Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

Things That Make You Say, “What?!”: v.2.0

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

As hard as it is to believe, school will be starting here again in the next 3 or 4 weeks, and it will be time for me to start tutoring again. In honor of my imminent return to work, I offer these “What?!” moments gathered from my own past work experiences.

From my work as a tutor…

Student: “Will you take me to get my belly button pierced?”
Me: “No.”
Student: “Why not? I really thought you would.”
Me: “What?! Why?!”
Me: Performing a frantic mental review of every interaction I’d previously had with this student, wondering how I’d possibly given out the message that I was someone who would accompany teenagers as they voluntarily allowed others to drive very sharp needles through various parts of their body.

From my work as a bookseller…

9:00 am: The store opens.
9:01 am: An outrageously incensed gentleman approaches the info desk, where I, of course, am on duty.
Customer: “Hey! Last night I was reading a book, and I left it on that table over there. Now it’s gone. What happened to it?!”
Me: (assuming my Kindergarten Teacher tone): ” Well, at night, after we close, we put all the books back on the shelves.”
Me: looking slowly around the store to convey the subtle message that we, in fact, keep all our books on shelves and not in piles on the furniture.

December, in the middle of the holiday shopping madness
A customer corners me in the back of the store where I am unsuccessfully trying to blend into the romance section.
Customer: “Excuse me, ma’am, but where is your display of luggage ?”
Me: stunned into silence
Me: (certain I’d misheard somehow) “Um, excuse me?”
Customer: “Your luggage. My son was just up at your other store, and he told me all about the great luggage he saw there.”
Me: struggling so hard to keep a straight face that I’m sure my eyeballs are going to pop right out of my head and drop onto the floor
Me: searching desperately for a tone that does not at all suggest that I am in any way mocking the customer
Me: “I’m sorry. We don’t sell any luggage.”

There was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I could say to convince her that we, the BOOKsellers, working in the BOOKstore, were not secretly hiding a cache of incredible luggage in the back, selfishly hoarding it for our own present-giving needs. But luckily for me, her poor, embarrassed husband could take the humiliation no longer and eventually pulled her away.

And to close I leave you with this statement, which I was told actually formed part of a company’s “Visions and Values”.  According to this document they were actively seeking employees with, “the ability to make quick decisions in the absence of facts and information.”

Man, I Feel Like A Woman!

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I was thinking about the whole idea of political correctness as I set out this morning to buy some poultry feed. It was kind of an odd thing for me to be doing, given that we don’t actually own any poultry or live on a farm, and doing something so outside of my normal routine got my mental wheels spinning.

From what I can tell, the message of political correctness seems to be that while we respect and honor each other’s differences we don’t actually focus on them when we interact with each other, but rather focus on our common humanity. While this is a nice idea in theory, I have found in my life that I do occasionally need to take some differences into account, especially when I find myself in an extremely masculine environment like, for example, a feed store, and it is painfully obvious that I do not fit in.

My personal M.O. in a situation like this is to morph into “helpless female” mode: big eyes, self-deprecating smile, and a speech that starts out with some kind of comment like, “Well, my husband usually takes care of this for me, but today he sent me and I really don’t know what I’m doing.” This is not at all politically correct, but it is extremely effective. This is why I am able to do things like buy poultry feed, get our knives sharpened, talk to the internet customer service people, and get our car serviced. In these situations I am more than happy to let people who actually know what they are doing tell me what the best thing is for me to do, and then pay them for their services or products.

There are some people with whom this approach doesn’t work, such as one gentleman I met while I was working at a construction company. He firmly believed that because I was female and was working in the office, it was my God-Given Responsibility to make him coffee. Now, I don’t drink coffee, so it never occurred to me to make any (not to mention the fact that I don’t actually know how). Also, I have found that people who do drink coffee can be very particular about how it is made, and it is better to just let them do it themselves. But when I tried to explain this to him, this was his response: “Well, my wife didn’t help me build our house, but she still gets to live there.”

This approach also seems not to work with techo-guys who work at computer stores, as I discovered last fall when my husband and I had to make some technology related purchases. We decided to split up the list and I was deputized to go and get one particular item. I memorized exactly what he told me to ask for, went up to the counter, turned on my “vibe”, and …nothing. Not only nothing, but I was actually passed by at least three different sales guys. However, the second that my husband started walking in my direction, salespeople FLEW over from all corners of the store, tripping over themselves in their eagerness to sell him something. (Not that I am bitter).

It is also fun to flip this around and to not act like a stereotypical female with someone who is expecting it, like my mom. She grew up in the 1950’s when women went to finishing school, wore gloves, discussed etiquette, and always had a hot dinner on the table for their husbands even if they also had a job outside the home. When I was first married she and I had a lot of conversations like this:

My mom: “Well, I’d better let you go now so you can get dinner ready.”

Me: “I’m not cooking.” Or even better, “It’s [my husband’s] turn to cook tonight.”

My mom: Deep gasp, followed by silence, followed by a quiet, “Oh.”

As Shania Twain sings, “The best thing about being a woman/is the prerogative to have a little fun.”

And, I do.

Missed Communication

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Sometimes I think it would be nice if all personal interactions were as easily understood as those between me and my cats.

When they are happy they rub their head against my leg. When they are put out or indignant they poo in the tub. When they want attention they insert themselves in between me and whatever else I’m doing, and stick their furry little hiney right in my face to make sure that I inhale the maximum amount of fur possible and am unable to focus on anything but them. When they’re really angry they come and sit on my desk while I’m working, but facing away from me with their tail switching back and forth angrily, while aiming a malevolent glare in my direction. (Well, as malevolent as a 6 pound ball of grey fluff can be).

But when humans get involved, communication gets a lot more complicated.

I was thinking about that earlier this week as I was having lunch with my husband. He was upset about a news story he’d recently heard. It involved a “hot button” issue, the kind that causes all connections to the rational, logical part of your brain to shut down and instead leads you directly into highly charged, emotional (over)reacting. Which then leads to conversations where the people around you, who are not directly involved in your conversation, could accidentally overhear certain words or phrases and give you concerned looks as they begin to edge cautiously toward the door.

About six years ago I found myself in a similar situation, but due to the extremely different emotional climate in which we were all living back then, this time it was really funny rather than a cause for concern. But it won’t seem so at first, so just bear with me.

Six years ago this summer my family gathered to say goodbye to my grandmother, who was dying of cancer. Her wish was that when she died, she simply be wrapped in a white sheet before she was placed in her coffin. This was simple, and beautiful, and did not at all take into consideration the fact that this would require there to be A Person In Charge Of Sheets. Since my mom is the oldest child in her family, and I am the oldest child in my family, this duty fell to the two of us.

So we headed off to the local Giant Shopping Mart, but unfortunately there was no section labeled, “Linens for the Soon-To-Be-Deceased”, or, “Easy Coffin Accessories”, so we were forced to stand in the middle of the sheet and towel aisle and have the following conversation:

“Do you think a queen sized sheet will be big enough to wrap all the way around her?”

“I don’t know. I think it depends on whether the body is laid end-to-end or diagonally.”

“Will a top sheet be enough to wrap the body in, or do you think we need a fitted sheet too?”

Are you imagining what you would be thinking if you overheard this conversation? Because my mom and I sure were. As if the situation weren’t stressful enough already, we decided to go ahead and come up with a list of all the ways someone could misinterpret what they were hearing and decide to report us to the authorities. (Sometimes being an avid reader with a powerful imagination can actually be a disadvantage).

I’m happy to say that we did survive that shopping trip, but maybe you can see why I sometimes envy cats their simple, direct method of communication. Although I somehow doubt that coughing up a hairball and then rolling over to lick my private parts would really have been an appropriate response to this situation.

A Tale of Two Spouses

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In honor of today being my 9th wedding anniversary, I thought I’d write a little about how my husband and I have worked out our own particular division of marital labor in order to ensure a smooth, well-running relationship. Because there are certain things they just don’t cover in premarital counseling, such as how to adjust to the fact that each of you deals with stress differently.

When it comes to handling stressful situations, my husband is in charge of Being Calm, which is best illustrated through the following story.

After we’d been married for three years we bought our first house, and after we’d lived in our house for six months we had a really bad ice storm. We thought the worst that happened was that we lost power, but we soon discovered just how wrong we were when I walked into our bedroom and saw a GI-NORMOUS tree sticking through the roof.

Naturally I called for my husband, and he responded by saying, “What?” Now I’m sure you can picture this situation, so you know the tone I was using. It was not, “Could you please come in here when you get a minute, hon?” It was, “COME! NOW! BAD!” Fortunately he decided to amble in and see what was going on. That was good because I only had the one yell in me, and then I lost all ability to speak and was reduced to quiet whimpering.

So he came into the room while talking on the cell phone to his dad, saw the giant hole in our roof, and… started describing it in precise, rational, scientific terms to his father. Like, “Hm, the hole is about the size of a dinner plate, and the tree is protruding approximately eighteen inches down from the ceiling.”

And I’m standing there looking at him, the love of my life, the man I waited seven years to marry, and I’m thinking, “Who are you, and what is the MATTER with you?! Why are you not freaking out when CLEARLY that is the response called for in this situation?!”

But this is where the whole division of labor thing came in handy, because he calmly organized some roof triage, and I got to come up with a funny story to tell people.

However there are some times when being calm can backfire on you, and that is where I come in. So in addition to Getting To Do All Of The Freaking Out, in stressful situations I am also in charge of Reasonable Expectations. And I have a story for that too.

About a month after moving into our house, things were going well. I was enjoying unpacking and decorating, and I had just gotten a new job working at a bookstore, which is something I always wanted to try.

One day my husband came home from work and announced that there was a position open at his job for someone to go to Denmark for a year. And he thought we should go. And…he was serious. He honestly believed that this was absolutely the best, most rational, most logical next step for the direction of our lives. And he was upset when I responded by bursting into tears and crying for like, an entire day. He said, “I don’t understand why we can’t discuss this rationally.”

So here we are six years later (still living in America), and we’ve gotten our routine down pretty well. He is in charge of Things That Sting, Time, Calling People On The Phone, and Knowing How To Get Around In Any Given Location, and I am in charge of Funny Smells, Sneaking In Decluttering So He Doesn’t Notice It, Knowing Things About People, and Holding His Drink When We Go Out Somewhere.

It works for us.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

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Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about my shoulder, partly because it’s been hurting, and partly because when I go to get a massage my massage therapist yells out things like, “Wow! That wasn’t there before!” as she’s working on me.

I never ask her to explain what’s gotten her all worked up, because I’m not really sure what I would do with more detailed information about muscles and medical conditions. As a matter of fact,  one of my most deeply held beliefs is that the whole “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is totally wasted on those so-called “hot button” issues. Where it truly needs to be enforced is in the area of my not having to know what goes on inside the human body-most especially, my own.

You know how in the last few years companies have been sending us information about how we can opt into or out of their privacy policies? Well, I would really like to be able to sign up for The Right Not To Know Some Things. I would be more than happy to send in a form, or check off a box, or carry around some kind of card stating my identity as a “not-knower”, because then maybe I could prevent the kind of unexpected tragedy that took place in our home just a few days ago.

My husband and I were sitting in the living room one evening relaxing and watching TV, when suddenly, out of nowhere, he flipped to a channel that was showing a documentary on a woman who had an enormous tumor growing out of the side of her body, and somehow we managed to tune in at the exact moment where they made the first incision and you could see all of her insides.

These are the kind of situations that I just do not handle well.

I am the person who once, as an adult, burst into tears when the nurse came to prick her finger for a blood test as part of her yearly checkup.

I am also the person who, also as an adult, once required three dental technicians in order to get one x-ray of one side of my mouth; one person to press the button, one to stand next to me and tap my head in an attempt to help me relax, and one to catch the x-ray film the second I projectile gagged it out of my mouth.

Clearly something needs to be done here, and I plan on addressing this issue just as soon as I develop a process for un-searing images from a person’s brain.

The Telltale Tock

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I’m at an age now where I’m apparently supposed to be feeling the “pull” of my biological clock. But I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’m pretty sure I was absent the day those were passed out.

Since this same time last summer 10 of our friends, family members, and co-workers have either gotten pregnant, had a baby, or begun the adoption process. And every time a new baby shows up, I truly believe that this time, I’m going to”get” it. I’ll be around this precious new life, and my own maternal whatever-it-is will finally just kick right in.

Instead, it usually goes something like this:

Someone sends out pictures of their new baby.
Other people’s response: “Oh, what a sweet baby.”
My response: “Wow! That looks just like a tiny, enraged monkey.”

Or, someone has brought their new baby over to show it off.
Everyone else thinks, “Oh, I want to hold the baby!”
I think…Nothing. Because I am frozen in panic. Because I know the second I touch that child everyone in the room will see that being around a baby isn’t making me want one of my own. And then my secret will be out. I am a girl, and I don’t want a baby.

Although truthfully, it really isn’t that much of a secret. Even babies know I’m not a baby person.

Once when I was in my early 20’s my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I were visiting friends who were in the process of moving. Because I was a girl (and, admittedly, not much help in the heavy lifting area), I got elected to stay with the couple’s 2-year-old daughter. Everything was fine at first but then she needed her diaper changed, and despite being a competent, college-educated young adult, I had never before changed anyone’s diaper. As a matter of fact, I am 32 years old and I have STILL never changed anyone’s diaper. (I know; some people are just lucky).

Anyway, this poor child was so desperate to have her diaper changed that she spent the last 30 minutes or so before her parents got home walking into her room, pulling diapers out of the bag herself, and bringing them to me in an effort to get the process started. Those were some of the longest 30 minutes of my life. It’s a pretty low day when your personal competency is exceeded by that of a 2-year-old.

So the fact that I’m well into my 30’s and this baby thing just isn’t kicking in for me has got me to thinking: what if I just don’t have it? What if, just like there are some people who can’t see certain colors, or some people who can’t hear certain tones, or some people who are missing the gene that allows you to curl your tongue, there are just some people who are born not wanting to have babies? What if, instead of spending all of my time worrying that I am some kind of aberrant freak of nature because I’m female yet have no desire to reproduce, I could let myself off the hook about this, and start noticing what I AM good at?

Because the truly ironic part of this story is that, while I get brain-freeze around anyone under 12 years old, I am TERRIFIC with teenagers. Just at the point when most people throw up their hands and no longer have any idea what to do, that is exactly the point where I have become somewhat of a pro-a natural, if you will.

I suspect that the reason I was missing from the biological clock line was that I was first in line at the “Talking To Teens” station. After seeing everyone who was waiting over in that other line, I knew that one day they were all really going to need my help.

(Censored)

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I haven’t posted anything new for the past few days, because lately I just haven’t felt good.

I’ve been trying really hard to figure out how I can turn this into a funny story, but all of my brain space has been taken up by thinking about how badly I feel. If a little cartoon balloon appeared over me right now and let you see inside my head, it would just be filled with symbols like, “*!@*!!*^@&*” to disguise what I have actually been thinking.

It all started because I am currently in the middle of one of my “from-one-extreme-to-the-other” sleeping cycles. About three weeks ago, all I could do was sleep. I could not stay awake for more than a couple of hours. (Important Side Note: This is a perfect example of why I should not be allowed to watch shows like “House” on TV, because during this time I was absolutely convinced that I had African Sleeping Sickness, as opposed to, say, just being really tired from helping twelve people prepare for their final exam in Spanish.)

But now I have swung to the opposite end of the pendulum, and now I am always awake. I thought that maybe a new bedtime location might help ease my insomnia, so last week I tried sleeping on the couch to see if that was any better.

Um, not so much. All that did was painfully pull a muscle in my neck and cause me to walk around for the next three days with my head permanently turned to the left. That was fun, and not at all embarrassing.

In any event, I’ve had a lot of extra free time to fill up (due to the not sleeping), so I decided to spend some time outside in our garden.

Have you seen the “Simpsons” episode (Episode #284, “Blame It On Lisa”) where Lisa is sponsoring an orphan named Renaldo, and when the Simpsons go to Brazil to meet him they find him running down the street fleeing monkeys, because, as he explains it to them, “I am like candy to them [the monkeys]!”? Well, that is EXACTLY what happens to me when I go outside in the summer. Only with bugs, not monkeys.

My husband and I spent the weekend working in our yard, and today I look like I’m covered with some horribly disfiguring and highly contagious plague-like disease from Biblical times. Even my husband, who is a very calm, rational engineer rarely given to any kind of dramatic statement, looked at me this morning and said, “Oh, man!”

So if anyone needs me this week, I’ll be pretty easy to find. Just follow the hydrocortisone trail and the sounds of the TV to the living room, where I will be sitting, bolt upright and wide awake, surfing the channels to find the new, dramatic medical condition which features insomnia contracted from multiple mosquito bites.