time finally came to load up and travel back down the highway and enter our own country.  At that time crossing over into the USA was a bit more detailed then  getting into Canada.  As we lined up, the husband in front and me following, I noticed a border guard speaking with and gesturing to the husband.  He was pointing to the back of the van and clearly asking him to unlock it so it could be inspected.

The husband willing complied.  Up went the door and forward stepped the guard.  You need to understand that after playing for four days the gear had taken on a life of its own.  The stench was tremendous and in retrospect, I never figured out how the husband  took it for the six-hour drive home.  But, back to our vigilant guard.  He opened up the van’s back door, stepped up ever so arrogantly, and then stopped in mid stride.  Looking horrified and turning a shade I had never seen, he closed the door and retreated several yards.  He then notified the husband he could proceed on and go home.

It is my theory that if one wanted to smuggle small contraband into and out of the country, just put it in a hockey glove or skate.  No human on earth wants to go there except for the owner of the gear.  How those boys, or any hockey player for that matter, doned these items game after game without retching is beyond me.

Another trip entailed flying to Las Vegas in July for a national tournament which lasted eight days.  Yes, this was insanity . . .July in Vegas . . . with 14 fourteen year old boys.  Not all parents could manage the time off, so we again offered to chaperone three of them and off we went to Sin City.  Now, Vegas in July hovers around 103 degrees during the day with the night-time cooling off to a nice 100 degrees.  We found that the gear could not stay in the rental car during the day or night for fear of melting.  And we didn’t want to find out what it would do to the odor.  Dutifully, after every game, those boys lugged their bags up to their room in the Excalibur Resort.  I bought Febreeze for them to spray the gear with; I washed the jerseys in the bath tub every night; the boys showered again and again.  No matter what we tried we couldn’t get the funk out of the gear.  One day, as I was passing their room, I observed the housekeeping staff, masks on, Lysol firmly grasped, heading into the fray.  We left a big tip for them at the end of our stay.

It was finally time to head to the airport and bid this neon city adieu.  We approached the check-in counter at the airport and placed the bags, one at a time, on the scale.  for some unfathomable reason the clerk requested permission to open one of the players bags.  Alrighty, I thought, have at it and good luck.  She leaned over, unzipped the bag and immediately drew back.  And then uttered the best line ever during the past eight days; “Is there something dead in there?”  I pondered that and decided in a way there was.  A tournament that ended with not one win; innocence lost forever; and my olfactory senses that had deadened over the last eight days.  But, I answered with, “No, just hockey equipment.”  She motioned for the owner of the bag to rezip it and processed our tickets, tagged our bags and never made eye contact again.  Thus ended our misguided tournament in sunny Las Vegas.

On a side note, it’s funny how we thought taking fourteen year olds to Vegas would elicit them into playing winning games.  For the one and only time in their young lives they didn’t care about winning or losing.  They basically played just enough to get through the games so they could get back to either the pool or walking the streets and seeing the sights.  So many times we had to empty their pockets of the questionable literature that is given out on the corners of the Strip.  They also memorized the bill boards advertising girls, girls, girls,  For years to follow, a few of the boys retained those bill board phone numbers in their disgusting teenage minds.

There came a time when the HKYMOM van started to absorb the smell.  It ended its life with those license plates and that odor lingering in the atmosphere.

The end of an era both for the van and this HKYMOM.  I am now HKYNANA and hopefully my grandsons will lead me on many a new adventure.  I figure I’m immune to the scents now and will gladly fill my car with more boys and gear.

(Okay, that title is a little long but describes the rest of the text perfectly.)

For a magical mess of a creature such as myself, the road of life is a quandary.  Robert Frost waxed poetic about the Road Not Taken.  Do you know how many roads I haven’t taken only to find out I should have; or how many I have only to find out I shouldn’t?  And what is the road anyway?  My road sometimes resembles a lane, a highway, a path, and even a ditch.  Sometimes all in one trip.

Has anyone ever in the history of mankind taken a straight road?  Do people really exist who know from birth what they’re going to do, are doing and have done?   Because, as sure as I’m writing this, I don’t have a clue.

Growing up family would ask me the classic question for children: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Not carrying much about the future but knowing I needed an answer that would make them proud, I would say, “A nurse, just like my mom.”  Praise would be heaped upon me and I would glow in the feeling.

So, inevitably I went to nursing school when I was nineteen.  Boy, was that road the wrong one.  I found out, to my family’s amazement, I was not suited for life as a nurse.  Throughout the first year that knowledge grew inside me until finally, while I was standing in front of a twenty-one year old man who was drop dead handsome and my supervisor informed me I would be placing a catheter in his most private region, I turned, said,  “NO,” and marched myself out of the hospital and out of nursing.

My next pathway lead to telling my  mom.  This is where the ditch part comes in.  She was incredibly understanding but did tell me I had to do something to get an education, so figure it out.  A family friend was taking court reporting classes and being that I had very fast fingers, we all thought that was tailor-made for me.  I started the next fall learning the code of the stenography machine.  I actually shined at this as I was fast and accurate.  It wasn’t until my last three months in school that I was assigned to job shadow in  depositions and court.

I arrived at my first deposition with the assigned court reporter, set up my machine in a corner and waited for the first words to be spoken.  I can’t for the life of me remember the subject matter for this case but it must have been a doozy because somewhere in the middle of the deposition, the lawyers became very excited to the point they stood up and faced each other on opposite sides of the conference table and started screaming.

It was the 70’s and having an ash tray on the table was the norm.  This ash tray sat on the conference table and was large, round and made of marble.  It was about the size of a large dinner plate and stood about two inches tall.  One of the attorney’s had been using it so it was positioned in front of him.  About three minutes into the scream fest that lawyer put his hand on the ash tray and pushed it forcibly across the table in the direction of the opposing lawyer and his man parts.  When the marble came barreling toward him, it collided with his softest bits and he folded up like a paperclip.  Then, all hell broke loose.

It was at this point my  mentor motioned me to pick up my machine and leave.  I never found out the conclusion to this meeting but I did learn a valuable lesson.  Move the stone ash tray out of every lawyers way when you first enter the room.

My next foray was into the courtroom.  Much more formal and somber than a deposition.  There are many types of court: traffic court, divorce court, criminal court.  All have their stories.  The one you never want to find youself in is custody court.  This is always sad and always adversarial.  Here is where I learned an important facet of myself.  I am not able to process the adversarial nature of court and come out on the other side with a soul.  Another road that ended in a ditch.

At this point I was twenty-one and needed to make money.  Fast fingers plus medical knowledge logically put me on the road to medical transcriptionist.  Made sense to me.  I applied to a radiology unit at the nearest hospital.  During my interview the supervisor turned to me and said he had another job in mind.  How about receptionist at the front desk?  I was to later learn he liked to fill this position with the youngest, most attractive girls he could find.  I said yes and learned to run the front desk in spite of myself. In the seventies sexual harassment was lover looked.  During my time there I perfected the fine art of getting out of situations without calling the perpetrator down.  My naivety was starting to wane.

I became acquainted with all the aspects of radiology, including, but not exclusive to, barium enemas and where that actually takes place; asking patients to put on a gown and finding out they elected to just get naked; dealing with the prison population from Rocky butte jail; and eating lunch with x-ray techs who liked to compare the output of the barium enema they just finished.

Yes, it was a road that lasted twenty plus years.  It turned many corners but it was a good road, one where I met very good, long time friends.  A road where I met the best friend.  But, not the road that fulfilled me.

In between these twenty plus years I had a child who grew into one of the best people I know.  During his childhood I was privileged to travel the road of hockey mom, home and school leader and co-owner of “Camp Hillsboro”, which is what all of my son’s friends called our house.  Absolutely the best time of my life.  Little did I know this was the road of all roads.

Later on I became a medical assistant in the orthopedic department.  How and why I chose a pseudo-nursing position is a mystery to even me.  But, I’ve been doing it for nine years and find it’s time to find a new highway.

My next path will be retirement and full time Nana.  Now that’s a road I can revel in.

After all this history what have I learned?  All roads give insight, experience, education, adventures and memories.  All roads are not always the right ones, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  One never knows where that rutted, muddy, miserable road might take one.  So, take a trip, learn a lesson, meet new people, take the fork in the road, even occasionally do a U-turn.  But, never, never just sit there idly waiting.  Get up and put it in gear.

 

 

 

 

Just today I was discussing with the muse how I had writer’s block.  I haven’t written anything new in a week.  Oh, I have posted items, but these were written a while ago and kept in a journal.  But this last week, nothing, dry as a desert, completely without any inspiration.  Then this conversation ensued:

ME:  “Do you think it’s because of stress?”

MUSE:  “Yeah, may you should buy a new pair of shoes.”

ME:  “Excellent idea, but I need a pedicure first.  I don’t like to go to Nordstrom with anything less than pristine toes.  It’s the little things in life.”

MUSE:  “Ten little things.  Sounds like a news correspondent, “We now to go to Pristine Toes, live at the Great Wall of China.”

ME:  “Or maybe the Pristine Chapel in Italy.  Where Michelangelo painted nothing but toes.”

MUSE:  “Michelangelo as a pedicurist, now that’s a funny bit.”

And that lead me to imagining Mick (Michelangelo’s nick name) painting away, suspended in the far regions of the chapel and getting tired, bored and a little out of sorts.  Nothing but colors swirl in front of his eyes, the images have already blurred into a giant mass.  When this thought occurs to him, “What if I change my perspective.  What if I look at this from the ground up.”

From then on he painted nothing but toes.  The toes of Adam as he was being created by God, assuming God worked from the ground up.  The toes of Adam and Eve and original sin, as viewed by the serpent.  Noah and his ark with just the toes of the animals showing as they boarded.  Furry toes, cloven toes, uncloven toes, toes, toes, nothing but toes.

These “inspirational” thoughts brought me to my main point; Mick as a pedicurist.  Completing his fascination with toes, he turned from ceilings and opened the first nail salon in Italy.  For the next fifty-two years he happily applied his art, painting swirls, colors, and tiny, tiny figures.  He depicted the great events in history, all in a matter of a square inch or less.  And he didn’t have to do it hanging from a ceiling.

As I mentioned later to the muse:

ME:  “Well, that was a weird way to get inspiration.”

MUSE:  “Yeah, take it where you can get it.”

 

 

(I write today about a trip I took with my friend I’ve had since high school.  In order to differentiate between “the best friend” and this one, I have decided to title her “friend for life”.   Now, on with my story.)

I’ve learned many lessons in my sixty-two years of life, some well thought out, some that hit me smack in the face.  Some I’ve remembered, some forgotten.  One lesson I learned when I was twenty years of age.

I was young, vital, and thin with flowing red hair down to my waist.  After living life as a somewhat shy girl, I suddenly found my voice and independence and sought adventure.  (I was much too much full of myself and just ripe to be taken down.)

That’s why I found myself on the big island of Hawaii with my friend for life, staying at local friends of hers in Hilo.  The large Hawaiian family took us in and treated us like treasured guests and family.  They even introduced us to their extended family and that’s when I met a tall, gorgeous Hawaiian boy with the softest lips I’d ever felt.

One day we drove across the island to a wonderful beach where the boy was determined to teach the friend for life and me how to surf.  I had never undertaken this before but was willing and able.  Anything to get his arms around me was dandy.

In planning for this trip I purchased two swim suits; a green one piece and a bikini that resembled the swirling tropical sea.  A few ruffles and straps completed this vision and it was my favorite of the two. I chose this suit to wear that day.  In retrospect, not a wise choice.

Anyway, we were given a few lessons on what to do once out there and then off we went to find a wave.  And find a wave I did, tossing me around like a pebble, flinging me off the board and spitting me up on shore with the board somewhere behind.  I stood up, shook the sand off, located the board and attempted to rejoin my hero at sea.  What I didn’t do was understand the physics of taking a surf board out past the surf by myself.

Facing the ocean I picked up the board and attempted to enter the surf with it in front and parallel to me.  Any intelligent person can figure out what came next.  The surf slammed against the board and the board slammed against me causing me to slam against the sand, flat on my back.  I was so stunned I just lied there, out of breath and humiliated.  The boy and my friend for life flew out of the ocean to help retrieve me from my predicament, causing more humiliation.  But that wasn’t the end of fate knocking me off my self- imposed pedestal.  Oh, no, not hardly.

I was once more out in the blue sea, again with the boy at my side.  He carefully instructed me in the concept of only getting up on my knees this time.  Sounded easier and more secure, so I was all for it.  Toward shore I paddled, looking back for the wave.

By some miracle I located a small one, waited for it and paddled with all my might.  And up I went, sailing in a crouched position on that board for all I was worth.  Keep in mind the wave was small and close in to shore, but still, I was surfing.  Up until that wave jogged to the right causing me to tip to the left and flail off into the turquoise water and head down to the bottom.  I surfaced, sputtering and full of sand and swam in a little bit until I could get a footing.  I was now in hip deep water and felt safe to stand up and spot my friend for life and the boy.  They were very close in and we saw each other immediately.

And that was when I realized my bra top had been altered by the force of the fall and was now riding up around my throat.  And my white, oh so pale breasts were in view for all to see.  I could audibly hear myself falling off my pedestal and realizing I wasn’t the put together, sexy woman I had hoped but instead was a soggy, disheveled girl who was flashing the other surfers and my friends.

Thus ended my surfing career.  I learned a lot that day about hubris, wave action and the power of the Hawaiian sun.  For instance, if one has pale skin it doesn’t take but a minute for it to turn rosy red.  Guess where.

 

I may be a magical mess of a woman but I try to be fairly accurate with my grocery list.  It sits on my refrigerator door and is updated daily.  I dutifully take it with me on shopping day.  Sometimes I even categorize it to coincide with the specific aisles at Safeway.  This whole procedure is pretty organized considering I’m the one doing it.

So, I ask you, why oh why do I now have four tubs of sour cream in my fridge?  It’s not as if sour cream is a daily staple.  But there they sit waiting for what; a gallon of onion dip, two dozen baked potatoes?

I’m also not sure why I keep buying limes every week.  They sit around in the fruit bowl looking all tropical and limey until they turn hard as a rock and I toss them out.  Oh, I’ve tried grating the peel, juicing and then storing in the freezer. . .  where it sits way in the back until I clean out said freezer.

Or there is the home-made chicken stock I lovingly make.  I save up three chicken carcasses, add some delicious ingredients and simmer for up to four hours.  I carefully ladle that into canning jars, allow to cool and store in the freezer.  Now, anyone would think after all that care that I would remember to take one out in a timely manner to enable it to come up to room temperature.  Oh no, not even close.  I end up having to quickly defrost the stock.  I’ve tried many different ways such as microwaving which resulted in a broken jar and stock running all over the bottom, or pouring luke-warm water over the jar which took an hour to melt.  I’ve finally found the answer, though.  I go to the store and buy a box of chicken stock off the shelf.  Yep, all that for store-bought.

I also ask you why there are five boxes of cake mix in my pantry and no frosting.  I actually have an answer to this.  You see, I tend to open a can of frosting and just eat it with a spoon.  Yes, with a spoon.  Not much of it at a time but over the course of a week I can make a hefty dent.

This probably doesn’t compare to when I was pregnant and was caught by the husband and the muse consuming chocolate chips with a spoon right out of the bag.  You gotta do what you gotta do.  (Once during those nine months,  in a chocolate frenzy I tried eating a bar of bakers chocolate.  That did not end well.)

I’ve veered off my course of thought.  Back to my larder.  Yesterday I decided to take complete stock of the pantry and fridge to see what I really had in there.  The pantry yielded all the usual staple items but also included three cans of artichoke hearts, one jar of coconut oil, too many salad dressings to count and a can of vegeburger.  That was just on the top shelf.  I also have a bag of soy curls (what in the world are those and where did they come from), a two liter bottle of club soda that I’m sure has lost its pop, and enough sprinkles to cover a five tier wedding cake (if a wedding cake had sprinkles).

My fridge gets cleaned out more often that the pantry but still, why two bottles of Huarache sauce and a pack of batteries?

I’m sure this list of ingredients would find a home on the food show “Chopped” but I am just baffled.

Now I leave you with my mystery – who bought these items and if is was me, why don’t I remember?  Did I have a cooking plan? A special recipe?  Was there some sale for odds and ends?  Do I ever plan on purging these items from my kitchen?  No one knows, especially not the magical mess.  All I can say is, be very cautious if I ever invite you over to an impromptu dinner.

(Question – how long can a fancy jar of olives stuffed with lemon last in a fridge?)

 

 

As you probably can guess by now I work in the medical field, specifically I’m a medical assistant in orthopedics.  Of all the fields of medicine I had to choose from, this one suits me the best.  You see, orthopedics is a relatively clean job for an medical assistant.  Our patient’s are hurt not sick, so there is no vomiting, diarrhea, spitting, coughing, etc; and the closest we come to an intimate knowledge of them is when we have to put on an ankle cast and we are eye to eye with their lap.

Several years ago I was asked to sub-in for a six-week stint in the urology department.  They do a lot of in-house procedures and have a myriad of gadgets.  I was getting a bit bored with ortho so decided this sounded like a good idea.  Oh, how foolish I was.

I had no idea I would be faced with ten to fifteen penises a day with several vaginas thrown in for good measure.  There would cystoscopies, vasectomies, prostate probes, checking surgical sites from the vasectomies, on and on, day in and day out.  Oh my, so many penises.  I wasn’t aware there were that many men out there with their manly parts in peril.

Day after day I held strange men’s dangly bits in my hand; cleansing them, placing them on a surgical drape, and then assisting the physician in placing the long, thin camera all the way up into the bladder area.  Or, conversely, assisting the doctor in the snipping of the vas deferens.  (Side note – it did amuse me when I placed the patient’s twig and berries on the sheet, it appeared I was displaying them for viewing; like laying out silverware on a nicely starched linen tablecloth.)

I learned a lot about myself during that ill-advised adventure;  I have no desire to view that many penises a day, let alone handle them; explaining to friends and family what I did all day was awkward at best.  And, most importantly, contrary to men’s opinions of themselves, none of you are that much different from the rest.

Which brings me to my next tale.  I had the patient on the table, I acquired all my cleaning equipment, had exposed and laid out his appendage and was now grasping it firmly in my hand ready to clean.  This process involved a basin of cleanser, three towelettes and a large towel.  You see, in order to thoroughly clean and prep the patient, one has to sponge off the area three different times.

I completed the first stage but felt confused and wasn’t able to figure out why.  Something wasn’t right.  But, I had to finish this task, so again I grasped him firmly in my hand and was reaching for another towelette when a light dawned.  Silently I cried, “OH”.  This man had a turtle neck instead of a crew neck.  My first uncircumcised patient; in fact, my first uncircumcised man, ever.  I knew the whole concept of this: the history, the religion, the ritual, the non-religious reasoning, the actual surgical procedure.   What I had never experienced was the viewing of the extra, original appendage.

I pulled back on the aforementioned site and continued cleaning, secure in the fact that I was now back in control of the situation.  It appeared he never realized I had a moment of befuddlement than clarification.

In the ensuing weeks I found that men have different ways of coping with having their penises handled by a strange woman.  Some don’t speak a word and avoid eye contact; some try to start a conversation of something completely unrelated to what is going on at the time.  And then there were the select few who insisted on commenting and inviting comments on their willies.  One invited me to gaze upon what he considered to be a prime example of the penis.  (Yes, he actually said that.)  He felt his was perfect in every way and out performed every other man.  (Again, he actually said that.)  As I weighed the consequences of being fired for telling him that he was not any different from previous patients, and actually was lacking in length compared to some, I gravitated to keeping my mouth shut and keeping my job.  But, how I regret not knocking this person off his self aggrandized penis pedestal.

The end of those six weeks couldn’t come soon enough. I finally was able to go “home” to ortho and regale my co-workers with stories of urology.  It was when I was telling the tale of the turtle neck versus crew neck, that one of my peeps said she had never seen a man with a crew neck. I then shared I had never seen a man with a turtle neck until now.  It was at this point we realized we knew way too much about each other’s husbands.