I’ll say it again, I HATE emergency rooms.

I’ve never liked hospitals to start with, but the Emergency room takes that feeling to new heights, executes a triple backflip and then sticks the landing.  Before having children I had rarely spent anytime there and when I had been unfortunate enough to visit I had been overwhelmed by the feeling of hopelessness and despair that seemed to linger in the barely circulated air of the waiting room.

Now, as a parent with an either very adventurous or completely retarded ( no disrepect to the genuinely handicapped) 2 year old (my thoughts on his state of mind seem to vary depending on how long it’s been since I’ve sat in the emergency room for 6 hours), I’ve been forced look at life in the emergency room in a completely different light:  no longer an outsider, with no idea what’s going on, but as an old hand completely aware of the crappiness of the situation.

Let me explain.  Since April I’ve been at the emergency room three times.  Each time I had to head up there in the evening and wound up staying until the wee hours of the next morning.  Why my son can’t try to kill himself in the morning, I don’t know.

Occasion 1:  More my fault than his.  I’m not going into the specifics of the injury, but let’s say a tomahawk was involved, along with a willful two-year old, a horrified father and a slice in the meaty part of the hand.  8 hours and five stitches later, I had learned a few things: 

1. A child gains the strength of the Incredible Hulk and Thor combined when someone tries to hold them down and clean a wound. 

2. The power of Greyskull gets added into the mix when the stitching needle gets involved.

3. I don’t like watching people get stitches.  At all.  Granted, the guy was a great stitcher-upper, but I still wanted to punch him in his face while watching him stitch up my son’s hand.

4.  There’s always someone in the waiting room who’s apparently been there for days that knows the story of every other person there and is only too willing to tell it to you if you should accidentally make eye contact.

Occasion 2:  No fault of anyone.  Vomiting, high fever, labored breathing and an unusually lethargic child culminated in a call to the pediatrician, who upon hearing the symptoms, recommeneded an emergency room visit.  (why do I even have a pediatrician again?)  Upon leaving work to pick up the family and then driving like a madman to the hospital, of course there was no fever, and my kid was laughing and smiling and telling us that he felt fine when we got there.

At this point there seemed like little reason to stay but of course all the symptoms came back as soon as I got home from work that evening and started to relax, so back to the emergency room we went.  For some reason I barely remember this visit.  I remember that it didn’t take quite as long, but we were still there long after you should quit feeding Mogwai.  Diagnosis: light case of bronchitis, possible mild infection. Recommendation:   Breathing treatment.  Things I learned:

1. Stay at the emergency room if you are already there.

2. Ask a nurse enough questions about “what does this do” and “what are those for” and “which bone is the tibia again” and she will eventually quit coming to your room and will send someone else to get stuff.  (our room this time had a supply closet in it).

3. Children, at least mine, do not like having a mask put on their face with a hose hooked to it that spews a smoky mist.  He did not care that Daddy was not afraid to do it, or that Mommy was not afraid to do it, or that it would make him feel better.  All he knew, and I quote was, “I don’t like that mask.”  I remember this exactly because he said it about one hunderd million times, including long after the doctor had left and the mask was hanging up on the wall.

Occasion 3:  Loving husband gets two Aleve ready for wife with a headache, sets them out for her along with a glass of soda to take said pills with.  Child reached pills before wife.  Wife looks for pills, questions child sitting near alleged pill location, who replies “I ate that blue candy.”  We knew that Poison Control sticker by the phone would come in handy at some point.  PC said take him to the emergency room, while they called ahead and told them to get a charcoal drink ready.  Two and a half hours later (long after I imagine the pills would have already had an affect) we finally get around to the moment of truth.  2 hours after this, with most of the drink downed we got to go home, with a warning that things would be nasty in the morning.  Things I learned:

1.  The hospital obviously did not consider this be as big an emergency as Poison Control did.

2. Charcoal can absorb posions from your stomach, but it has to be mixed with chocolate milk first, to even get kids to consider drinking it.

3.  Mixing it with chocolate milk, apparently makes no difference.  Although I must admit, the cup of crude oil-looking goo, was not something I would have voluntarily drank either.

4. Neither promises of toys ( “You can have your new Thomas train when we get home if you drink this up”) or threats of no toys (”We’re going to take away all your Thomas trains if you don’t drink this”) were enough to encourage my son to down his Big Gulp of choco-Coal.  And no, Daddy wasn’t man enough to take a sip and tell him that it tasted good.

5. I’ve never been happier that I was at work than when my wife emailed the following morning to let me know that she woke up to a child who seemed to have developed oil leaks at both ends of his body.

So to sum up, I still hate emergency rooms, but at this point I’m much more likely to be the old lady who knows everyone’s malady, than I am to be the fresh faced newcomer, in awe of the wonder of the emergency room.  I’m also aware that what I had previously mistaken for hopelessness and despair was simply resignation to a fate slightly better than death.

Around 4 o’clock this morning, I was sleeping soundly in my bed when I was ripped from my slumber by the sound of glass breaking. That doesn’t quite do it justice… It was really more of a glass explosion. My wife and I instantly sit up, trying for a moment to clear the fog from our minds. I jumped out of bed, asking her if she knew what it was. She didn’t.

Though I had considered the possibility of a break-in, I wasn’t too concerned about it. I opened the bedroom door to find that the large picture frame mounted above my bedroom door had managed to somehow fall off of its nail onto the wood laminate floor. Apparently, when a 20 by 30 inch piece of glass falls a distance of around ten feet, the blast radius of glassy doom is around 15 feet. Needless to say, it was everywhere. After almost an hour of sweeping, vacuuming and even swiffer-mopping, we returned to bed. This however, is not today’s observation. What has me thinking, is my initial reaction to the crash.

You see, at no point did I really think it was a break-in. Given my complete lack of information at the moment, that decision was based on instinct, and instinct alone. Question is… Is that a good thing? Sure, I was right in this case, but what if someone was breaking in? Should I have kicked the door open with a flying Karate kick? I do have a family to protect, after all… Should I just always assume the worst?

Not sure I have an answer for this one. Do I trust my instincts, or start at paranoid, and work back to rational? One thing is for sure… If I had burst forth from my bedroom John McClane-style, I’d still be picking shards of glass from my feet… John McClane-style.

My wife and I went to a wedding in Orlando this past weekend. The ceremony was nice and it was great to see old friends, but as the title of this post suggests, I need to talk about the reception. It took place in the gym of a church with good food and a nice atmosphere, though sadly, there was no alcohol. (This is the second of two consecutive dry receptions I have attended, and I’ve had enough. I’m not even a big drinker these days, but even the J-Man turned water into wine, am I right?) As unfortunate as this was, we had a bigger problem to deal with… The DJ.

This was the bossiest DJ I have ever encountered. He interrupted every song with demands… Desperately trying to induce more dance (which is tough at a booze free event), and calling for applause repeatedly. “Everyone give a round of applause for…” was heard countless times over the 3 hour event, each round more meaningless than the previous. These are all minor grievances compared to the moment he was officially deemed: The Condescending DJ.

The best man stood with mic in hand, ready for his toast. For some reason, a large portion of the crowd continued talking, unaware of his speech. Before he had a chance to ask for the crowd’s attention, the DJ swoops in and nabs the mic from his hand. In his most commanding voice, he says:

Clap your hands if you can hear my voice!

Okay, now if you can hear my voice, clap twice!

Now if you can hear my voice, clap three times!

Now put your hands on your hips!

Now put your finger over your lips… and shhhhhh!

Some people clapped and some didn’t, but it certainly hushed the crowd. If they were anything like me, they were probably quietly wondering why they were being treated like 2nd graders at an assembly. Needless to say, he was the butt of many jokes at our table for the duration of the evening. I’d say he actually managed to entertain us in the end, although not the way he meant to.

While waiting in the always terrible return line at Walmart yesterday, I noticed the man in front of me was quite interesting. He was a middle-aged black man, and judging by his dirty clothes and the time of day, I would gather he had just left some sort of construction related job. The first thing that caught my eye, was that attached to the carabiner that held his many keys was a pair of children’s scissors. You know, the really small ones we used in kindergarten. This seemed mildly odd, but I then realized his pockets were packed with bizarre items.

In his left pocket, there were two things that were not easy to identify. The first was a metal tube, nine inches in length with a half inch diameter, most likely aluminum. Next to that was what I recognized as one of those cheap bottles of spices that go for a half dollar. All I could see was a red cap, so I am thinking it was either garlic pepper or cinnamon. Protruding from his back pocket was a surprisingly long comb, clearly intended for managing his lopsided afro. And finally, his right pocket was barely containing a giant bottle of Maalox. These items looked to be well used, so he apparently carries them with him often.

So we have child scissors, metal tube, cinnamon or garlic pepper, comb and Maalox. Oh, and he was wearing big rubber boots. Are these seemingly unrelated items part of a bigger story? Who is this man? Why do I care?

3 months, 30 pounds and counting.

So I am on my way to work today, and the car in front of me blasts a Mourning Dove out of the shallow sky. This was at about 55 mph, so you can imagine the feathery explosion. The bird, awkwardly deflected to the right, landed in an unexpectedly natural seated position in the street. It actually looked like it may have survived the collision, but was soon to be crushed by any one of the thousand of wheels zipping by. I had considered going back, but even if I managed to reach the creature before the Firestones or Goodyears, I doubt I would be much help… Not to mention risking my own life in the process.

So I keep driving…

Seconds after said event, I catch up to the driver of the car. It was a middle aged woman and she was seemingly unfazed by the incident! I’m sure there was no way for her to avoid the bird, but there was basically zero emotion on this woman’s face.  Now I realize that I am one of those sissy animal lovers, but the woman was behaving as if there weren’t a bloody and feathery stain adorning the front of her vehicle. I am reminded of peoples disregard for life too often.  I couldn’t help but imagine her being plowed over by a bus… teeth and grayish hair stuck in a sticky red mess in the grill of a TalTran.

Yeah, I know… just a bird.

I ran across this little oddity this past Saturday while on a photo safari just across the state line in Georgia (don’t ask).  I’m not sure if this house is being built out of retired billboards, or if it’s just covered up while it’s under construction.  Either way, it was an odd enough site that I had to share with all you monocleers out there in monocle land.  BTW, if anyone can explain this to me, I’d love to have my curiosity sated.

So yesterday I was waiting for my food at the drive thru window of my local Taco Bell and I noticed an employee working inside.  As she was cleaning up the counters, I realized that this woman’s left arm ended at the elbow.

I immediately began to empathize with this person, and imagined any number of scenarios a disabled Taco Bell employee may have to endure to make that measly paycheck.  My heart filled with compassion and sadness.

Then an amazing thing happened.  She extended her arm, dispelling the optical illusion I had been duped by.  She now had two perfectly functioning limbs to work with.  I felt an enormous weight lifted off of my heart, as if her arm had been miraculously reattached!  And frankly, in my perceived universe… it had been.