The Injury

It started with a balloon.

I bought balloons for my son and he loves to pop them with scissors.

Naturally, this seems like a safe, fun way for a 3-year-old to get his kicks before bedtime. I'm such a good mom.

So tonight we popped balloons with scissors. I know. But I had put in a full 8 hours of work and my husband was on the road, and my son had just finished a 1.5-hour tantrum because I wouldn't take him to his grandma's house. ("I WANT MY GWANDMA WOBERTS! WAAAAAA!")

I was worn down. So I blew up balloons and supervised while my son popped them with a pair of sharp-ended scissors.

At length, I announced that it was bedtime and my son dropped the scissors and we both forgot about them as I tried to chase him down and wrangle him into his pajamas. At one point he grabbed a blanket and hid under it, and I lunged for his arm. 

MISTAKE.

Mid-lunge, I slid my foot across the floor and it unfortunately met with the forgotten scissors.

It was OK for about 3 seconds. Well, not OK. Not pleasant, but not horrible yet. There was no pain. I just felt a sort of weird pre-panic sensation, that moment where the cartoon character runs off a cliff and hangs there in mid-air, looks down, and realizes they're going to fall.

Then I lifted my foot, expecting the scissors to slid out again. They didn't. They were stuck there in midair, perpendicular to my foot, and I instinctively reached down and pulled them out. I pulled a lot longer than I thought I'd have to.

THAT'S when the pain started.  I let out an unearthly howl as blood spurted out my heel. I looked down at the scissors and saw about 1/2 inch of the point covered in my blood. I never knew heels could bleed that much. My little boy looked at me with a mixture of fright and curiousity on his face. Then he wet his pants, picked up my phone, and ran off.

I had other things to deal with right then, so I plopped on the couch and howled some more, looking at my foot which was bleeding all over the carpet. I allowed that to go on for a while until there were a few nice-sized puddles of blood on the floor. Then I came to a little bit and started screaming, "JC, I STABBED MY FOOT! I STABBED MY FOOOOOOOOT!"

After a couple of minutes of carrying on,  I started to realize that I was the adult in this situation. Also, the carpet was getting pretty blood soaked so I figured I needed to move the carnage to a second location that would be easier to clean.

Still sobbing and howling, I limped to the bathroom, leaving a nice trail of blood droplets all across the floor. I sat on the edge of the tub and bellered a little more, because it HURT and also because I WAS BLEEDING ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Then my son ran in with the phone, saying, "My Mommy stab herself! She stab her in the foot!"

I heard my husband's voice on the other end, telling our son to give me the phone.

At that moment, I began to feel EXACTLY like Michael Scott in that Office episode, The Injury. Go watch it on Netflix and you'll know what I'm talking about. Season 2, Episode 12. You're welcome.

My husband said, "Honey, what happened? JC is telling me that you stabbed yourself."

"YES! I S-S-S-STABBED MY FOOT WITH A P-P-PAIR OF SEWING SCISSORS. THE SHARP ONES!"

(My Inner Michael: "I'm hurt. I have hurt myself...Oh, this is not looking good, Pam!... BLURRGH! I burned my foot, very badly, on my Foreman Grill and I now need someone to come bring me in to work!")

"Are you OK?"

"Yes. I'm fine. IT HURRRRTS! Seriously though, I'm fine."

("I'm sitting here with a bloody stump of a foot!")

"Do you need to go get stitches?"

"No! No, really, it's not THAT bad." Beller.

(Inner Michal: "Don't freak out. I forbid anybody to freak out. Clearly I have had a very serious accident, but I will recover...I just want to be treated normally.")

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, there's blood everywhere but I'm OK. S-s-s-seriously." Howl.

"I'm going to have you hang up with me and I'm going to call my parents and have them come help you."

"No, hon, don't call them. Seriously! It's fine! I'm fine. There's no need to c-c-c-call your parents! I'll be f-f-f-fine." Sob, sob, sob.

("I don't want any special treatment, Pam. I just want you to treat me like you would a family member who has undergone some sort of serious physical trauma. I don't think that's too much to ask.")

"Hang up. I'm calling them."

I sat there, trying to get all the sobbing, bellering, and howling under control because I knew that my mother-in-law would be showing up soon. Sure enough, there she was a few minutes later and I was sitting there surrounded by all these pools of blood, with JC removing his peed pants and me looking up at my sweet mother-in-law with my very scary-looking, red-eyed, mascara-stained face.

("Help! Help! ...I fell off the toilet. I'm stuck between the toilet and the wall. Get Pam. Get Ryan. He needs to lift me, and he needs to clean me up a little bit. Bring a wet towel.")

It was not pretty. My foot was really starting to hurt after having its flesh separated by 1/2 inch of cold hard titanium. Also, my house was is a holy wreck and that was embarrassing. But my MIL suggested Oxy-Clean for the blood stains everywhere and I went to work on that while she whisked a traumatized JC into his bedroom for story time.

In case you should doubt:

The weapon.

 The wound, after being cleaned up.

Eventually we got everything under control. I began to realize that my wound wasn't as bad as it looked and felt. I started to think that maybe, just maybe, I could be a drama queen. I drenched it in hydrogen peroxide and applied a band-aid.

My MIL was a lifesaver, getting JC into his pajamas, listening to him tell the story of my stabbing approximately 10,000 times, and reading him stories while I scrubbed blood out of the floor, and wallowed in self-pity.

I'm afraid to think what will happen when I have an actual injury.

Joke's On Me

Yesterday my husband played a practical joke on me. The thing he knows about me is, I'm gullible.

 I'm talking GULLIBLE. You guys, when I was about 12 my parents told me that all pasta is made from different sizes of dehydrated cow veins. They said that macaroni came from the bigger blood vessels and spaghetti was the little blood vessels and that the hole in the middle was just so small you couldn't see it. AND I BELIEVED THEM. UNTIL I WAS 17 YEARS OLD.

 I'm so gullible that when the movie Mulan came out, my mom told me that there was a race of people in Asia that have yellow slit eyes, like the villain, Shan-Yu. I THOUGHT IT WAS REAL and I spent, like, the next YEAR of my life watching out for people from this slitted, yellow-eyed race of Asians.

I know this is a character flaw of mine, but I can't help it. You would think after 27 years on this earth, I'd have figured a few things out. Nope. My husband exploits this to his full advantage. The thing is, he botched his joke and I STILL fell for it. Yes.

I have problems.

So what happened was, I got a text message from Josh (my husband) yesterday while I was getting ready for work:

Josh: U need to call this number, 704-319-7251, they've called me twice trying to get U. Not sure who it is but it sounds important. Let me know.

That didn't bug me too bad. I got a new phone number not too long ago and people (who are not with-it enough to keep up with my new phone numbers) call various family members trying to reach me (Get with the program, people!).

So I call the number and I hear a bunch of horoscope stuff. I get very, very confused when I'm confronted with horoscopes. I can't understand the point of them. Just the concept of horoscopes, to me, sounds bat-poo crazy. I'm not even sure what sign I am. So when I heard the pre-recorded voice on the other line saying something about an odor from Uranus (what? If I were a horoscope writer, I wouldn't phrase things like that. People might think they're hearing something offensive. Take note, horoscope writers.) I hung up the phone, figuring that there was a mix-up somewhere. So I texted Josh back and told him I thought it was a prank. Then he responded:

I actually gave u the wrong number. I mistyped it. The number is 704-319-7242.

So I called it. And then STUFF WENT DOWN. I heard this:

"Hello, the following is an urgent message from the National Justice Center. If you are hearing this message it mean that our records indicate that you failed to appear for jury duty last Monday morning at 9:00 am. Multiple notifications of your jury summons were sent to you both by the US Postal Service, as well as electronically to the email address we have on file for you. Unfortunately ignoring these notifications and failing to appear in court for jury duty is a Class 3 Misdemeanor. To  ake arrangements to pay the 500 fine for failure to appear for jury duty, press 2. To make arrangements to begin serving the 30 day jail sentence for failure to appear for jury duty, press 3."
 
At that point, I hung up. There was more to the message, and the automated voice was still talking, but I could not process it. I was FREAKING out. It was like having an out-of-body experience. All the sounds around me seemed muffled. I was starting to feel the effects of adrenaline and I started to cry. As soon as I heard the words "failed to appear for jury duty" I knew that all my worst nightmares had finally come true. It's happening, I thought. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?! I'M GOING TO JAIL!!

Josh, unwittingly, had stumbled upon one of my worst fears. First of all, I've made it almost 10 years as an adult without getting a jury summons, so a situation in which I get one and don't know it, seems extremely believable. Second, I watch Lockup:Raw, and Locked Up Abroad, guys. I know that jail is not a place I want to be. I still have nightmares about getting arrested for a crime I didn't know that I committed. I dream up all kinds of scenarios in my head, ESPECIALLY when I get pulled over by a cop. I'm always thinking, "When they run my license what if they find an unpaid ticket or something and I GO TO JAIL?"

Don't ask me why I am scared of this. I've paid all 2 of my speeding tickets, I've paid for the 1 parking ticket I've ever gotten, and I never agreed to carry a stranger's bag across the borders of anywhere, anytime. Through diligent reality-TV watching, I've determined that unpaid tickets and smuggling account for 95% of all jailed criminals. The other 5% are serial killers that try to entrap you by playing recordings of babies outside your door.

I called Josh back, sobbing, and said, "JOSH, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THOSE PEOPLE WANTED? THEY ARE SAYING I DIDN'T APPEAR FOR JURY DUTY!" Seriously, I was hysterical.


Josh said, "Hon, did you listen to the whole message?"

"NO, I HUNG UP BEFORE IT FINISHED. I DIDN'T KNOW I HAD JURY DUTY, JOSH. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO. I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING TO ME."

Josh said, "Hon-"

"I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT JURY DUTY, I PROMISE, AND NOW THEY'RE SAYING THAT I'M A F-F-F-FELON!!"

"Hon, calm down. It's a pra-"

That didn't even register. "I'M GOING TO J-J-J-JAAAAILLLL!" I was wailing.

"Oh sweetie, don't cry, it's not real."

It was starting to dawn on me then. "What?"

"It was a prank phone line. I thought it would be funny to have you call it. I didn't know you wouldn't listen to the whole thing! If you had, you would've known it was just a joke!"

Me: "I'm not going to jail?"

Josh: "No, hon, you're not going to jail."

"You're a jerk."

"Hon, I'm sorry! I didn't know it would make you CRY. You were supposed to listed to the whole message."

"You're making this up to me."

I finally felt relief but it took a full 15 minutes for me to stop crying.

My husband has no IDEA the things I'm making him do for me to compensate for this horrible, horrible prank. It involves a spa day, a shopping spree, and him making me dinner for approximately the next 5,000 years.

Texts With My Brother

Messing with people through text messages is one of my favorite things to do. It's like an unexpected little nugget of fun and you just have to grab the opportunity when it comes. One such opportunity was yesterday when I texted my unsuspecting 18-year-old brother, Carson. I found out that his high school wrestling team, minus Carson, had all come down with impetigo. Of course, I had to razz him about it. What I didn't know was that Carson doesn't have my number programmed into his cell phone...so he had no clue who I was. Great times ensued. (All punctuation and spelling errors were on purpose in keeping with the fictional character I had created to mess with my brother.)

Here is our conversation:


Me: Don't get impetigo!

Carson: Who is this?

(At this point I realize that he has no clue who I am... and the fun begins.)

Me: The name's Petigo. M. Petigo.

Carson: Ha ha good joke.

Me: Just kidding I'm Trisha from marsh valley. Maybe u don't remember me I come to all your wrestling meets and I stole your number from your coaches phone. I hope u don't mind. U are a really good wrestler I think u are sooo talented. I'll be at your next match and I'll be wearing a hot pink scrunchie and maroon leggings and my pirate shirt. I'm making a pirate shirt for you too I am making it in my home ec class it is going to have your name on it. I would have had it done already but my pet ferret came and scratched me while I was sewing it and it got some blood and some ferret hair on it so I had to start over

Carson: OK I don't believe any of this but whatever.

Me: You don't believe me?!?! Well wait you will see me at your next meet, I have a schedule and I keep it in my locker and I know when all your meets are and I come to them allllll

Carson: Now I really don't believe you

Me: Is it cuz you have impetigo? Cuz I don't care about that. I have beat impetigo quite a few times too.

Carson: I think this is Adam (one of Carson's friends)

Me: No its Trisha from MV!

Carson: No

Me: Is it cuz I told you about the ferret? Because I'm willing to get rid of Walter if u don't like ferrets
 Here is a pic of Walter he looks mean but he's not. He was just mad about the bunny ears.
 (Then I Googled for photos of ugly ferrets and sent him this:)

Carson: Wow ferrets don't live in idaho mr. liar

Me: It's a house ferret
Then I thought I'd send him a photo of "myself" to make it a little more believable, since he wasn't buying it yet. Another Google search turned up this, the famous possessive girlfriend:

Me: Here's a pic of me too. Behind me is my picture wall of you at all your wrestling meets

Carson: I will believe this whole fabrication when I see it
Then a little later:

Carson: OK if you worship me so much what do I do after my matches?
I couldn't think of a good answer since I am not able to go to very many of Carson's meets, so I quickly texted my mom and asked her. He thought me had me for a minute, but...

Carson: Ya I thought so...

Me: The ref hold up your arm and then you shake hands with the other wrestler then u put on your cowboy boots and sometimes you go to Big J's.
This is where he starts to freak out, I think, just a little bit. He knows he's being messed with but he can't figure out who it is.

Carson: Ha ha You know you're supposed to go to bed on a school night

Me: I'm homeschooled so I can go to bed when I want. Am I keeping you up? Sorry I know u need your sleep so you can save your energy for the ring

Me again: I don't sleep much as night because Walter keeps me up all the time. He always pees my bed too so I sleep on my couch.    

Carson: Ha ha ha got ya you said you have a locker with a westside schedule in it well home schooled kids don't have a locker.
Oops. Well played, Carson. But I wasn't willing to give up quite yet.

Me: My locker at HOME. Just cuz I'm homeschooled doesn't mean I'm not like everyone else! I keep my valuables in the locker to protect them from Walter! He has eaten or peed on everything I own.

Carson: Dirty liar... Only boys text like this

Me: Wrong I'm a girl. My name is Trisha, remember?

Carson: And yes, you are interfering with my slumber

Me: Sorry oh no I'm so sorry I feel like the worst person ever. Well good night sweet dreams my wrestler and sleep well and remember, Trisha from Marsh Valley is dreaming of u.

I left him alone for the night but I picked back up the next morning:

Me: Hi

Carson: Leave me alone

Me: I can't leave you alone, you're too precious

Carson: Dude i have a girlfriend

Me: WHO IS SHE!!!!!!???????!!!!???!?!?!?!?!!!!

Carson: From preston

Me: NOOOO! SHE WILL NEVER LOVE YOU AS MUCH AS I DO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then Carson calls me, his buddies laughing in the background, trying to find out who the heck is messing with him. I answered, thinking I would still pretend to be Trisha, but I am really bad at keeping cool during real life situations. So I said Hello and immediately burst into laughter. Carson STILL didn't know who I was, though. Seriously. His OWN SISTER. Between bursts of laughter I finally told him that it was me. Then I told him to program my number into his phone already. Because when it comes to me and texting, leaving my number off your phone is pretty much the worst (or best?) thing anyone can do! I suspect that someday all my chickens are going to come home to roost and I will wish I hadn't messed with all these people via text message, but for now it's just way too much fun to stop.

Top ten signs you might be in a Walmart bathroom

Recently I had occasion to go shopping at Walmart, which is something I generally try to avoid. This can be challenging, though, since out of all the businesses in Logan, 75% are either motorsports or small engine shops, 5% are in the mall and the other 25% are Walmart stores. I realize that  adds up to 105% but that's how we roll in Cache Valley.

Even though I do sometimes violate my own rule to not set foot in Walfart, it is rare that I am desperate enough to go within 40 feet of the bathrooms in that place. Unfortunately, I had a personal emergency that forced me into one recently. I won't go into details. Let's just say that since I had my baby, sneezing has never been quite the same for me.

Anyway. I was thinking how the state of grossness in Heckmart's bathrooms is virtually the same every single time I go in there.  So, in case you get confused in a Walbarf store and wonder whether you are in the bathroom or have died and gone to The Other Place (I call it Heck), here are some helpful hints to remind you that you're in the bathroom:

(If you get grossed out easily then this post is not for you. And maybe this whole blog, because I talk about bodily functions a lot here)

1. The floor is somehow strewn with toilet paper and paper towels, even though you have just seen the janitor walk out as you were going in.

2. You spot more than one person walking from their stall to the exit without washing their hands.

3. Someone is barefoot.

4. Someone is changing into their prom dress or wedding gown.

5. There are at least 4 dirty diapers on the floor. One of them is probably unrolled.

6. Someone is either in labor or giving birth.

7. None of the toilets have been flushed.

8. All the toilet seats have some sort of liquid on them. One of the liquids is always unidentifiable.

9. There is poop somewhere other than the toilet bowl.

10. -Maybe the grossest of all- Someone's half eaten lunch on the floor of the handicap stall.

If you are in Logan and you really have to go to the bathroom, I suggest the following businesses whose bathrooms are usually bearable: Chick-fil-A, Olive Garden, Aggy's, ... and that's it.

Although any other bathroom would be better than Walwart's.

What if this post is all a dream?

Today I had occasion to be a little bit nervous. I may share sometime soon what made me so nervous but for now suffice it to say that today I was nervous. By nature, I am a nervous person. I get nervous about a lot of things, but the major causes of anxiety for me is caused by one of the following reasons:

Hearing the phone ring
Speaking in public
Singing in public
Going to the doctor (where I am always convinced that I am about to be diagnosed with a terminal illness)
Going to the dentist (where I am always convinced that they are going to have to pull all my teeth)
Driving
Seeing a cop on patrol while driving
Strange men
Weapons
Strange men with weapons (We live in hunting territory where this is not uncommon)
Noises outside my tent while camping
The first night after I've heard a ghost story, no matter how un-scary, lame, or ridiculous
Going to the DMV

...I think that about sums it up. Yeah, I'm a nervous person.

My nerves present themselves in some very interesting ways. For example, every time I go to the dentist, my body starts to shake uncontrollably. A couple years ago when I had my driver's license renewed, I got so nervous that I had to make a sudden trip to the restroom and I was in there so long that my test timed out and they had to reset it. I won't say what was going on in the bathroom, except that it was a natural bodily function that happens to people all the time. I aced that driving test, by the way.

When I have an important meeting to go to, my mind makes up ridiculous scenarios that could prevent me from making it to the meeting--scenarios that could never, ever, in a million years ever happen. I had a meeting today. It was fairly close to home at a place I have driven by about a million times, and I left in plenty of time to get there and even was able to run a few errands first. My outfit was washed and crisp and my car had plenty of gas in it. And yet my mind kept thinking things like this:

 "What if those headlights 3 miles behind me are actually the flashing lights of a cop who is trying to pull me over and just can't get to me fast enough?" (It wasn't)

"What I'm part of one of those 3-car traffic stops that cops make and I don't know it and I keep going and I don't notice the cops and I get arrested for fleeing?" (I didn't)

"The place of my meeting is coming up soon. I think it's right after this intersection. Oh, no! It's not! What if it got sucked up by an extra-dimensional energy field?" (It didn't)

"What if they moved since three days ago and didn't tell me? Oh, never mind, it's right there." (Yup.)

"I need to go to the bathroom really bad." (Hold it. No way I am asking to use their bathroom. This is due to another serious phobia I have of public restrooms. It all goes back to a very bad experience I had once in an outhouse in Ukraine.)

"What if I suddenly forget all knowledge of traffic laws and make an improper left turn?" (I have actually come close to doing this before.)

"What if I am mistaken for a criminal, pulled over, and arrested?" (Nope.)

"What if it switched to daylight savings and nobody told me and I'm an hour late?" (No.)

"What if this is all a dream?" (Sadly, no.)

"What if this whole day has been a dream and I'm just now waking up?" (Still no.)

Yeah. I have issues. But! My mystery meeting went great, I got the desired outcome that I went for, and I made my way home without even thinking about getting pulled over. Well, maybe I did have just one obsessive thought about law enforcement. I know, I have way too many cop issues, but that is because of a few very ill-advised strategies that I employed once to try to get out of a speeding ticket. Words of wisdom: When trying to get out of a ticket, do not tell a police officer that he is any of the following:

a) stupid
b) inexperienced
c) prejudiced
d) pulling people over for fun
e) lying

Yeah.

Please don't be like me.

New Years Resolution

Every new year I make some sort of unofficial resolution and almost every year it involves working out more and eating healthier. Last year my resolution was to get my Etsy shop off the ground and it seems like that panned out pretty well. This year I want to try to focus on losing some of the 25+ pounds of baby weight that has been extremely stubborn and doesn't want to come off. I don't want to be skinny, I just want my waist back.

I decided that I should get up and do my exercises early in the morning so that it will be done and over with and I can get on with my day. Also, I was hoping to be able to get it done before my toddler wakes up, because working out with kids underfoot is about 1000 times harder.

It turned out to be an ill-fated attempt. Here's how it went this morning:

6:00-6:45 am: Woke up. Spent 45 minutes convincing myself to get out of bed.

6:45-6:50 am: Brush teeth, drink a glass of water in an attempt to get the morning breath taste out of my mouth. I cannot STAND panting and breathing hard and knowing that my breath smells like sheep guts that have been dead for a week. Am I the only one?

6:50-7:05 am: My todder wakes up. Usually he sleeps a little later. But, like a bear's instinct that tells it to come out of hibernation, my kid always knows when I'm about to work out.  I get him out of bed, change his soggy diaper, get him milk, after which he is still not happy so I decide to fix him breakfast. I get him settled in to his breakfast and start my 45 minute Zumba game on the Xbox 360.

7:05-7:20 am: Things are going pretty well up to this point. I was doing my workout and JC was behaving relatively well. Mostly he stood in front of me and stared at me. I don't blame him. Imagine a retarded manatee performing sexy Latin dance moves and that's basically what I look like. I know that I am a horrible dancer, that I have no rhythm, and that I have no business trying to, but that problem is outweighed by the far worse problem that I just find exercise and sports to be horrendously boring. Zumba is basically the only thing that doesn't have me crying/almost falling asleep/quitting early/making up stupid poems in my head to pass the time.

7:20-7:25 am: JC wants me to pick him up and dance with him. I sense that things are about to go wrong if I don't do something quick, so I send him in to the bedroom to play with my husband, who is still in bed asleep.  I know he won't mind being awoken from his blissful slumber by a screaming 2-year-old.

7:25-7:45 am: I hear my husband yell for me to come quick. I ignore it at first, hoping that he will be able to take care of whatever mini-emergency it is. Then he yells again and tells me to hurry and bring a wet washcloth. Maybe my husband is calling me for a good reason after all. I run into the bedroom and see my son sitting on the bed with my husband, blood drips all over the sheets. JC had cut a gouge in his foot somehow. We still can't figure out HOW in the world it happened but it looked pretty gross at first. I thought it might need stitches but in the end it turned out to be minor. I try to ask JC how he got his owie but he either can't or won't explain. He's more interested in ripping off his band-aid than telling me what he was doing when he hurt his foot. I go get him some socks and some more food to take his mind off the band-aid.

7:45-8:10 am: I go back to the workout but this time it is worse. Now that Josh is up I have an audience for my retarded manatee dance moves and so I try even harder to make my hips move to the beat which results in me mangling the choreography even more than usual. Basically for the next 20 minutes I just do a blend of random hip gyrations and elements of the macarena. JC really, really wants me to dance him and when I won't, he throws himself under my feet kicking and screaming. I ignore it and drag him out of the way. My husband tries to distract him while I finish my workout.

I was proud that I actually made it through but then I thought to all the times last year that I tried to work out and I remembered why I wasn't very consistent. Ever heard that saying, "Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree"? Yeah. That is what working out with a 2-year-old is like. Nailing Jell-O to a tree.

It will be a New Year's Miracle if I make it through this week doing a 45-minute workout every day, let alone the whole year.

So if anyone figures out a magic way to get a kid to be happy for 45 minutes without being entertained by me, needing food, medical care, or discipline, let me know.

After Christmas Sale!

This one is for you after Christmas shoppers who like to go out and snag those great deals. I'm having a sale in my Etsy shop this week. All my Christmas digital scrapbooking items are now 50% off. They are normally $6 each so you can now get them for $3. Once they're sold, though, they're gone and I won't be relisting them until next year. So that means you need to hurry and jump on this deal! Perfect if you have lots of Christmas pictures to scrapbook!

Check it out here.