Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Summer has gone to the dogs
I've been wanting to get our Lab Pumpkin a pool and still do, but have decided that allowing my hubby to see this video is probably not a good idea until said pool is purchased......
Monday, December 27, 2010
Silence of the Lambs
Sooooo I haven't been posting on this blog nearly as often as I had intended originally; life has gotten in the way and it seems when I'm inspired I'm nowhere near pen and paper (much less a keyboard). In the interest of attempting to entertain my one sole subscriber (Thanks for hanging in there Tara!) I am committing to posting at least once a week (ideally 3-4 times a week but hey, I know myself better than that heehee).
So as to the name of this particular post............
I work in the recovery room at my hospital and we receive patients of all ages after their surgeries--often they are young children who have had things such as tonsillectomies, etc performed. To help comfort the children, they are allowed to have special toys/blankets/etc. accompany them through their procedures.
This morning I received a young girl after surgery and the nurse/CRNA who accompanied her from the OR was giving me report which included the personal belongings that were with the patient. She had a blanket and a stuffed animal, which I was informed was named "Clarice." I really didn't look hard at the type of stuffed animal as I was busy hooking up monitors and assessing the patient, but hearing the name 'Clarice' triggered something in my mind----and I leaned over and addressed the stuffed animal "Hello Clarice" in my best make-the-hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-standup voice (aka Hannibel Lector). Just in case you're worried, the little girl was not yet awake so, no I did not scare her (although I think I would have been more scared if she had reacted to that particular phrase--I sure hope adults wouldn't let young children watch something that frightening). The CRNA immediately picked up on what I was saying and started laughing and said "I don't think that's the Clarice she named her after." I laughed and agreed and went on about my business.
It wasn't until I had got my charting done and was ready to unhook the patient for transfer back to her parents in Day Surgery that I got a really good look at 'Clarice' and then it hit me--Clarice was Rudolph's girlfriend! Now, in case you have not watched holiday TV in the last, say 30-40 years, every year there is an animated (of sorts) show broadcast of 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.' In it there are key players known to most American children--Rudolph of course, Santa (voiced over by Burl Ives), the other reindeer (I'm not even going to try to recall them all here), and then there is the abominal snowman which used to terrify me something fierce when I was a little girl--and then there is Clarice--a doe who thinks Rudolph's red nose is quite adorable and becomes his sweetheart. This little girl's Clarice fit the bill with long eyelashes, etc.
So I am now left trying to figure out what it says about my psyche that when I hear the name 'Clarice' given to a stuffed animal (at Christmas time and said animal is a reindeer no less) that instead of a classic children's show I think instead of Hannibel Lector and "Silence of the Lambs." Hmmmmm. I have a sudden craving for organ meat for dinner now.................
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Ten Rules for Being Human
I do not know the author of this to give credit where due, but I think it will resonate with the reader.
Ten Rules for Being Human
1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period of your life.
2. You will learn life lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school, you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons, or think them irrelevant or stupid.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial-and-error experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works."
4. A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is no better than "here." When your "there" has become a "here," you will simply obtain another "there" that will, again, look better than "here."
7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie inside you. The answers to life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, trust.
10. You will forget all this.
Big Fish (Lost in Translation Part Deux)
(I first published this on Sept 16, 2007)
Well folks, had another migraine today and having recovered, decided to sit down and blog a bit. I wondered for a minute if there was a correlation between my migraines and blogging, but I have been thinking about blogging for a week or so and haven't had the chance to sit down and do it until today. I mean, I'm not some creative genius who is fueled/driven by inner demons--Vincent van Gogh comes to mind for some reason today (oh yeah, I'm just like some Dutch post-impressionist artist whose works have been stolen, studied, copied and hang in some of the great museums of the world) . Old Vince came to mind because I had a headache and I recalled that he supposedly cut off one of his ears and I thought I had read that one theory was that he suffered from tinnitus. Being the anal fool that I am, I had to Google him whilst writing this to find out about him cutting off his ear and now I'm a bit disturbed by what I've read--he cut off part of his left ear due to a mental breakdown but that's not what's bothering me. Another source (The Vincent van Gogh Gallery) discusses his mental and physical diagnoses in detail and the possible reasons why i.e., lead poisoning, bipolar disorder, absinthe drinking (a toxic alcoholic drink of the time), temporal lobe epilepsy and even sunstroke. None of this is getting my goat. HOWEVER--the article discusses a condition called hypergraphia. "A condition causing one to need to write continuously; this disorder is commonly linked to mania and epilepsy. Some believe that the massive collection of over 800 letters van Gogh wrote during his lifetime could be attributed to this condition." Well thanks a lot Google. Like I don't have enough to worry about what with Iraq, the upcoming presidential elections, global warming, gas prices, if Lindsey Lohan has underwear on today and will go to jail and read the Bible and get religion like Paris did and what I'm wearing to work tomorrow. I should have learned my lesson on Googling things before but I'm hard headed obviously.
Anyhow, to the subject at hand. My hearing problem has not gone away (but I'm not cutting off my ear). Several weeks ago I was at work and had a patient who had a problem with severe hypotension. This was when we had that big storm blow through town and the power went out momentarily at the hospital. The outage messed up some of the motors on the beds and this patient's bed happened to be one of them and she needed to be transferred to another bed. So we get another bed brought to the floor so she can be transferred onto it.
Well, I've got another nurse and one of NAs helping me get her scooted over onto the new bed. As we're all assisting her I ask her if she's feeling okay as even sitting up can make her feel like she's going to pass out. She says "Yes, but I feel drunk," to which I respond (joking), "No honey, you're not drunk, you're just a little inebriated." I had many a little old lady like this in the past who when feeling dizzy/vertiginous/presyncopal tell me that she felt "drunk," and this lady had felt all of these symptoms at some point or another. Can I tell you that the other nurse and the NA stopped in their tracks and stared at me when I said this? When they finally picked their jaws up off the floor, one of them said, "Suzanne, she didn't say she was drunk." "She said, 'Yes but I need to grunt'," referring to the effort it took to scoot from bed to bed. Thank God the patient liked me. My coworkers were all too happy to tell everybody how I went around calling my patients a drunk.
So then I'm at breakfast with a friend another time and we're sitting there talking and I ask her a rather obvious question to which she replies, "Is the Pope Catholic?" Then she asks, "Does a horse sweat in church?" Well, gee, I guess if the horse was a claustrophobic Clydesdale and the church was a really small chapel and the relative humidty was really high that day..... What? Does a whore sweat in church? Oh.
So I bet you're wondering what van Gogh, little old ladies and Clydesdales have to do with big fish? Nothing really, but hypergraphia or not this is my blog and if I want to meander all over the place to get from point A to point B I can. But if it's a fish story you came for.....
When I graduated from medical assisting school my first job was working for Dr. Meyer in his office, just me, another medical assistant Debbie and Hazel, the secretary along with Dr. M. at the time this happened. One night John, our son Jason (who was in grade school at the time) and myself went to dinner at Captain Bob's seafood restaurant on Berkely (where Neptune's is now). We get there and I order the same thing I always get-broiled flounder. First bite of the flounder and guess what happens-I get a fish bone stuck in my throat. I start gagging, try eating hushpuppies, drinking copious amounts of tea and nothing is making this stupid bone budge, and I'm gagging with everything I try. So we decide to box up everything and leave to try to do something about the bone in my throat. I get out to our vehicle first while John is paying and turn on the dome light and attempt to dislodge the bone myself with a plastic fork (not a smart move, I know, but I was desperate). No luck, but at least I can see that the problem is that the bone is not that big but it is lodged crosswise and stuck into my uvula (that dangly thing that hangs down from the soft palate near the back of the throat), and my uvula has swollen from the irritation. Great.
So John and Jason come out to the car and we're trying to figure out what to do. Decide to go the base ER which is not an ER anymore and see if they will give me something so I can get this out myself. Go over there (gagging all the while) and they say no way, don't want the liability. Gagging is getting worse and becoming gagging/retching at this point but I have an airway, so I'll be danged if I'm going to the WMH ER which is what the base suggests. Too embarrassed. Not going over there for a stupid fishbone. Like I said, I still have a patent airway. Just can't talk much for the gagging/retching going on. My throat really hurts too.
So John decides that since I"m refusing to go to the ER that he's going to drive over to Dr. Meyer's house and see if he's home. By golly, he is, and so are a bunch of other people because guess what, they're entertaining and getting ready to play cards or something. So John goes to the door and tells Dr. M. what's going on and comes back out to get me and have me come in. Dr. M. has his bag in the house and he's sure he's got something in there that he can use to get the bone out and fix me right up. So gagging and retching I go in and Dr. M. being his happy self is introducing me to his guests who are speaking to me with the introductions and all I can do is wave hello, shake hands and gag and retch in response. Well, Dr. Meyer's bag of tricks failed to yield anything that worked, so off to the office all of us go.
Finally, in the office a looong pair of curved forceps plucked the bone right out and all was right with the world again. Dr. Meyer was back to his house and guests and I was home to gargle with salt water. End of story, right?
The next work day I'm at the office along with Debbie and Hazel and Debbie is going down the exam rooms turning on the lights. She comes out of one of them holding the forceps with a puzzled look on her face. "Dr. Meyer wasn't on call this weekend, and I know these weren't there when we left on Friday!" She wouldn't leave it alone so I fessed up that he had to use them on me but wouldn't say what for. Not so smart because Debbie used to work in an OB/GYN office and since I wasn't talking she thought he used them for another purpose and when she told me what I immediately had to come clean on what he actually did with them. Well she and Hazel thought this was hilarious and Hazel went around making fish faces at me for the better part of the week. End of story? Noooo.....
Fast forward a couple of months. We're back at Captain Bob's, this time with our neighbor Brenda and her son Steven who was in school with Jason. Friday night, noisy as all get out in there and have to raise our voices to hear each other. Waitress comes to take our order and when she gets to Steven he orders broiled flounder. In one of those moments when everyone around suddenly gets quiet, Jason pops out as loud as can be: "Be careful Steven, that's the same fish my mom was eating when she got a bone stuck in her UTERUS."
There is evidently a familial trait going on here. I'm so sorry Jason. I think I'll paint some sunflowers now.
B
Well folks, had another migraine today and having recovered, decided to sit down and blog a bit. I wondered for a minute if there was a correlation between my migraines and blogging, but I have been thinking about blogging for a week or so and haven't had the chance to sit down and do it until today. I mean, I'm not some creative genius who is fueled/driven by inner demons--Vincent van Gogh comes to mind for some reason today (oh yeah, I'm just like some Dutch post-impressionist artist whose works have been stolen, studied, copied and hang in some of the great museums of the world) . Old Vince came to mind because I had a headache and I recalled that he supposedly cut off one of his ears and I thought I had read that one theory was that he suffered from tinnitus. Being the anal fool that I am, I had to Google him whilst writing this to find out about him cutting off his ear and now I'm a bit disturbed by what I've read--he cut off part of his left ear due to a mental breakdown but that's not what's bothering me. Another source (The Vincent van Gogh Gallery) discusses his mental and physical diagnoses in detail and the possible reasons why i.e., lead poisoning, bipolar disorder, absinthe drinking (a toxic alcoholic drink of the time), temporal lobe epilepsy and even sunstroke. None of this is getting my goat. HOWEVER--the article discusses a condition called hypergraphia. "A condition causing one to need to write continuously; this disorder is commonly linked to mania and epilepsy. Some believe that the massive collection of over 800 letters van Gogh wrote during his lifetime could be attributed to this condition." Well thanks a lot Google. Like I don't have enough to worry about what with Iraq, the upcoming presidential elections, global warming, gas prices, if Lindsey Lohan has underwear on today and will go to jail and read the Bible and get religion like Paris did and what I'm wearing to work tomorrow. I should have learned my lesson on Googling things before but I'm hard headed obviously.
Anyhow, to the subject at hand. My hearing problem has not gone away (but I'm not cutting off my ear). Several weeks ago I was at work and had a patient who had a problem with severe hypotension. This was when we had that big storm blow through town and the power went out momentarily at the hospital. The outage messed up some of the motors on the beds and this patient's bed happened to be one of them and she needed to be transferred to another bed. So we get another bed brought to the floor so she can be transferred onto it.
Well, I've got another nurse and one of NAs helping me get her scooted over onto the new bed. As we're all assisting her I ask her if she's feeling okay as even sitting up can make her feel like she's going to pass out. She says "Yes, but I feel drunk," to which I respond (joking), "No honey, you're not drunk, you're just a little inebriated." I had many a little old lady like this in the past who when feeling dizzy/vertiginous/presyncopal tell me that she felt "drunk," and this lady had felt all of these symptoms at some point or another. Can I tell you that the other nurse and the NA stopped in their tracks and stared at me when I said this? When they finally picked their jaws up off the floor, one of them said, "Suzanne, she didn't say she was drunk." "She said, 'Yes but I need to grunt'," referring to the effort it took to scoot from bed to bed. Thank God the patient liked me. My coworkers were all too happy to tell everybody how I went around calling my patients a drunk.
So then I'm at breakfast with a friend another time and we're sitting there talking and I ask her a rather obvious question to which she replies, "Is the Pope Catholic?" Then she asks, "Does a horse sweat in church?" Well, gee, I guess if the horse was a claustrophobic Clydesdale and the church was a really small chapel and the relative humidty was really high that day..... What? Does a whore sweat in church? Oh.
So I bet you're wondering what van Gogh, little old ladies and Clydesdales have to do with big fish? Nothing really, but hypergraphia or not this is my blog and if I want to meander all over the place to get from point A to point B I can. But if it's a fish story you came for.....
When I graduated from medical assisting school my first job was working for Dr. Meyer in his office, just me, another medical assistant Debbie and Hazel, the secretary along with Dr. M. at the time this happened. One night John, our son Jason (who was in grade school at the time) and myself went to dinner at Captain Bob's seafood restaurant on Berkely (where Neptune's is now). We get there and I order the same thing I always get-broiled flounder. First bite of the flounder and guess what happens-I get a fish bone stuck in my throat. I start gagging, try eating hushpuppies, drinking copious amounts of tea and nothing is making this stupid bone budge, and I'm gagging with everything I try. So we decide to box up everything and leave to try to do something about the bone in my throat. I get out to our vehicle first while John is paying and turn on the dome light and attempt to dislodge the bone myself with a plastic fork (not a smart move, I know, but I was desperate). No luck, but at least I can see that the problem is that the bone is not that big but it is lodged crosswise and stuck into my uvula (that dangly thing that hangs down from the soft palate near the back of the throat), and my uvula has swollen from the irritation. Great.
So John and Jason come out to the car and we're trying to figure out what to do. Decide to go the base ER which is not an ER anymore and see if they will give me something so I can get this out myself. Go over there (gagging all the while) and they say no way, don't want the liability. Gagging is getting worse and becoming gagging/retching at this point but I have an airway, so I'll be danged if I'm going to the WMH ER which is what the base suggests. Too embarrassed. Not going over there for a stupid fishbone. Like I said, I still have a patent airway. Just can't talk much for the gagging/retching going on. My throat really hurts too.
So John decides that since I"m refusing to go to the ER that he's going to drive over to Dr. Meyer's house and see if he's home. By golly, he is, and so are a bunch of other people because guess what, they're entertaining and getting ready to play cards or something. So John goes to the door and tells Dr. M. what's going on and comes back out to get me and have me come in. Dr. M. has his bag in the house and he's sure he's got something in there that he can use to get the bone out and fix me right up. So gagging and retching I go in and Dr. M. being his happy self is introducing me to his guests who are speaking to me with the introductions and all I can do is wave hello, shake hands and gag and retch in response. Well, Dr. Meyer's bag of tricks failed to yield anything that worked, so off to the office all of us go.
Finally, in the office a looong pair of curved forceps plucked the bone right out and all was right with the world again. Dr. Meyer was back to his house and guests and I was home to gargle with salt water. End of story, right?
The next work day I'm at the office along with Debbie and Hazel and Debbie is going down the exam rooms turning on the lights. She comes out of one of them holding the forceps with a puzzled look on her face. "Dr. Meyer wasn't on call this weekend, and I know these weren't there when we left on Friday!" She wouldn't leave it alone so I fessed up that he had to use them on me but wouldn't say what for. Not so smart because Debbie used to work in an OB/GYN office and since I wasn't talking she thought he used them for another purpose and when she told me what I immediately had to come clean on what he actually did with them. Well she and Hazel thought this was hilarious and Hazel went around making fish faces at me for the better part of the week. End of story? Noooo.....
Fast forward a couple of months. We're back at Captain Bob's, this time with our neighbor Brenda and her son Steven who was in school with Jason. Friday night, noisy as all get out in there and have to raise our voices to hear each other. Waitress comes to take our order and when she gets to Steven he orders broiled flounder. In one of those moments when everyone around suddenly gets quiet, Jason pops out as loud as can be: "Be careful Steven, that's the same fish my mom was eating when she got a bone stuck in her UTERUS."
There is evidently a familial trait going on here. I'm so sorry Jason. I think I'll paint some sunflowers now.
B
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Lost in Translation
I admit it. It's me. Moi. Can't blame it on southern accents--happened waaay before moving to NC. Can't blame it on a minor concussion--happened waaay before that too. Can't even blame it on my hearing---started happening fairly young before I was listening to music at ear-splitting decibels, but hey, Led Zepplin is not meant to be played softly.
What am I talking about? I have a few talents, none of which are appropriate for either listing on a resume' or would win me a major amount of money on a reality TV show (at least not yet). One of these talents it seems is hearing something someone says and making something entirely different out of it. I finally decided to publicly admit this after what happened at work one night.
I was sitting at the nurse's station doing my documentation on the computer and the secretary, Nancy, was talking to some others at the desk. I kept hearing the word 'annihilator' being thrown around which I thought was odd, but I was trying to get my work done so I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. Eventually Nancy approached me and asked me if I would like an 'annihilator.' Of course I asked "What the hoo-haw is an annihilator?" Well, she extends her hand and there is a small purple square in it, with a piece of candy better know as a "Now and Later." Okey dokey.
Still not convinced I have a problem? May I present Exhibit B, better known as Mr. P., my chemistry instructor at WCC. Good old Mr. P. was from Nigeria, and had not been in the US of A very long so had a pretty thick accent. I was working full time at the hospital doing transcription at the time and taking my prereqs for nursing school part time. When the class started, more than a few of the students started complaining amongst themselves that Mr. P. was hard to understand because of his accent. Not me. As a matter of fact, I proclaimed that because I typed for quite a few foreign doctors at the hospital, I understood him quite well (or so I thought).
Well, Mr. P. was studying for his PhD and had never taught before, which made for a difficult time for us students, as he had a proclivity for teaching above our heads, forgetting that this was a beginning chemistry class. He would start out at the beginning of a problem but then assume that we knew all the steps inbetween and skip right to the end, leaving us all scratching our heads wondering how he got there. In the process of doing this, he would put these problems up on the board, and at the end he would turn and look at the class and say: "Huh! Exactly!!!" I thought to myself, how arrogant you are to say that when we don't have a clue how you got there! Well, this went on for about three or four weeks with the majority of the class spending quite a bit of time outside of class getting help to understand what he was doing. One morning I was sitting there again, he was putting yet another problem on the board, but this time when he turned around and looked at us and said "Huh! Exactly!!!" it became very clear to me that this was NOT was he was saying.
He was saying: "Huh? Is that clear?" I had to laugh and I had to laugh right then and there but being in the front row I couldn't make noise so I just sat there and shook so then he asked me if I was okay and all I could do was nod my head yes. One of my friends said it looked like I was having a grand mal minus the tongue biting and incontinence.
Okay, so that has been within the past few years, so I will give you Exhibit C, which happened when I was in high school. It was the first time I spent the night with my best friend Sharon at her house. We had quite a few plans for the next day and were discussing them as we were getting ready to go to bed. Sharon's bedroom was downstairs in a converted basement room, so there were no windows--completely dark with the lights out. She had two twin beds in her room and when she told me which one to take, she warned me about it--the box spring was ever so slightly smaller in size than the frame so there were wooden slats underneath it to keep it from falling through the frame. I wasn't so sure about this arrangement and wanted to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag, but she assured me plenty of other people had slept on it and had been fine so I agreed. So we went to bed, turned out the lights and were lying there talking about what we were going to do the next day--shopping, movie, etc. She asked me if I would like to go to Burger King for lunch and I said okay. There was a brief moment of quiet and then she asked me this strange question: "Have you ever had a robber?" Huh? So I answered, "No, but I've dreamt about them coming in through the windows at night."
Sharon started howling with laughter and I was completely mystified. I really didn't see anything funny about breaking and entering, especially when you're at home. Once she finally calmed down enough to talk, she told me that's not what she asked me.......she asked me......"Have you ever had a Whopper?" (Lunch at Burger King, duh!) Getting the crazy visuals I get and her laughing hysterically already, of course I completely lost it. To this day I can get a pretty good picture of a giant hamburger oozing over my windowsill and if I think about it long enough I'll start laughing again. Want to guess what happened next? I was thrashing around in the bed laughing my butt off and those nice little slats underneath the box spring became dislodged. Box spring shoots down through the frame, followed by mattress, followed by me, all in the pitch dark. Laughing turned to screaming followed by laughing again. All of this at about oh, 12:30 a.m. and of course the racket woke up the whole house. For some reason it was quite a while before I was invited to spend the night again.
So this is my dysfunction/syndrome. Anybody have a good name for it? Please make it one I can understand when it is said.
What am I talking about? I have a few talents, none of which are appropriate for either listing on a resume' or would win me a major amount of money on a reality TV show (at least not yet). One of these talents it seems is hearing something someone says and making something entirely different out of it. I finally decided to publicly admit this after what happened at work one night.
I was sitting at the nurse's station doing my documentation on the computer and the secretary, Nancy, was talking to some others at the desk. I kept hearing the word 'annihilator' being thrown around which I thought was odd, but I was trying to get my work done so I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. Eventually Nancy approached me and asked me if I would like an 'annihilator.' Of course I asked "What the hoo-haw is an annihilator?" Well, she extends her hand and there is a small purple square in it, with a piece of candy better know as a "Now and Later." Okey dokey.
Still not convinced I have a problem? May I present Exhibit B, better known as Mr. P., my chemistry instructor at WCC. Good old Mr. P. was from Nigeria, and had not been in the US of A very long so had a pretty thick accent. I was working full time at the hospital doing transcription at the time and taking my prereqs for nursing school part time. When the class started, more than a few of the students started complaining amongst themselves that Mr. P. was hard to understand because of his accent. Not me. As a matter of fact, I proclaimed that because I typed for quite a few foreign doctors at the hospital, I understood him quite well (or so I thought).
Well, Mr. P. was studying for his PhD and had never taught before, which made for a difficult time for us students, as he had a proclivity for teaching above our heads, forgetting that this was a beginning chemistry class. He would start out at the beginning of a problem but then assume that we knew all the steps inbetween and skip right to the end, leaving us all scratching our heads wondering how he got there. In the process of doing this, he would put these problems up on the board, and at the end he would turn and look at the class and say: "Huh! Exactly!!!" I thought to myself, how arrogant you are to say that when we don't have a clue how you got there! Well, this went on for about three or four weeks with the majority of the class spending quite a bit of time outside of class getting help to understand what he was doing. One morning I was sitting there again, he was putting yet another problem on the board, but this time when he turned around and looked at us and said "Huh! Exactly!!!" it became very clear to me that this was NOT was he was saying.
He was saying: "Huh? Is that clear?" I had to laugh and I had to laugh right then and there but being in the front row I couldn't make noise so I just sat there and shook so then he asked me if I was okay and all I could do was nod my head yes. One of my friends said it looked like I was having a grand mal minus the tongue biting and incontinence.
Okay, so that has been within the past few years, so I will give you Exhibit C, which happened when I was in high school. It was the first time I spent the night with my best friend Sharon at her house. We had quite a few plans for the next day and were discussing them as we were getting ready to go to bed. Sharon's bedroom was downstairs in a converted basement room, so there were no windows--completely dark with the lights out. She had two twin beds in her room and when she told me which one to take, she warned me about it--the box spring was ever so slightly smaller in size than the frame so there were wooden slats underneath it to keep it from falling through the frame. I wasn't so sure about this arrangement and wanted to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag, but she assured me plenty of other people had slept on it and had been fine so I agreed. So we went to bed, turned out the lights and were lying there talking about what we were going to do the next day--shopping, movie, etc. She asked me if I would like to go to Burger King for lunch and I said okay. There was a brief moment of quiet and then she asked me this strange question: "Have you ever had a robber?" Huh? So I answered, "No, but I've dreamt about them coming in through the windows at night."
Sharon started howling with laughter and I was completely mystified. I really didn't see anything funny about breaking and entering, especially when you're at home. Once she finally calmed down enough to talk, she told me that's not what she asked me.......she asked me......"Have you ever had a Whopper?" (Lunch at Burger King, duh!) Getting the crazy visuals I get and her laughing hysterically already, of course I completely lost it. To this day I can get a pretty good picture of a giant hamburger oozing over my windowsill and if I think about it long enough I'll start laughing again. Want to guess what happened next? I was thrashing around in the bed laughing my butt off and those nice little slats underneath the box spring became dislodged. Box spring shoots down through the frame, followed by mattress, followed by me, all in the pitch dark. Laughing turned to screaming followed by laughing again. All of this at about oh, 12:30 a.m. and of course the racket woke up the whole house. For some reason it was quite a while before I was invited to spend the night again.
So this is my dysfunction/syndrome. Anybody have a good name for it? Please make it one I can understand when it is said.
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