Dr. Kevorkian

If I'd had his number last week, I might have called him. It certainly crossed my mind a time or two.

For those of you who may not know, I was a very sick girl last week, and I HATED every minute of it! I'm a pretty healthy person, and I very rarely get anything worse than a sinus infection. However, every now and then, some nasty bug comes out of nowhere and completely knocks me on my butt and reminds me that I am actually a mere mortal. This was one of those bugs.

It started on Monday night as what I thought was just some muscle soreness. You know, the kind you get from a good workout. However, I couldn't think of what I did to make me feel that way. I didn't have any recent hard workouts that would make me sore. Tuesday morning my alarm went off and I was feeling a little under the weather. I decided to get up and go to work anyway because it's THE SEASON, and when you work for a fireworks company, these are important and busy days indeed. By 3:00, I couldn't take it anymore and went home to lie on the couch and hopefully ward off whatever nastiness was coming my way. The nastiness had other plans for me. By 6:00 that night, I was in the throes of pain the likes of which I have never experienced. Not the excruciating kind like when you break a limb, or cut yourself badly. This was the persistent, overall, can't-be-touched-with-any-over-the-counter-pain-killer kind. My whole body was IN PAIN from head to toe. My skin hurt to the touch as if every nerve ending were exposed. Periodically, I would get extreme pain shooting through various joints in my body. I saw the doctor on Wednesday, and there was nothing he could do to help me. He said it was probably something "viral" and I just had to let it run its course. He did give me a round of antibiotics "just in case."

This lasted for 5 DAYS, and the only relief I found was one blessed little Vicodin that my sister had left over from a previous prescription. Ahhhhhh… it was sweet relief for about 10 hours. I literally cried when the pain came back.

On a high note, though…
Rob was kind enough to venture into the death zone to bring me some DVDs. I finally got to see 24 (season one – the only way to start), and I'm hooked! I LOVE JACK BAUER! I know this is not an exclusive club, but I just want to shout it from the rooftops – I LOVE JACK BAUER! I watched the whole season in two days. It was haw-haw-hawesome.

I was supposed to lead worship at ONC this past Sunday, but due to my sickness, I still had a very nasty cough that wouldn't allow me to breathe, much less sing! So Rob stepped up and did an absolutely fabulous job. I attended church that morning with my mom and had a wonderful worship experience.

It's swiftly approaching the day when I will leave the confines of the BJ Alan corporate offices and find myself in the fray that is the showroom in Boardman. Over the next 4 days (starting tomorrow), I will work about 60 hours. It will truly be the worst four days of the year. Yes, it will probably be even worse than my bout with the killer bug (okay, that's a stretch. I was just saying that for emphasis). If I see any of you in that store buying fireworks and adding to my misery, I will personally shoot you with a 500 gram tube repeater. A 90-shot one at that.

Burninate This!

I know that by doing this, I am in danger of burnination myself, but this is a direct appeal to Trogdor to let Kimmy's blog go. Don't you have some peasants to stomp or something? Don't you have some straw huts that need burninated? I know you're a busy, busy dragon, and that a simple blog is by no means your most pressing problem. There are knights trying to slay you, and kingdoms you have yet to conquer! You've proven your superiority over the smug cloud – you have effectively burninated it. Now, isn't it time for you and your beefy arm to move on?

OUCH!

In regards to the ringtone that only kids can here...…
I heard it, too, and IT HURT MY EARS! BAH! It really hurt!

Over on the Smug Cloud, Kimmy posted a link to an MP3 that played the ringtone. I clicked on the link, and it started to play and I didn't hear anything. Not too surprising considering that I am -- shall we say -- a bit older than the youngsters who are supposed to be the only ones who can hear it.

I realized, however, that my volume was turned down, so I clicked on "play" again, turned the volume up, and heard the most AWFUL noise. It was truly painful; it was painful enough that it made me rip the earbuds out of my ears and let out a squeal that caused my co-workers a small measure of concern for me.

It was a high-pitched, piercing tone; the true awfulness of it cannot be described. I hope to never have to hear it again.

Besides it being a bad experience for my poor ears, it is also a testament to my ever-youthful genes! Not only can I hear the ringtone, I also got carded at the Dave Matthews concert when I went to buy beer -- TWICE! My 29 year old counterpart did not. Thanks, Mom!