The Very Expensive Lesson aka Why You Should Listen To Your Momma

So I am sure there are things your mother told you as you were growing up that you just kinda shrugged your shoulders and made the “duhhh” face.  The “hello lady, I already know that.  Clearly that’s common sense.”  Right?  You know it.  One of those little lessons from my mom was never, and I mean never, use your teeth to perform tasks that require brute strength.  Like opening a jar or cracking a walnut.  Understandably this lesson came straight from the woman who struggled to afford to ship me to the orthodontist for braces as a teenager.  Got it mom.  It’s in the bank.  I won’t forget. 

Well um, yesterday, I did forget and I am NOT calling my mom to hear: “I told you so” or to hear the horror in her voice.   I have beaten myself up enough about it (not to mention getting a little slap from my dentist!).  This is now yours.  Laugh at me as you will.

To start off this little adventure to Stupidville, let me head it up by explaining that a neck guard is a piece of hockey equipment that is used to protect a hockey players neck in the event of a blade, stick or puck coming near that area.  Our children are required to wear them if they play hockey.  So keep in mind my attention to this piece of equipment could not be put off or ignored. 

The youngest money sucking hockey player in our home had a game last night, far, far away (ok, it was an hour and a half drive one way – which is just plain ridiculous, anyway….) so upon realizing that his neck guard was still in need of repair and no time to buy a new one I decided to pull out my Susie Homemaker skills and sew the sucker up.  I can hear you gasp.  I know.  I don’t sew (or iron but that’s another story).  I did try to fix said neck guard with my tried and true method of all repairs - Glue.  It didn’t work.  Should be easy.  I just have to sew this little square piece of Velcro back onto the neck guard.  Few stitches here, few stitches there.  Easy, peasy.  Well crap.  Do you think the needle would penetrate through the gazillion layers of fabric and Velcro?  Notta!  I had to use all my strength and a hard surface to drive the needle through.  So after doing this a few times the top of the needle bends and won’t go through the fabric at all.  Yes, this is the point in the story where I completely lost my mind.  I have no idea what I was thinking.  How could my teeth actually be stronger than all my upper body strength?  I could almost hear my mother bitching at me as I tried to pull the needle out with my front tooth and yes, you know it.  I chipped the damn thing (tooth not needle)!  Gads.  It was the tinest little pin chip but I could feel it and to me it felt like I had a spittin out the chew, redneck size crater in my front tooth.  It was all I could do not to cry.  Pretty sure the girl at the dentist office thought I had cracked the entire tooth because she got me in right away.  The kind dentist fixed me up, only after giving me shit about it, and sent me on my way.  I am positive they talked about “the stupid chick who chipped her tooth trying to sew a piece of hockey equipment” all day. 

So loooong story really short: The neck guard repair cost me $145.00.  A new neck guard?  Probably $20.00. 

Always listen to your mother (just none of you tell mine I said that).

Just Can't Find Good Staff These Days



 He considers this his most important job of the day.  I don't think he is fooling anyone!

The "Comfort Zone"

I saw this sign today and remembered that a very, very wise teacher once told me that you really don't learn much until you start to feel uncomfortable.  I had forgotten this message as I have been spending as much time as possible trying to NOT be uncomfortable and blaming it on getting old and cranky.  Although I am pretty sure this "uncomfortable" does not include in-laws, eating until you don't fit your clothing and uncomfortable silences.

When Friends Make the Board of Directors

 

   My pal New York posted this rant on her Facebook page and it reminded me that I had a similar rant in my “Things that piss me off” file to be posted at a later date.  So I dug in and found it.  I have known for some time that New York and I had a few things in common.  Surprise, surprise its sarcasm!

New York:

 I have a rant...after sitting in Emergency for 8 hours for the third time in 3 months I have some views on our medical system...the problem is not bed shortages...the problem is the patients!  People are truly stupid.  Girl to my right... if you can walk on your foot it's not BROKEN, girl on my left...It is called a period Buck up buttercup, and loser in front of me...you have the flu...you are not dying...go home and puke there… and don’t even get me started on the lady playing chinese nursery rhymes for her totally fine child who really will have gender issues with that outfit on, over and over, and over again!  If all these idiots would go see their family Doctors or go to a walk-in clinic we wouldn’t be waiting 8 hours! Teach people the meaning of EMERGECNY!

Me:

A short time ago I had the misfortune of having to take one of our kids to the Children’s hospital after being told to go there from a clinic doctor.  I incorrectly assumed that if a Doctor told us we needed to get our kid to the hospital (and not the local one, the Children’s one) that there was a mighty good reason for it.  So super long story really short we sat there for hours upon hours with a young child who by 1:00 in the morning was not the happiest person I have been around.  Needless to say I lost my mind.  Normally I am a very patient and understanding person but after watching multiple people bring their kids into the emergency ward and using the thing as their own personal walk in clinic I lost my patience and tore a strip off the intake person.  Seriously!  The jist of it was that we were told to get there by a freaking doctor and after sitting there for five freakin hours watching the stream of kids with the sniffles and one kid with a small cut on his foot (hello, dad?  Ever heard of an effin bandaid?) go in before us, I was about to kill someone.  Needless to say I told the hospital worker lady that this was bullshit.  We got into see a doctor not long after.  (Yes, I won the asshole award that night.  Not a proud moment but it got the job done.)

I have been thinking for quite some time now that if I ran the world (or at least the medical system) I would hire a liaison for each emergency ward to assist with the intake of patients.  The title of this position would be “Reality Check Liaison” and the main focus of their job would be to tell people to go the eff home and go to the clinic tomorrow.  If I could drag the head honcho of health care to a couple of emergency wards to sit there for 7 hours and wait for service I think he might agree with me.  I would willingly apply to work a few shifts just to look at some of these stupid asshats sideways and ask them if they are really freaking serious.  I could hand out bandaids and those ridiculous kidney shaped cardboard puking trays they have in the hospital to some of these people.  “Here, have a complimentary puke tray.  Shut up and go home.  You have the flu”.

Although I am a longer winded (is that a proper term?) don’t these rants sound eerily similar?  I am thinking that I will be hiring New York to sit on the Board of Directors when I run the world.  She just gets it!

(On a super cool, happy note I would like to extend my congratulations to New York and her fella Charlie on the recent addition to their family.  Sometimes things are worth the wait and it couldn’t have happened to two better people!)

Oh What the Hell, It's Christmas!

Normally I would write this post and file it somewhere, like in my "Things that piss me off folder" but honestly, I have been chuckling at my own inner commentary so much the last few hours that I simply have to share.  I will do my best to not hurt anyone's feelings.  (I also post for those of you who will read this and provide me with their own special opinion/commentary as well.)

I came home from work today to a relative just getting in her vehicle on her way out of my house.  After the usual pleasantries she informed me that she knows I don't let the kids drink apple juice or that orange, fake, sugar filled shit they pass off as "orange juice" (my words obviously) but she got the two family of 15 size jugs from a friend and she brought them over for the kids because, "hey, its Christmas."  In order to be as polite as possible all I could say was.... um nothing.  No, I did not say "Oh that's ok.  It is Christmas after all." or  "Oh thank you so much!"  I thought it best to keep my big mouth shut for a change.  It however, did not stop the sarcastic replies from spilling forth in my head.  Here are just a few (my apologies if any of these offend):

Oh, thank you so much!  Your right, it is Christmas and what a perfect time to not give a shit about what our kids drink."

Oh, thank you!  I love it when you obviously know we (not just me) don't buy shitty sugar filled drinks for our kids but do it anyway.  Heck, its Christmas.  Time of peace, joy and disrespect!

Oh, that is so awesome!  Now we won't have to buy milk for a week!

This was some of the 'other' stuff that popped in before I had even hit the front door:

Oh, I know you don't let the kids smoke pot and drink, but heck it's Christmas!

Oh, I know you don't let the kids do heroin or prescription drugs but heck it's Christmas!

I thought I was the picture of maturity keeping this all inside.  If I put too much thought into it I may go off on a rant about respect, or disrespect in this case, or maybe just enough respect to at least ASK first or even the very least ASK why we don't buy this stuff.  No, I am not the food and drink Nazi in the family but we all make choices as a family for good reasons.  A respectful person finds out why.

(I post this also because this has made me make a solemn promise to myself to always be respectful to the future parents in my life.  I will never do what I want and disrespect my children or niece as parents.  I will always ask before I take their kids out, give them candy and let them stay up till 2 am!)

The "G Rated" Hangover

The other night the young lad went to a movie night at his school and had the pleasure of being somewhat unsupervised by his parents.  With this new found freedom I expected him to behave appropriately (which he did) and make wise choices (which he didn’t).  The hyper, twitchy ball got in the car when we picked him up and promptly informed us that he had two Pepsi’s.  In his opening argument he stated that all they had left at the concession was Cream Soda (um, yuck) or Pepsi and he really didn’t finish the second one.  I am going to chalk this one up to not parenting properly and forgetting to expressly tell him to stay away from caffeine like products and make a mental note that the kid most likely thought he had won the lottery with this one.  Alas, the boy couldn’t sleep and I am pretty sure was doing his very best not to bing off the walls in his bedroom after he was put to bed.  He did call down an hour later and informed us that he couldn’t sleep.  He got the standard answer of “read a book”.  Reply went something like this (read sentence really fast for full effect) “I read a book, played cars, coloured some stuff, read another book, played on my Ipod and I still can’t sleep.”  All I could do was chuckle.

Best part?  When he got up in the morning he looked like he was at a frat party till 3:00 a.m. all chicken hairy and eye baggy.  All I said to him was “you know why your tired?”  He replied: “I’m not drinking Pepsi again.”  Chuckled all the way to work as I predict this will be the first of many times he will use that sentence.  Just replace the “Pepsi”.