I spuddle.

I went to Costco yesterday with my parents because they have a membership and I am far far far too cheap to buy my own, and also because shopping with my parents makes me feel young again as though I am too young to be able to shop for real grown up items on my own, which I’m actually not.  (Costco makes me mad anxious when I go alone.)   I never (well, hardly ever) go to Costco anyway because something happens when you go to Costco, if “you” are “me”, that is, and what happens is that your (my) bank account gets drained.   You (me) may say to yourself (myself), “I am going to buy some Pull Ups for The Birdy, a box of frozen chicken pot pies, those really really good cracker/cookie things and something for dinner!”    Then put, say, $50 in your wallet for this purpose.   AND YOU WILL WALK OUT HAVING SPENT $250.   With very little to show for it apart from the diapers, pies and crackers.     WHAT ELSE DID I BUY?   I’m sure you would like to know, as would I, and probably Mr. Spuddle is curious, too.

Well, I bought The Bun this cool science book that he is far far too young for because he was so excited about it that it was impossible to say, “No, I will not spend an extra $10 on an educational opportunity to expand your young horizons!”  (New total:  $60).   Then I bought The Birdy a new dress.   The Birdy is TWO YEARS OLD but man oh man, kid knows what she wants, and in this case, what she wanted was a Laura Ashley spring dress.   I could have said “No”.  Indeed, I DID say “No.”   But that didn’t work out.   It was buy her the dress or let her scream the store down and disallow me from buying all the other things I suddenly wanted/needed to purchase.   Add the dress.   (New total:  $75).

Did I mention that when I woke up yesterday, I reached over to hug The Bun awake and something in my neck went CRUNCH.   I’m not even kidding, it sounded like there was granola in there and a guy with heavy boots who was into that dance style that we like to call stomping, because that is what it’s called.   And CRUNCH.   It was the most painful CRUNCH in the history of all CRUNCHES.   I screamed in pain, which terrified The Bun (but also woke him up, which was good, because we were running late, just like every other morning) and then spent a good ten minutes painfully hoisting myself out of bed while cursing in a child-friendly way under my breath.   The pain was so horrific that by the time I got to Costco, I could only point my head straight forward, except it wasn’t even straight, it was on an angle that I believed was straight but really just made my look like a mystified cocker spaniel.   As a result, it became necessary to purchase a really really big bottle of Tyelenol (new total:  $91).   It’s like shopping for food when you’re hungry.   Don’t do it!

Also, I was hungry.   Add flax bread, Laughing Cow cheese, gallons of grape juice, a lasagne, and a rack of ribs.   Stop at the book table, buy a copy of “Ivy & Bean” because it’s cute.   Mr. Spuddle needs underwear.   Check.   Trail mix is good!   Add that.   And kids need vitamins, right?   Snap.  NEW TOTAL:  $250.   I didn’t even buy yoga pants, which are my normal Costco Impulse Buy.

Le.

Sigh.

Seriously, we’re in trouble with The Birdy.  The girl LOVES her dresses.   She is more passionate about dresses than I am.  On the plus side, I just made $250 selling her outgrown stuff on consignment.   So it’s sort of like her passion for dresses is making me money!   Except not really.   I KNOW.    I’m kidding.

I promised you lumps so I will now make a completely bumpy (ha ha!) transition into the ongoing story of the LUMPZ.   On Thursday, I went in for an ultrasound.   I realize that this will sound demented but when my doctor told me that I had to have an ultrasound I asked neither obvious question:  1.   On what part of my body?  Or 2.  Why?   So no, I do not know what the ultrasound was meant to prove or not prove, but I am diligent in following instructions as though following the instructions will prevent me from getting the thing that we are trying to prove that I do not have by doing seventy-eighteen tests.

The instruction for the ultrasound was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO EAT OR DRINK PAST MIDNIGHT ON WEDNESDAY UNTIL AFTER THE TEST.   The test was at 11:35.   By 8 am, I was crying because I was so desperate for coffee.   By 9, I was snappish.   By 10, I was downright nasty.   By 11, I was in the car because damn it, maybe if I was early, they would do the thing early and I could go downstairs to Starbucks and gulp down a venti shot of espresso.    I arrived at 11:05.   They were not busy.  In fact, they were not doing anything but leaning on counters talking to each other.   They politely told me to have a seat as though I was a reasonable, coffee-sated person who wanted to sit and read McLean’s magazine from 1989 for 35 minutes.

They proceeded to chat amongst themselves.   THEY COULD HAVE DONE THE TEST!  THEY COULD HAVE!  BUT THEY DID NOT!   By the time I got into the room (11:40), I was in hardly any mood to undertake my usual program of trying to amuse the technician into giving me a better diagnosis, but I was willing to try.    She was not willing to talk.   In fact, she never once looked at my face or addressed me directly.   ALL she said the entire time was, “HOLD YOUR BREATH” and then, about eleventy-hundred seconds later, “Relax.”   “ONE MORE TIME, HOLD YOUR BREATH” – long pause longer than is possible to hold breath for – “relax.”  It would have been boring if it wasn’t so painful and it was painful.   Let me tell you, I have had more than my share of ultrasounds, but these have all been while knocked up.   When you have a baby-related ultrasound, it’s all soft music and warmed gel.   When you have a non-baby related ultrasound, it’s barked orders and ice cold gel squirted on you like bleach cleaner into a toilet.   Then, at the end, she grabbed two of those hospital quality cardboard like brown paper towel things and swabbed at the goo like I was a countertop and she was a sullen, adolescent fast food worker who had just been told his work station was unsanitary.   Then she said, “OK, you go.”   EXCEPT I COULDN’T GO.   Because she was in the way.   The table was up against the wall, the machine was on the other side, and then there was her.  In order to “GO”, I had to crawl up to the end of the table, climb off and clamber over the machine.   Which I did because, damn it, I needed coffee.

And she said NOT ONE SINGLE WORD.

So I don’t know, still, what the ultrasound was for, or what it found because she gave nothing away, no expression of shock and sympathy or even one of outright boredom, just no expression at all.   I’ll find out next week and will advise you right away or some time near then depending on the news and whether it is good or bad.

Then I had coffee.   SO SO SO MUCH COFFEE.   Which gave me heartburn and possibly kidney stones, but did not relieve the GIANT SKULL-CRUSHING HEADACHE.

In my head, that was a much funnier story than it really is because the end of the story is that I’ve now had the headache that the lack of caffeine caused for three days or maybe THIS headache is to do with the neck stomp crunch thing or I don’t know, maybe I’ll just stop typing now.   Why not?   I have other stuff to do!  I am busy!  And important!*

Pass the Tylenol, please.

*Hilarious “Rules” reference which is only funny to me.

Oh, I forgot a bit that I was going to mention about when I was in the waiting room waiting for the lumpz to be investigated, I was reading a book that I brought with me, having exhausted the waiting room’s supply of ONE MAGAZINE.   The book was Maureen Johnson’s The Bermudez Triangle which caused a bunch of controversy because some librarians in schools banned it due to the fact that it has (gasp!) LESBIAN TEENAGERS.   The horror!  The horror!   Only wait, isn’t it 2010?   Are people really BANNING books based on the gay still?   Yes?   I find that really depressing.

Anyway, an old woman came into the waiting room and plopped herself down next to me and struck up a conversation by looking at the book in my hand and gasping, “WHAT A HUGE BOOK!”  I knew that her next question was going to be “What is it about?” and honestly I was pretty geared up for having a conversation about gay teenagers with an elderly woman, but she surprised me by saying, “I READ A BOOK ONCE!”  I don’t know which part of it surprised me most, the way she was shouting right in my face while I was trying to read, or the word ONCE.   So I said, “Oh!”  Which is writer-speak for, “Seriously?  ONCE?  If people like YOU who read ONE BOOK in your ENTIRE LIFE take over the planet, then my job will go the way of the dinosaurs and I will die penniless and alone!”   She went on, “It was 1945!   I was on a cruise on the Panama Canal!  It was a very slow cruise!   Very boring!  So I READ A BOOK!”   She was so happy about it and I was so aghast that what I did was to go back to The Bermudez Triangle without saying anything else but I’m kicking myself, peeps, I am, because I did not ask her what the book was.   I mean, obviously it wasn’t Maureen Johnson and I’m guessing it didn’t have lesbian teens in it, but you never know.   Now I am left wondering, WHAT WAS THE BOOK?   It’s not keeping me up at night, but still, [kicks self]…

Filed under: Health, Me, Myself and I