Instructions for Use

Pink Eye Ointment

Directions for use:
Tilt child's head back into your lap. Gently pull down bottom eyelid to form a small pocket beneath the eye. Apply thin strip of ointment onto finger and rub into inner fold of the eyelid. Ointment will spread to eye as child blinks. Repeat as instructed by doctor.

Question:

How the hell do you get past step one? Either they had some really docile, ever-trusting children during the testing phase of this, or there's a tranquilizer dart missing from the package. As a matter of fact, the minute she realizes that I'm trying to stick something inside her eyes, step one becomes obsolete.

Revised Directions:
Tilt child's head back into your lap. Attempt to pull child's eyelid down. Place child's body into scissor leg lock. Hold down child's arms while clutching child's body against your own. Reattempt to pull child's eyelid down. Grow an additional arm and use the hand on that third arm to rub the ointment into child's eye. If third arm is not available, settle for wasting rubbing ointment onto child's closed eyelids and hoping for the best.

Food Allergies

Yesterday I went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries for the first time. This fast food baptism was so life altering that I shared it on Facebook. People wondered why it took me so long. Well, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

[caption id="attachment_3498" align="alignnone" width="604"] And people call me dramatic[/caption]

I first realized my stomach and  I were different back in kindergarten when, upon seeing the contents of my lunchbox, my teacher took me to the office to call my grandmother. She assumed that I was somehow responsible for the tastycakes and canned soda. "What did you send him to lunch with, Mrs. Allen?"
"Let me think. A fatback and egg sandwich, one of those apple pies he likes, some cheetos and a soda."
"Nevermind. Sorry to bother you."

Everyone else was eating PBJ or Oscar Mayer. Everyday at lunch was like show and tell for me.
Me: And this is a scrapple sandwich.
Stunned Onlookers: Oooh, Aaah. What's scrapple?
Me: I think it's like a hamburger
(It isn't. It most certainly, horrifyingly, is not!)

By high school I was notorious for eating what my best friend dubbed "heart attack sandwiches." I don't know if my grandmother was just trying to get rid of leftovers or was dealing with 'Dory from Nemo' short term memory loss, but it was all too common to get an egg, fatback, bacon, and smoked sausage sandwich on toast with jelly, miracle whip and ketchup. My stomach didn't flinch at the challenge.

By college, however, I think I put too many miles on my stomach and voided the warranty. My cafeteria sucked so bad in college that many nights I'd walk in and right back out of the cafeteria. If someone turns down "lasagna" in favor of a 33 cent can of potted meat, then that should tell you something. It wasn't long before I got married and had my own place, but as faithful readers know, those were the poverty years.

$20 a month for groceries to feed two people translates into ramen noodles and hot dogs. Eat that twice a day for two years and you're lucky if you still have a stomach. My problem was that I didn't have a throat. You know me...I always have to develop the rare illnesses. One day I was walking to lunch when I burped. The food from the day before came up. Not the night before...the day before.

I'd been having this pain in my chest and throat for a while, but assumed it was indigestion. My primary care doctor at the time was an idiot, so I scheduled my own appointment with a gastroenterologist. At the time I worked for a health insurance company, so I knew that I didn't need a referral to see a specialist. The gastroenterologist, however, disagreed. She was offended that I scheduled an endoscopy (tube down your throat with a camera) on my own, and made it her point to chew me out as they were prepping me for it.

Just as I was trying to return fire, this [lady] says, "I don't have time for this crap" and turns on the anesthesia. I have to give it to her, there are hundreds of people who wish they could shut me up so easily. I woke up and she was gone. She called a few days later to apologize and said that I was right to come in. I had some form of esophagitis that she'd never seen before. Something was triggering the muscles in my throat to relax for several hours and also causing the sphincter leading to my stomach to tighten up. In a nutshell, the food I was eating was just sitting in my throat with nowhere to go for hours or even a day at a time. If you haven't guessed already, that hurt likes hell.

The closest allergy appointment was a year out, so I basically had to do a rotating fast and figure out what caused it on my own. I gave up sodas, fast food, processed snacks, fried food, and meat. It would've been easier to go cold turkey from heroin. Overnight I went from speaking fast food menus like a second language to sitting at my desk at work eating a bag of raw broccoli florets for lunch.

I went from never cooking to making EVERYTHING from scratch. I even made my own salad dressing and breakfast cereal. It was hell. After six months, all of my symptoms were gone. As crazy as this sounds, I canceled the allergy appointment. I felt so much better with the new diet that I was afraid that I would stop if I found out the specific trigger. I slowly reintroduced meat back into my diet, but most of that other stuff didn't make the cut. After eight years, I still don't know exactly what triggers it. The sheer pain associated with it keeps me out of places like Five Guys too often. Considering how good that burger was yesterday, I can't say that's necessarily a bad thing.

The Eyes Have It

Dear Reader,

Perhaps you can help me settle an ongoing internal debate. Which is the strongest display of love for one's child:

A) Drinking from the polluted wasteland that is a backwash-filled cup of water
B) Intentionally exposing oneself to pinkeye

We just left McDonald's, which is a place I loathe with a passion. After calling the doctor 18 times this morning with no answer, I decided to just hop in the car and drive downtown to her office. As I was looking for a parking space, I finally got through and they basically told me that pinkeye isn't an emergency and that they'd schedule an appointment for later. We went to McDonald's to have whatever the opposite of a victory breakfast is.

It was there that my daughter offered me some of her water. Offered is a euphemism for Ike Turnered. Just like you can't refuse Ike's gracious offering of cake, you can't successfully turn down my daughter's water. She offered it to me for 3 straight minutes. "Water? Water? Water, Daddy? Water? Water? Want some water? Here Daddy. Water! Have some water? Water..." I was thirsty; I just wasn't hungry. There had to be half a sausage biscuit in there. But I drank it, because I love her.

Love is also what's gonna give me her pinkeye. It's a testament to capitalism that the same people who exposed her to pinkeye not only have the right to refuse her admission to school today, but also are completely entitled to full tuition for the week. Like the old Trident commercials used to say, chew on this:

I ran Daddy Daycare for 2.5 years during which time she was sick MAYBE four times. After only six months with them she's been exposed to every strand of bubonic plague known to man. Each time she gets sick I have to keep her home. That in itself makes no sense to me, because the source of the virus is at the daycare. Keeping her home only increases her chances of spreading it to those who aren't sick. Then, on top of that, they still get paid even though she isn't there. You only had one job to do: Send her back home in the same condition she left. You exposed her to Ebola and you want me to fix it AND pay for it.

I've never had pinkeye before, so I did some research. Rule #1 says that she should keep her hands away from her eyes but if she does touch them then she should immediately wash them before touching surfaces or other people. Riiiight. She's three. The first thing she did was rub one eye, stick her finger in her nose and then rub the other one. Oh...and ask me for a hug. I hope it can't be spread through saliva because she had a brief moment of lunacy where she thought she was a dilophosaurus and started "play" spitting. The only problem is that real spit flew into my face.

I guess it's all a moot point. She woke up in the middle of the night scared because the "goo" that formed around her eyes hardened overnight and practically welded them shut. Even though I got up at 3 in the morning and cleaned her eyes, she was still afraid to get back in her bed. That's when I made the executive decision to intentionally expose myself to it. I let her sleep in the bed with me where she snuggled up and fell fast asleep. Who knows what microbes were dancing around on the sheets, but considering that she woke me up this morning by prying my eyelids open with her fingers, I'm certain they found their way into my eyes.

It's just a matter of time now. The things we do for love.

So This Happened Today

The following takes place between 9:00 and 9:15 AM on Saturday July 27, 2013

The Child [grabbing my hand]: Come here Daddy.

Me: Okay?

The Child [stopping in front of the fridge]: Cookie Dough?

Me: I'm sorry baby. It's too early for ice cream. You can have some grapes.

**The child then pulls a sword from behind her back, and points it up toward the sky**

The Child: By the power of Greyskull, I HAVE THE POWER!!!

Me: ???

The She-Ra Child: COOKIE DOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me: Who do you think you're yelling at? Go sit down right now before we have a problem.

**The She-Ra Child then storms away while stomping on the floor, meanwhile I'm looking for my own He-Man sword in order to deal with her. She then leaps up into the air, "lands" with her entire body laying flat on the floor, pauses, bumps her head onto the floor, and then gets up crying**

The Stunt Double Child: What's wrong, Zoe? Are you okay? Come here. It's okay. Don't cry.

**She gives me a hug and then sits down on the couch and starts reading a book.**

Me: [Googles homemade Holy Water recipes]

Scene It.

Sorry for being MIA the last few days. Someone important was in the hospital and I had to go stand guard for a few days.

The whole thing has me down, so I tried to cheer myself up by watching a movie. What the hell is up with movies these days?  I rented The Incredible Burt Wonderstone on the completely misguided logic that between Jim Carrey, Steve Buschemi, and Steve Carrell at least one of them would make me laugh. How about NO, Scott? (Ten points for getting the Austin Powers reference)

Remember when movies were worth sneaking to go see? The good Lord blessed me with a 30 year old's facial hair back in elementary school, but not with his height. Hell, I'm 31 and still don't have a 30 year old's height, but that's another story. I remember going to great lengths to sneak into an R rated movie. Either I'd wear my suit to the theater and put my church usher's badge on before I got to the ticket counter in order to sell my age and honesty, or I'd just buy and adult and child ticket and then take one of them back later for a refund.

Then of course there was "my friend" who used to spend the whole day at the movies off just one ticket. He'd check the paper for the show times as well as the running times and then map out the best strategy to see 3-4 movies in a day without missing any part of the films. Weird guy.

But today? I couldn't name a single movie out today worth sneaking into. Hell most of them don't even rank on the suckitude scale from back in the day:

1. I'll wait for it to come out at the dollar movie (six months)


2. I'll wait for it to come out on tape (a year)


3. I'll wait for it to come on cable (a year + change)


4. I'll wait for it to come on TV (it doesn't matter because you don't want to see it)

Burt Wonderstone, and just about every other movie I've seen lately falls on the rarely seen #5:
Yeah, there's something on that tape, but you can tape your stories on that one if you want.

If this were the 90s, that tape would have scotch tape over the back so fast (Sadly, the average kid these days won't get that reference). The movie isn't even worth describing. Stuff happened for 45 minutes. I laughed once. I turned it off once I saw that it had another hour to go.

Maybe I'm just getting old and I've seen so many movies at this point that they've lost their appeal. I don't buy it, but it's possible. I just miss the old days when all of my friends would leave school at the same time to hurry and get to Union Station or City Place in time to catch the twilight show before the price went from $4.00 to what we thought was outrageous back then, $6.50.

Nowadays...I'll wait for it to come to Redbox.

Winter is Coming

Sorry for being MIA lately. I had the misfortune of someone convincing me to watch the pilot of Game of Thrones. I believe it was Wednesday or Thursday of last week. I'm now caught up. Yep...30 hours of TV in just three or four days. I have insomnia, so watching it was the easy part. The hard part is shaking this uncontrollable habit of speaking with a British tongue and medieval speech. Blame it on the sleep deprivation. I was talking to someone who looked frustrated and (I'm not making this up) I said, "You wear the mark of despair. What ails you?"

It's still not as bad as when I first got caught up on Lost. I started watching it while season 3 was showing. I bought two seasons on iTunes and watched them both on the tiny old iPod video screen over the course of the weekend. This was back when I used to work in a call center. I fell asleep at my desk for what couldn't have been longer than two seconds. It was still enough time for me to have a full dream of being chased through the island by the smoke monster, and to jump up out of my chair (in reality) just as a beep went through my ear signalling a new call coming through. My cube mates just stared at me. I finished my call and left early for the rest of the day.

The beauty of binge watching is that you get to skip the suspense. After watching The Red Wedding on Game of Thrones...I kinda wish I had a week to digest that episode. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. It's a courtesy that I'm thankful was granted to me. I kept hearing about it, but, like the big reveal for The Sixth Sense or Fight Club, one of those things that is so much better if you experience it without a heads up. It's been a few hours and I still can't believe I saw what I did. My pupils are forever dilated.

So anyway, I have nothing really to write about today. I'm going to work on dumping this accent and try to catch up on some sleep. As of 10:01PM, however, my daughter is singing "I'm bringing sexy back. Them other penguins don't know how to act" at the top of her lungs. Up until I realized she was singing the Happy Feet Two version, I was looking for a belt powerful enough to alter her trajectory away from clear heels. All is well, but I can't sleep until she does.

Tell Me About A Time

I just got off the phone with one of my friends who wanted to share one of her crazy interview stories. Apparently the young woman came in dressed like she was going to a cabaret. My friend tried to comment on it subtly, hoping for an explanation, but the young woman misinterpreted it as my friend admiring her wardrobe. "Oh yeah, I'm on vacay!" That was strike one. Strikes two was her trying to negotiate the salary at the beginning of the first of three interviews. Strike three was responding to a question about how to motivate someone toward a different goal with, "Who am I to change someone's mind?" The entire job, by the way, is to motivate and change people's mind.

It reminded me of some of my favorite interviews:

There was the time that I called a woman who thought I was a collection agency pretending to be an interviewer. She asked me to prove that I was not a collection agency. That's still not as bad as playing twenty questions with the jealous boyfriend who thought I was a guy trying to talk to his girl. I always felt bad when I called someone whose phone was disconnected. I always wondered if I had just called them a day earlier would their phone have been "accepting incoming calls at this time." Worst of all is being asked to call back later because the person is busy.

It's when you finally get through to someone that the magic happens. "Tell me about a time when you failed at a task." If you learn nothing else from reading my blog, please remember that "rehab" is never the right answer to ANY question in a job interview. I appreciate you trying to be up front, but some things you should just let come out naturally. Speaking of honesty, a lot of people get fired for stealing from work apparently. If this were Family Feud I'd say that it would be the top answer to "Why did you leave your last job?"

Just to be fair, I've botched an interview before. I still kick myself for it. The first interviews went great. I was in the last one with two guys and I just bombed the damned thing. The last question was the icing on the cake: Why should we hire you? "Because I want, but don't need this job." I don't know why I said it. As the words came out of my mouth, the voice in my head was screaming "WHAT!?" I tried to sweeten it up and make it sound like I was passionate about it enough to turn down something else, but there was no freshening that mess up. The interviewers just stared at me blankly.

The truth is that I had that interview a few days before my heart surgery, and the day before another doctor called to tell me that there was a problem with my liver functions that could be due to cancer. My mind was on other things. I wanted to tell the interviewers that, but for some reason I didn't. I wonder if any of those other people had similar issues going on.