Although I rarely make political commentary on this blog, it’s hard not to sometimes. I’m trying to figure out what the fuck Barack Obama was thinking when he chose Alan Simpson to lead a deficit commission. Alan Simpson’s brain is in deficit mode and he can’t balance jack shit. He’s a dickwad of the worst magnitude. But, then again, I have to admit I spend most of my time wondering WTF Barack Obama is thinking anyway. I am not impressed on any front. But be of good cheer people! I can help Alan Simpson with Social Security because I have much first-hand experience with that totally ineffective bloated government bureaucracy.

Alan Simpson was wrong to call it a ” milk cow with 310 million tits.” No sir. If it was indeed a milk cow with 310 million tits, the Social Security Administration might be considered a helpful and productive government organization. It is not. In fact, it is the exact opposite of that. It is, simply put, the most unhelpful, confused, poorly run, and slovenly staffed government bureaucracy on the fucking planet. And I’m convinced that their only reason for being is to frustrate the American public land cheat it out of as much money as it possibly can.

Nope. I’m not worried that the employees of SSA might read this. In fact, I’m pretty sure that they can’t read at all. And, even if they can (and this is a long shot, folks), I’m sure they wouldn’t be reading this fucking blog.

Punching my ticket for Cirque de SSA

Now, I’m not going to comment in great detail on how I came to be intimately involved with SSA since March of this year because I’m not at liberty to discuss that bullshit yet (but just wait until I can). It’s enough for you all to know that both of my children are receiving payments from SSA and that they are deserving of those payments. I’m not going to reveal why in the interest of protecting their privacy. What I will tell you is that the real circus started with a simple address change.

I moved about a week before the first of July. At the time, my living arrangement with my children was temporary, and an opportunity for us to move kind of fell in my lap. Knowing what kind of trauma this might cause SSA with such short notice, I moved and made arrangements with my landlord to pick up the kids’ checks the next week. That went very smoothly. I then made a formal address change for the August checks.

And I didn’t just make the address change on the web. I called the local office I’d visited five times in the past month for other issues and made the change over the phone. I then faxed them a copy of my new lease, which I know they received because I called to make sure it was received. I was assured by an SSA employee that “everything was in order” for August checks. But just to be sure, I went and opened two direct deposit custodial accounts for my children and provided SSA with that information as well. This was done in plenty of time. I also went online with the postal service and did my forwarding mail duty. For this little service, they charged my bank account a buck. Must work. I felt pretty good on July 6. Yes sir. How could anything possibly go wrong?

Oh, let me count the ways, people. I guess two experiences, one in May and one in June should have set the red flags waving. In may, SSA mailed one check correctly to me. The other, however, was mailed to someone who should not have received it. Let’s just say that it’s almost September and I don’t have a replacement check for that one yet. No sir. Wouldn’t want to be too efficient. Now, I’d already spent five days in that particular office talking with at least five people, including two supervisors, between the months of March through June. They had paperwork up the butthole, like court documents, adoption papers, legal guardianship papers, birth certificates, pay stubs…I wasn’t sure WTF they could possibly be missing. Yet, after all this, I get a call from a woman (we’ll call her Mrs. J) at the Somerville office saying I needed to come in yet again to have my children’s cases reviewed. Anyway, after playing phone tag for a few days with the charming Mrs. J, I finally got a hold of her. She assured me that the payments were not in jeopardy, but that I should come in. Not wanting to upset the apple cart, I made an appointment for a few days later at 1 p.m. Another day of lost wages.

I arrived at that time with an appointment. No need to take a ticket and sit interminably waiting for someone to be available. At least that’s what I thought in my feeble little mind. I got there 20 minutes early for the appointment. At 3:45, fifteen minutes prior to the office closing, I was still sitting there. Frankly, it would have been faster had I taken a ticket and sat there waiting. My children were due to be dropped off from school at home and I couldn’t wait any longer. I went to the window and the girl consulted with Mrs. J and we set up a time to do it by phone.

Three days later, I was supposed to receive a call from Mrs. J at 1 p.m. She called at 5:14 p.m. and I wasn’t available. I then called the office the next day and left her a message. She did not call back. I called her again, and she did not call back. She then chose to call me on a Saturday afternoon. Who the fuck calls from the government on a Saturday afternoon? Give me a break. On Monday, I called again and she was not available, but the person I spoke to looked at the file and told me point blank that she didn’t know why I had to call because there was nothing in the file that indicated any review was due. She basically went over all the information with me, including the new address change, and said everything was okay. “Don’t worry about it.” Yeah. Famous last fucking words.

Just plain WTF?

Okay, August 1 is on a Sunday. My kids receive SSI. That means that the checks arrive the Friday before. That’s the way it goes. That’s the way it has gone for the seven years they’ve been receiving checks. No checks on Friday. I’m optimistic. They’ll be there by Monday. Monday rolls around. No checks. Tuesday rolls around. No checks. Still optimistic, I go and look to see if the money is in the direct deposit accounts. Nada. Zip. Now I’m pretty much ready to explode. Time to call Somerville, and thus begins the circus in a big way.

Turns out that they didn’t  put the address through and the DC office mailed the checks to Woburn. I believe my response was, “Are you fucking kidding me?” It’s at this time that I remember there is a warning posted at the SSA offices saying it’s illegal to harrass, threaten or physically harm the workers there. I can see why they need that sign. They are, simply put, the biggest bunch of dumbasses (my daughter’s word) on the fucking planet. They inspire people to “go postal.” No question about it. (So here, Alan Simpson, take a look at all this wasted effort over a simple address change. WTF is wrong with this picture, Alan? And we’re not close to being done yet. Can you hear me now, Alan?)

Again, Somerville asks me my new address and I give it to the woman. “Oh, yeah, here it is. It just wasn’t put through.” By now, I’m ready to just scream. Literally. Then, she says, “Oh, you’re in Wakefield?” I reply, “Yes.” And the woman then says, “Oh, well, you have to deal with the Malden office now.” I just about thought I’d get in my car and drive on over to Somerville to wring a few necks. (Paying attention, Alan?)

Here’s a little aside: When I mention the office change to my sister, the eternal optimist, she says, “Oh, the Malden office is wonderful. They were great when we went and reported that Auntie Buddy passed away.” I replied, “Yes, I’m sure they were wonderful. At that point, they were STOPPING PAYMENTS, for Christ’s sake. Get it? They are always wonderful when they are keeping your money.”

So, leaving no stone unturned, I call my old landlord in Woburn and he’s kind enough to check the mail box over the next few days. Nada. And there’s nada because the mailman knows I’m not there anymore. That means the checks are either forwarded or they could be sitting in the Woburn post office. I go to the Woburn post office. Now, I believe that Alan Simpson blabbered something about “privatizing” Social Security? I wouldn’t even go there, Alan. I wouldn’t go there because, you see, the postal service has been privatized and it blows. I know it blows because I went on line to have my mail forwarded only to find out that  the forwarding didn’t go through. How’s that? I get to the Woburn post office, describe the situation and how I went on line, and the postal employee says, “Yeah. They’ve had problems with the online forwarding.” To which I responded, “So, why do you continue to tell people to go online to do it? And charge them a buck on top of that?” Deer in the headlight look, and another twenty minutes making sure my address was correct.

Here’s a little aside, and I’m almost afraid to even relay this to you people, but I will. Not only did the Somerville SSA office forget to change my adress, but they even had my Woburn address wrong. They had me on Warren Street. I lived on Warren Avenue. There’s also  No. Warren Street in Woburn, which is different. And this further complicated the forwarding of my mail. WHAT THE FUCK?

Okay. So, the address thing is all set. And I have the postal service on the lookout for my checks. So, back to Social Security. On August 6th, I pay a visit to the Malden office. I sit with some nasty bitch who obviously doesn’t like her job or anyone who might make her do her job. Clearly Miss Douchebag doesn’t care about my rent. She promptly tells me that I have to wait another eight days to see if the checks are indeed forwarded to my new address in Wakefield. After that, I can report them as unreceived and they can re-issue checks (or simply make direct deposits since that’s why I set up those fucking accounts?). This will take an additional five days. Now, I give this office a copy of my fucking lease. I’m thinking, at this point, I should just make my lease billboard size and put it up right outside the Malden SSA office.

It is towards the end of my lovely meeting with Miss Douchebag that I’m tempted to throttle her. In her charming voice, she says, “Basically, your children are receiving welfare. You need to pass in your pay stubs or payments will stop.” Now, I’ve been receiving these benefits for my children for about seven years. They do not have one pay stub on fucking file. And I’m not about to start giving them to SSA either. I smiled at her. “Know what? I’ll just speak to a supervisor about that.” At the end of our conversation, Miss Douchebag assures me that everything is all set and I’m in the clear for September. I’m to call back in about 8 days if I do not receive the SSA checks for August. All I can say is: Fuckin’ A.

A couple of days pass, and I call the post office again to see if they’ve seen the checks just for shits and giggles. I’m optimistic when the guy I originally spoke to says, “Oh, yeah, we have one of your checks here.” As you can imagine, I immediately jump in my car and drive over there. Do you think it was a check? Nope. It was a letter mailed to me at my old (wrong) Woburn address from the Somerville office telling me that they got my new address. Now, I’m thinking, “Does it get any fucking worse than this?”

Oh, yes. It does.

The saga continues

The days pass interminably and then I call to report the checks unreceived. The woman at the end of the line at the Malden SSA office says, “I’ve reported them. It’ll take about five days for the new checks or the direct deposit to be received.” I wait another five days. Six. Seven. Nothing. I manage to scrape together enough money for the rent in two installments prior to going on vacation with the kids.

On vacation (just last week, mind you), I’m watching my Bank of America accounts like a hawk. No direct deposit. I have no idea if the checks have been sent to my house while I’m gone but I pretty much think: NOT. On Friday, the last day we’re on vacation, I decide to call the Malden office. I get a woman who tells me both accounts have been suspended. By now, I’m ballistic. I’m ballistic because, again, I’ve taken an action the week before with someone who told me my money would be there in five days. She doesn’t mention the fact that the accounts are immediately suspended if the checks are returned to the Treasury Department. Idiots abound at SSA. There’s no question about it.  She tells me that she has freed up my daughter’s account, but someone named Mr. Osorio has to handle Aaron’s account because he’s the only person who can do it. I ask to be transferred to Mr. Osorio. He is not there. I leave a message. And not a pleasant one, mind you.

I’m sitting at a water park, by the way, and I’m determined to resolve this on Friday before 4 p.m. when the office closes. I call Washington. You know, the home of SSA. The home port. The base. The home office. Guess what they tell me to do? Call my local office because really, they do nothing down there. They pretty much sit around playing with themselves and mailing out checks, apparently. He tells me that the accounts have been frozen. Thanks, pal. Then I tell him that they freed up my daughter’s account. He says, “Well, if they have, I can’t see it. You need to call Malden and ask for a supervisor.” I’m about ready to stick needles in my own eyes.

I call Malden. I ask for a supervisor. The woman immediately starts to ask me questions. And I’ve had enough of talking to the minions. I’m done. I’m finished. I’m through explaining this. I refuse to give her information beyond my social security number and those of my children. I insist on a supervisor. I get one. Or rather, I get a message machine. By now, I’m an obnoxious, ranting bitch on wheels. I explain the entire situation from start to finish. It is 2:45 p.m. when I hang up. I know the office closes at 4 p.m.

At 3:30 p.m., I’m waiting no more. I dial the Malden office again. By now they are waiting for me to call. I am now actually talking to the man who runs the Malden office (Mr. Nash). His comment to me is that there is no excuse for what has happened. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. They dropped the ball. (NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.) Blah. Blah. Blah. He’s going to have Mr. Osorio work on the accounts on Friday and Saturday. He asks if Mr. Osorio can contact me on Saturday if there are any questions. What I want to say is, “Are you fucking kidding me?” but what I say is, “Of course.” I do not hear from Mr. Osorio, so I call on Monday to check out the situation.

By Monday, I get Mr. Osorio’s assistant who tells me that my daughter’s account is all set. Mr. Osorio is working on my son’s now and he’ll call me on Tuesday morning between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. to let me know if everything is okay. Mr. Osorio calls me this morning right on cue at 7:45 a.m. My daughter’s August money was put through on the 27th of August. It should be in her account. (I checked. It’s there.) The other payments should arrive by Friday at the latest via direct deposit. (I’m keeping my fingers crossed.)

So, Alan old boy, here’s the moral of the story: If you could just get them to do their jobs right from the beginning, you could save a shitload of money. It isn’t the benefits that’s costing this country. It’s the sheer ineffectiveness of the bureaucracy combined with the level of employee stupidity.

Okay, before I get into this I just have to relay something I saw today. I’m driving down the road to my house and I see this truck that says across the back Jesus Plastering. WTF? I thought Jesus was a carpenter! Who knew he did plastering too.

So, now that I’ve had a day off from retail hell, I’m back on the Millipore team building party thing.  As time passed, my department had a goal: We wanted to get the division VP (and our immediate boss), otherwise known here as SV, to one of our parties. We had a plan. We started leaving her anonymous voice mails and notes. We threatened to show up in her neighborhood if she didn’t show up at one of our parties. Of course, we’d show up as only we could. And she knew that.

I’m know there were parties after the Grand Kahuna party but, frankly, I can’t remember them in comparison. Let me tell you how this one started out: It started out with Bruce and I driving up to the Lewiston-Auburn area of Maine in search of  mushrooms. And I’m not talking about the fungi you cook with either. I’m talking mind altering mushrooms. Not peyote buttons, mind you. Those are disgusting. You actually hurl before you hallucinate on those babies. Only did those once. Never again. These were not as potent, but combine them with a little weed and tequila and you’ve got a pretty good buzz on hand.

Not much to do up there in Lewiston but drink, so we did that. We stopped in this little craphole of a bar and watched a rare afternoon Celtics game on television while we tried to find his friends who had access. After about five hours, we finally hit paydirt. Needless to say, we drove home and tested them out. Yeah, we were ready.

This was the infamous jello shot party. Everyone dressed in sixties garb (peace signs and paisley shirts everywhere) and several brought jello molds. The winner was the bed pan of yellow jello with tootsie roll pieces in it. I’m not quite clear on who brought that one, but it may have been Brian. Yeah. Disgusting. Sat it right in the middle of the food table for good measure.

By this time, there was a core group that arrived early at the Party Zone. The group consisted of my departments and my landlords. But an unusually large number of people showed for this one for some unexplained reason. A lot of people from work showed and a lot of our suppliers did too. Not only did my niece and her husband show (as they always did), but so did my nephews that were of legal age at the time. It took only about an hour or so for the party to ramp up. People were just crazy that night. The music was blaring and a “band” had already formed in the dining room. Then there was a knock on the door. All we heard was, “Oh my God!” and several of us ran to see what was up.

There stood our boss dressed in sixties garb, replete with the most incredible beehive hairdo you’d ever want to see. “I hear there’s some kind of party going on around here!” Then, she started laughing and so did we. Everyone was psyched. We weren’t the only people on her staff there. Many of her product and marketing managers were as well. The great thing about SV was that she didn’t cramp anybody’s style. People were just amazed and happy that she showed up. And she fit right in. A couple of hours after her arrival, she said, “Now I know what everybody’s talking about on Monday mornings and why they’re talking about it!”

The place was absolute craziness and those mushrooms went over big time. Then, the bell rang. It was late and nobody else was expected. My nephew had the intelligence to look out the window, then he turned around and looked at someone in the living room and said, “Get those bags off the table, man! It’s the police.” Some people reacted and got rid of the bags. The majority of the people just went back to partying. My nephew buzzed them in.

I’m dead sure they were expecting to see a bunch of teenagers raising hell and destroying the building. Instead, they found a bunch of thirty- and forty-year-olds acting like, well…assholes. It was loud and the windows were all open, so I’m sure the sound was spilling into the street. Somebody complained, but it wasn’t anyone in the building because they were all in my apartment partying. The police walked in and started looking around the apartment. I wish I could say that everyone stopped what they were doing, but they didn’t. In fact, SV had gathered a few people from my department into a corner and was leading them in a very cockeyed version of “Bringing in the Sheaves.” Their version was called “Bringing in the Sheep.” It was hysterical. She just smiled at the police as they walked around. Then they headed for the door again. They turned around on the way out.

“Do us a favor. Close the windows and turn on the air conditioning if it’s hot. We don’t want to have to come back here. And be sure the people who are drunk stay here. Okay?” They opened the door to leave. “By the way, have fun.” That was it. This particular party didn’t end until about five in the morning. There were several people camped out on my floor.

Like I said, there was never a party of this scope again. But I have to tell you, the police stationed a cruiser outside starting at midnight for each and every party to follow. I wonder why?

…and I swear to Buddha, Jehova or whomever else you want to swear to that I have a sign on my forehead that reads, “Only whack jobs come to my cash register line, puhleeeeeeze.” Today I’m ringing away and some guy comes up while on his cell phone.

“Okay, now I’m going to do something strange,” he says to me. And he hands me the phone.

Me, of course, being the happy-go-lucky little employee that I am says, “Hello?”

“Who is this?”

“Oh, I work at [Name]. Apparently your husband wants you to order your coffees from me.” And I’m guessing this is the case because he’s a fucking moron. As it turns out, I was not far from the truth. What I was soon to realize was that I was dealing with not one, but two, morons.

She proceeded to describe these two drinks. Her first description around totally confused me. And I’m not the fucking moron in this equation. So she says, “Okay, let me try this again because I know I can do this better.”

My response? “Okay.”

But here’s what I really wanted to say:

“Okay, you fucking idiot. What are you talking about. I’m on a cell phone at the register and the people in line behind your husband are ready to mutiny and shoot me in the bleeding head. Can you please just get this done already?”

All the while this is going on, the person who actually has to make these two drinks and the supervisor are there laughing at me because, although I’m being sweet and charming on the phone, my body language and facial expressions are belying my true feelings…the ones that are telling my brain to “kill the idiot in front of you and move the line along.”

The order turned out to be two of the largest cold drinks we offer, with a combination of hot and cold items and — between the two drinks — exactly 28 pumps of syrup. Are you fucking kidding me? Twenty-eight pumps of syrup. Oh, and then, I forgot to mention that at the end of the order she says, “Can you do me a favor?”

By now, I’m in such a state that I say, “Oh, sure.”

Here’s what I really wanted to say:

“Okay, sister, haven’t I done you enough favors already today? I’m on your husband’s cell phone taking your drink order in the middle of a one-hundred-degree-day afternoon rush. Are you kidding me?”

But I didn’t say that. So, then, she says, “Can you ask him to bring me home seven packages of Equal?”

I mean, why bother at that point? Twenty-eight pumps of syrup isn’t enough? Why go to Equal now? Just order thirty-five fucking pumps of syrup instead. WTF?

The only thing we can hope for is that these two go into a diabetic coma before they order this crap from us again. But I’m never that lucky.

I am far from done with Millipore party stories, but I simply have to interject something here. This is once again from the annals of what I say to customers versus what I really want to say. Again, I’m not going to reveal my employer’s trade name. No siree. Not today anyway, but I have to tell you that there are a lot of irritating customers who frequent my store (as well as a lot of extremely wonderful customers, I might add). Here’s what pisses me off.

One from column A

A lot of these people come off like they are so much better than anyone else. I’m sure this is proportionally related to the amount of gold jewelry they wear…at least in their minds. If they are so educated, rich and smart, why can’t they say a simple word like ARTISAN. Nope. They can’t. To many of these people, it’s ARTESIAN bread. Like what? Does the bread come from a fucking well? Maybe there is indeed a bread that is baked in an underground oven and comes flying up out of the ground under pressure. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe it’s because the people from snootyville get to add a syllable and sound even smarter than others. Or maybe it’s because they don’t understand phonics. You know, PHONICS. Read the fucking label. Sound the word out. So, let’s go through this again:

ARTESIAN: Refers to a well in which water is under pressure and comes to the surface naturally.

ARTISAN: A worker who practices a trade or handicraft OR a product made by a craftsman in small quantities.

NOT EVEN FUCKING CLOSE, FOLKS. It isn’t Artesian Bread. It’s Artisan Bread. ARTISAN. There. Done with that rant.

And now, a word from the land of cluelessness

There are also people who come through the store who are simply clueless, in a fucking fog, out of touch, and disinterested in knowing what the hell they are talking about. Let’s take the issue of TRANSGENDERED vs. TRANSVESTITE. Yes, we have a transgendered person in the store. SHE is a wonderful person. One of our customers, however, refers to her as a transvestite. Okay, let’s understand the difference here:

TRANSVESTITE: A person, and especially a male, who adopts the dress and often the behavior typical of the opposite sex especially for purposes of emotional or sexual gratification.

TRANSGENDERED: A person who expresses or identifies with a gender that differs from the one which corresponds to the person’s sex at birth. These people aren’t necessarily transvestites, folks. Generally speaking, they are going through some medical process to change their gender identity.

Okay, now we have established that differentiation. The subject of his question was even more disturbing, since we have also hired a female employee of Middle Eastern origin who happens to wear the traditional head garb. He wanted to know how the “Muslim person” was getting along with the “transvestite.” You know, like we had some juicy stuff to report. Like we would? He asked me while I was at the register. I just looked at him stupefied, completely taken aback however momentarily. Then, I broke my silence and said, “You know, [NAME], we don’t have those problems in this store. We all get along and watch each other’s backs. We don’t need those problems coming in from the outside.” Later on, our manager spoke to him and straightened him out. ‘Oh, but he’s just irritant number one on this topic. There’s a woman who’s even worse.

Okay, so, she’s pregnant. But her rudeness goes beyond simple hormonal explanations. She’s just a rude bitch, plain and simple. I swear to whomever is up there that she’s going to give birth to the spawn of Satan. No question about it. The thing is going to be born with little horns and a nasty little attitude. This wonderment of nature comes in one day, walks up to the register to order, and says, “Okay, so there was a guy there on the bar yesterday with make-up on. Was he kidding?”

Employee A responded, “Oh, you mean (NAME)? No, actually she’s not kidding.”

Now, this woman is not very old. So, she doesn’t have that excuse either. She must have spent the majority of her existence under a fucking rock if she doesn’t get it. Either way, she was just out of line. Her attitude was despicable. That said, I thought Employee A was very polite to her. This is what I would have wanted to say had she come up to my cash register:

“Get a fucking clue, honey. What makes you think you deserve an explanation to begin with? Just order your freakin’ coffee and get the hell out of our store. The only thing we owe you is coffee. We don’t owe you a peep show into our fucking personal lives. End of story. Oh, and by the way, I hope your baby is a hermaphrodite. Have a nice day, you Godforsaken douce bag!”

And since I’m sure she wouldn’t have a clue what a hermaphrodite is:

HERMAPHRODITE: An animal or person having both male and female reproductive organs.

Now that I think of it, that’s a pretty harsh thing to wish on the unsuspecting spawn. Just the fact that he or she will have to grow up with the mother from hell is probably curse enough. I’m trying to envision her in say, oh, thirty years when she’s in menopause. Hide the handguns and the nukes.

A few weeks later, she’s back at my register again. We have a floater as a routine who helps move the line along with the second person ringing (that would be me). She’s a confused bitch on top of everything else. Some really nice customer places his order and she turns to him and says, “I don’t know what you are doing, but you just ordered before me.” I held my tongue and proceeded to serve her highness, but here’s what I wanted to say:

“No dickwad. He’s just fine. You simply don’t “get” the line movement. The physics are waaaay too far advanced for your tiny little pea brain. And by the way, have I told you what a fucking caustic personality you have today and every day you waltz into this store to bring a little ray of sunshine to us all?”

Okay. I’m pretty much done with this rant. I feel much better. Goodnight.

A little post-”We’re So You” party note here: We had a ton of stuff left over come Monday morning and we were determined not to let it go to waste. We had plenty of the 1-800-the-ladies posters left, so we enlisted a couple of guys to hang them up in the men’s bathroom in the marketing department.  We also hung a bunch of the posters in the hallways along the way MY came into the building. When she arrived at work that day, all she said was, “You guys are in big trouble.” We laughed at her. “Sure we are, Marcia.” About an hour after her arrival, however, one of the product managers (we’ll call him Ken) walked into MY’s office and said, “Marcia, you look pretty good in that poster in the men’s room.” In a loud, booming voice, all we heard was “Deborah!” All hell broke loose on the marketing floor and before she knew it, everyone was hanging out in the bathrooms checking out the posters.

After this party, word about the team building parties really started to spread throughout the company. More people than ever showed up at the next one.

With every new party (and these happened about every two weeks), the ante was raised. Immediately after the “We’re So You” party, we had no particular theme. I was really against forcing anyone to have to dress as anything to have a good time, so we just pretty much let people free form. This time around, Bruce, my landlord’s lover, decided he was going to dress as Tammy Faye Baker. We didn’t tell a soul. Bruce was a pisser and we certainly got into our share of trouble together. If anyone could pull this off, it was Bruce. Coming as Tammy Faye definitely required a shopping trip.

Bruce and I went to Sears to get his shoes. (They were fucking huge. Sears was the third store we stopped in. Nobody had a size 10 women’s high heel.) We went to some incredible dive on Route 1 in Saugus to get a wig. I have no idea where we went for the slutty dress he bought, but it was blood red. Perfect. The make up was a moot point. You could get that trashy stuff anywhere. By the time he knocked on the door, he was carrying a fucking Bible and a martini. And he had his lover, Steven, in tow…dressed as Jim Baker…replete with a tux and tails (and just a pair of boxers from the waist down). It was an amazing show.

When Bruce knocked on the door, he was crying just like Tammy Fay did. He kept dabbing at his eyes with a Kleenex, talking about how his (her) husband had an affair and how crushed he (she) was. Steven just stood a little behind him and to his right, continually handing him Kleenex. It was hysterical. The look is hard to describe. Somewhere there are photos of this, and I’m going to search for them. In lieu of that, I’ll try to explain as best I can: Bruce had a trashy blonde wig on and plenty of bright red lipstick kind of all over his face. Both his mascara and nose were running because he was “crying.” He had on a low-cut blood red dress; he even shaved his legs and chest for the event. We must have bought all the cotton balls in Walgreens to pad his bra.

This was a crazy party. People got all sorts of fucked up. First, one of the product managers (we’ll call her LD) got really wasted on margaritas. Suddenly, she was gone. We were in a panic thinking that she drove home under those circumstances. We later found her upstairs in my landlords’ apartment drinking coffee and talking to Bruce. This was in the wee hours of the morning, way beyond the time when Bruce changed out of his Tammy Faye get up. I actually have no idea what time she left, but she eventually sobered up and left. (I can tell you that her husband was none too happy about the fact that she was out most of the night.)

Another friend, and a member of my staff (we’ll call him BD) also got messed up pretty badly. This time, however, Bruce called me on my cell laughing like hell. “You have to get up here and get a load of Brian.” I immediately went upstairs to find BD a nervous wreck, sitting on Bruce and Steven’s sofa. He looked up at me, “Deb, I think I’m gay.” I looked at Bruce, who just rolled his eyes. I shook my head. “Brian, I think you’re drunk and messed up on pot. But you are not gay, bubba.” Later on I said to Bruce, “You know, I think he’s gay too but he looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The last thing I want to do in my condition is play psychology. I can barely remember my name.” We both started laughing. (By the way, B is married today. Oh, yeah, to a woman.)

And now for something completely…different

Okay, I’m figuring that Bruce as Tammy Faye must have been inspirational because two weeks later, several people dressed up as characters. MY told us in advance that she wanted to come as Elvis Presley. BD chimed in that he wanted to be James Brown. These two idiots went all out.

Before the party, we went out and bought a velvet Elvis painting and a street sign that read Elvis Presley Boulevard. MY even went to a costume outlet in Arlington and got a genuine Elvis costume, complete with the hair. It was amazing. BD did the same with James Brown. He put on blackface and came in a white tux. You should have seen his hair. It was absurd.

But Bruce was not to be outdone. He came in a white turban and wrap. His name was Sodomy Insane (that’s Saddam Hussein to the rest of you). It was madness. Those who had never been to these parties before could not believe what they were seeing. That was the night somebody asked what one of the dishes was and my niece’s husband replied, “Endangered coconut baby seal.” I thought the woman was going to pass out. It was actually coconut chicken, but we were having waaaay to much fun at her expense to tell her the truth.

This was also the night Bruce introduced us to Grapefruit Flips, a really simple but deadly drink. Basically, you put some ice cold grapefruit juice in a glass and pour a ladle of vodka on top. It works best if the vodka has been in the freezer. No mixing required. Simply chug it. Wow. (Personally, I think vodka could be classified as its own food group, but that’s just me.) Many people fell asleep on my floor that night, but I had to take the dog out in the wee hours of the morning. I was less than graceful during this task and the dog pulled me down the stairs on my ass. Apparently, everyone in the building pretty much heard that.

I’d be a liar if I said I remembered every minute of these parties. There was waaaay too much alcohol and contraband floating around for that. But I do remember some of the highlights. On this particular night, The Pretenders were the band of choice and we must have sung about twenty songs.

All I remember is my phone ringing and Bruce was laughing like hell, “I gotta’ know. Did you just fall down the stairs taking Simone out?” I started laughing too, and I ended up going upstairs and continuing to party with Bruce while some of my guests camped out on my apartment floor.

These parties were crazy, but the grand kahuna of parties was about to take place. And that’s another post for another day, by the way.

Okay, it took a while for all hell to break loose in Melrose. But it was a thing of beauty in the making. The first team-building party at my place was simple enough. It was a boxer shorts party. Everyone had to come in boxers. No problem. Everyone did, and there was no shortage of amazing designs on display, including an incredible pair of Jaws boxers. The Argentinian Tornado, NW, had a new twist on boxers. (You’ve met NW before. She’s the woman who fell into the boxcar after we all went drinking at The Salty Dog.) She pinned gummy worms to her boxers, which my schnauzer, Simone, proceeded to eat one at a time until she got sick.  That dog was jumping at her pants all night. The parties got better and more creative from there.

In fact, the parties expanded in scope and attendance. Not only did my department come, but the product and marketing managers began to come, along with their husbands and wives. The more boring attendees sat in the living room and watched sports because most of the action happened in the dining room. There was a reason for this. I would literally take the day before each party off to cook an unbelievable amount of food…and the bar was in the kitchen. At first, we stuck to frozen margaritas of various colors, then we moved onto tequila shots using Monte Alban Mezcal with the worm in the bottom of the bottle.  But people also brought stuff to drink, so it was crazy shit all the time. There was also plenty of maryjane to go around.

My two landlords, also proud members of the gay community, started to attend as did the rest of the people in my apartment building. Then there were my nieces and nephews (the ones who were old enough to be there and in the presence of contraband). The great thing was that everyone got along and just let it all hang out.

Pretty soon we had amassed an entire orchestra of plastic instruments, like saxophones, guitars, banjos, trumpets, maracas, marimbas, harmonicas and one piano. I had no shortage of great music and it would blare from the time people began to arrive until the wee hours of the morning. I’ll tell you one thing, get enough booze and contraband into people and they love standing in front of a microphone and singing The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Rolling Stones. The beauty was that my neighbors were busy partying with us, so it didn’t much matter how loud it got.

The “We’re So You” Party

The second party started the ball rolling. My landlord called me up on the phone one day and told me that they found one of the zaniest members of my staff (and the oldest, by the way) in his Tufts yearbook. We’ll call her MY. She’s hard to explain. The best description I can give you is she is a totally stream-of-consciousness individual. Nothing that came out of her mouth made sense, and everything made sense at the same time. She’s still as funny as hell.  I could not believe it, so I had to go upstairs and look. It was true. There she sat, almost 30 years earlier, with Earl, her former husband and a former classmate of my landlord’s. It was too good to resist.

We blew up the photo and photocopied it, then we just cut out her head. We made about 30 copies of this and put them on tongue depressors with glue. Then we took her head and replaced the heads of women in every single stupid ad we could find, like 1-800-the-ladies, a stairmaster ad, and some dump plastic wrap ad from Good Housekeeping, just to name a few. We made literally hundreds of copies of these. But we went even further. We took a bunch of quarters and put her head where George Washington’s was. We labeled the back “two bits.”  We also put her on copies of one dollar bills. Everyone would have a wad of cash and coins to use when they “bought” drinks at the bar.

We literally spent hours in the office photocopying and gluing everything until it was just perfect, then we called every attendee on the phone and told them what was going on. Everyone had to be there that Saturday a half hour before MY arrived to get ready. Everybody was into it. Before MY got to my building, some of the attendees took the posters we’d made and pasted them in the hallway leading up to my apartment. The rest were hung on my apartment wall.

We pretty much had no clue how we would handle it when she walked in, but we all had what we called “Marcia Masks.” (Okay, I just gave away her name but she really won’t care.) I know it was my idea at the last minute to use John Cougar Mellancamp’s song, “Hurt So Good.” Instead of singing “Hurt so good, come on baby make it hurt so good” we changed the words to “We’re so you, come on Marcia now we’re so you.” They fit perfectly. Even though she saw some of the posters in the hall (we could hear her saying “Oh, my God! Where did you get that picture?”), she had no clue what to expect when she walked into the apartment. The song went on as soon as she walked through the door and all thirty of us sang the entire thing right through to the end holding the masks in front of our faces.

I have to tell you it was pretty amazing and a total surprise to MY. She loved it. I know for certain that party didn’t wind down until about 3 a.m., and it set the tone for the rest of the parties we were about to have.

Okay. I need some help with this one. Today I was driving up in New Hampshire, and I found myself behind a truck with the one sticker that really sets me off. It’s pictured here and the one on the back of this particular truck read “Git ‘r Drunk.”  I looked into the cab of the truck and immediately hoped that this was not the way this clown was going to get any girl into the truck with him. However, there are always exceptions to the rule.

They say ignorance is bliss, and it truly is in this case. Guys who brandish this decal on their trucks are about as forward thinking as the bimbos who go to work at Hooters. If, in fact, women think that working at Hooters is reflective of  “women’s liberation,” they have their heads jammed firmly up their rectums. I’m here to tell you that they have set all women back by several decades. It’s hard to demand respect from men when women are filling the very role men have traditionally carved out for them.

Here’s what I’m thinking: We’re always hearing about these FEMA camps that have been built all across the United States. The right-wing paranoia squads are absolutely convinced that we’re all going to be rounded up and incarcerated there. I suggest a better use for these camps. Let’s round up all the clowns that brandish these stupid, sexist female silhouette decals and put them in the camps. Then, we can give them all some kind of massive sensitivity training. After that, we can round up all the women who waitresses at Hooters (and related jobs) and give them electroshock therapy.

That’s what I’m talkin’ about and, seriously, WTF?

On September 15, I was moved from ICU to the step-down unit. I was eating solid foods again and I had been sitting up for several days. Still no walking. While I’m on the subject of the ICU, I cannot say enough about the care that Anna Jaques provides. The nurses are spectacular. They’ve got everything down and there’s no messing around. Besides all that, they are a lot of fun. Because I’m at the hospital a lot with Beth to care for her various chronic illnesses, I never fail to visit the ICU and say hi to everyone there. I felt like they were my family when my family couldn’t be there.That was important to me. I’m not used to being sick and I’m resistant to being an invalid. They were great.

I had one unexpected visit before I left ICU. A doctor I hadn’t seen before walked in and introduced himself as Dr. Tarkan. He looked at my chart and IV and then said, “You’ll probably never have to see me again. My specialty is nephrology and they called me in on the case because your kidneys were close to failing. You were lucky.” I felt like saying, “No shit, Sherlock.” I decided at the last minute that I didn’t know him well enough to joke like that. Besides, he looked a little less loose than some of the other doctors that visited me. I mean, let’s face it. Nephrology? How exciting can it be?

On the road back

It wasn’t much different in the step-down unit. The care there was equally spectacular and Beth and I got friendly with a whole bunch of new nurses. The nurses and aides still came in at the same time at night, woke me up, took my vitals and gave me medicine. I still had the central and arterial lines. But I was going to the bathroom on my own. The best thing was that I was now going to get physical therapy and be allowed to walk again (with a heart monitor, of course). I’ve got to say that I cannot believe how much I lost while I was sick. I was just so weak. It took me forever to do anything, and the first day I was allowed to walk,  making it down the hall and back simply exhausted me. A lot of my meds were now in pill form, and I was on a ton of stuff. I was also getting shots in my stomach every day, but I cannot remember what it was for. My inhaler had been switched to Atrovent. (Later, my primary care doctor would add a long-acting inhaler as well, Flovent.)

During the week I was in the step-down unit, the kids came up for dinner several times. The food was great. The menu was like a restaurant menu.  One of the nurses we’d gotten friendly with came down from ICU on her break and ate dinner with us one night so that she could meet Thalia and Aaron. It was a fun time. Beth was great. She would get the kids to school and come up to the hospital for a visit. Thalia had a key and would let herself in, then get Aaron off the bus. Beth would go home and feed them, then come back with both in tow. My sisters and my niece cooked a bunch of food for Beth so she wouldn’t have to worry about that portion of the program.

I had received permission to use my laptop. The hospital had free wireless Internet, so I got back to my political blogging on Turn-Left. I also began to divide up Beth’s photos into categories so that I could begin her photo blog when I returned home. I had plenty of time to work on this stuff now. Jim, the guy who runs hypocrisy.com (which Turn-Left is a part of) called to say that he didn’t want returning to political blogging to be a detriment to my health. I told him it was adversely affecting my health to keep my mouth shut, so it was better to go back to blogging. By the middle of the week, I was working on the stairs with the physical therapist, and with the assistance of a cane. At the end of the week, I lost the heart monitor.

Dr. Pourati had come to see me before I moved to the step-down unit.  He told me that he would be on vacation the week I moved, and that I’d probably be getting out at the end of the week. He gave me a card with his cell phone number written on it, and told me to call him if I had any questions or if problems came up while he was away. Dr. Pourati also told me that someone would come in and set up the visiting nurse program with me. Before he left, he set up a follow-up echo for me on the 23rd of September, and a follow up appointment with him on September 26. I finally had to break down and choose a primary care doctor. I had scheduled an appointment with her in October. Dr. Pourati wasn’t happy with that timing, so he had taken the liberty of  calling and changing the appointment for me, making it much sooner.

Getting sprung!

On Monday morning, September 22, Dr. Harris came into my room and told me he was surprised to see me still here. My last chest x-ray was clear, and they were ready to send me home. He said he would take care of all the paperwork and I would be able to leave after lunch. Dr. Harris told me to order breakfast, and then went off to take care of the details. I had just ordered breakfast and hung up the phone when this tall skinny doctor with white hair walked into my room. He stuck out his hand, “Miss Della Piana, I’m sure you don’t remember me.” I shook back. “I don’t remember a lot of things,” I replied. He told me that it was probably just as well I didn’t.

He then proceeded to tell me that he had been a doctor for a long time and a handful of patients made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. I was now added to his list. He said it was a miracle that I was walking out of the hospital at all, let alone as quickly as I was. He also said he wanted to come in and wish me the best of luck. I was honestly trying to downplay this miracle crap. I’m not comfortable with that. I think it’s because I don’t want to believe I came that close and I essentially was taken completely by surprise; I couldn’t see it coming. That it could happen again is scary. But I don’t let it rule me. I did change some stuff. Now, as soon as I catch anything, I go to my primary care doctor whether or not I have a temperature or am coughing. All of the doctors got together and decided that would be the best bet since I had none of the outward symptoms of pneumonia. I’ll go along with that one.

We had one last thing left to do before I left, and that was to remove the central line. I’ll tell you what. After going through the removal of that small line, I was certainly glad that I’d been out of it for being put on and removed from the vent. The nurse bandaged the open wound on my neck and then came in and gave me instructions for showering because she was absolutely sure that was the first thing I was going to do when I got home. (She was right, of course. I had been there since September 6.)

I walked out of Anna Jaques at about 3:15 p.m. on Monday, September 22. It was warm and sunny out. We had to stop and get some prescriptions, and I was definitely exhausted when I got home, but I was happy to be out. I showered right off the top, then I hung out with the kids for a while. There were lots of naps thrown in there.

Getting back to normal…whatever that is

The very next day, I went to Pentucket Medical Center for my first follow-up echocardiogram. I had gotten a pep talk from Dr. Pourati before I left the hospital. He told me that he waited to give me the echo until after I left the hospital so that I would not become depressed that my heart had not made much of a gain. He repeated again that it would be a three-month process, but that he did expect to see improvement with this echo. Finally, it was my turn. The very first thing that happened was that I recognized the technician as a Starbucks Walkers Brook customer. She told me that I frequently made her grande extra-hot chai. She worked at Pentucket and also at the Lahey Clinic. That’s why she was in the Reading area.

After we talked for a bit, she started the examination. I was just laying there looking at the screen and, let me tell you, I had no freakin’ idea what I was looking at. After a few minutes, she said to me, “Did you actually have a heart problem?” I was kind of shocked at the question, so I told her what had happened. Then, it was her turn to be shocked, so I asked her why she was shocked. She told me that my heart looked great, perfectly normal, and that my ejection fraction was a perfectly normal 65%. No heart abnormalities. No thickness. Nothing. She said, “You’d never even know you were sick.” It was unusual for a tech to talk to somebody like that, so I had no intention of saying anything to the doctor about our conversation when I finally saw him at the end of the week. I did tell Beth. All she said to me was, “You crazy son of a bitch. Figures.”

I saw Dr. Pourati  on Friday, September 26 and he basically told me the same thing the tecnician did. He then told me that I could return to work without hesitation. When I asked him if I had to start at fewer hours, he said, “No. You can go back to what you were doing before.” The last thing he asked me to do was go downstairs on the way out and have my blood drawn. They had never checked my cholesterol or run a lipid panel while I was in the hospital. He was sure that my heart attack was related to the septicemia and not a result of heart disease, but he wanted to close the loop on the information. I thought that would be a great idea since I hadn’t had routine blood work in about fifteen years. (Hell, I still can’t tell you what my blood type is.) I was concerned that it wasn’t a fasting test, but he wasn’t. I had not yet had lunch. It was after noon, and I had breakfast really early. He thought it would be fine the way it was.

He asked if the visiting nurses had been coming and I assured them they were. I told him they told me not to take my blood pressure and heart pills together because my blood pressure was pretty low when I did. He asked me how I felt when I took them together. Did I get dizzy or disoriented? I didn’t. He told me to go back to taking them together. There was no problem with that. He also told me that he would keep the visiting nurses coming for one more week, then cancel them. I would not need to be monitored any further.

I wanted to get back on the schedule at work as soon as possible, so I called Joy — my boss — as soon as I got in the car. The schedule for the week of September 29 was already done, so she put me on the schedule for the following week. I worked for the first time on Friday, October 10, just a little over a month after the whole disaster took place. That was about two months earlier than anyone had predicted. I also began cardiac rehab, so I managed my schedule around that.

There are a few lasting effects surrounding my near-death experience. Like, oh, if Beth can’t hear me snoring in the middle of the night she shakes me awake to see if I’m still alive. You know, stuff like that. And Aaron finally said that he doesn’t want me to get too tired because when “you got sick before you really freaked me out.” He had never said anything like that until about a week ago. I’ve pretty much put it behind me. It’s not that it doesn’t creep into my mind every once in a while. I’d be a liar if I said it doesn’t. I have to say, however, that I’m handling this much better than I ever believed I could. Now I just have to get past September 6.

A few people have asked me to write this post now. I’ve been avoiding it, but I cannot avoid it forever. It’s still a relatively new event in my life, but I feel like I’ve gotten past it to be quite honest. That’s not to say that there aren’t times of anxiety. There certainly are. However, I choose not to have it rule my life.

The term “one step from the slab” was coined by my niece’s husband Sergei. We used to use the term when we were younger to describe the old people in our family who were having birthdays. I’d ask something like, “Hey, how old is he going to be Sergei?” And Sergei would say, “I don’t know but he’s like one step from the slab.” Of course, now that I’m in my fifties and now that Sergei is about to be fifty, we no longer talk like that. Last year, at almost this time, I was one step from the slab.

Let me tell you something about myself: I am an insurance company’s dream. I’ve been paying health insurance premiums for years and have cost the companies virtually nothing.  Up until last year, I’ve had a total of 11 prescriptions over an entire adult lifetime. In essence, I had no real medical history until last year. Sure. I have allergies. I’ve had them for a long time. Usually Benadryl does the trick, but I cannot use it when I drive. I swear it induces coma. When it really bothers me, I usually get Allegra. It works and it doesn’t make me sleepy. A couple of years ago, my primary care doctor thought my allergies were becoming more respiratory and I began using an inhaler. Other than that, nothing new on the health front. I get a cold a year and it’s usually gone in a few days. I haven’t had the flu for a long time, and I’m pretty resistant to the stuff my kids bring home. It’s just the way it is. So, I went from no medical history to the edge of the earth in what seems to me to be one night.

September 6, 2008

The anniversary is coming up. I was working on Saturday, September 6, 2008. I remember that I felt okay, but I had been using my inhaler (Albuterol) more often than usual in the course of a day. That was about it. I felt like I had a sinus infection or sinus headache the day before. That’s not unusual if I have a bit of a cold. That’s where I usually feel it. However, it had cleared up. I certainly didn’t feel as though there was anything seriously wrong with me while I was at work. I was closing at Starbucks in Reading that night. I was supposed to be out at 9:30 p.m., then I had to turn around and be back at 6:30 a.m. the next morning for an opening. As it turns out, it slowed down during the course of the evening and I had the opportunity to leave early. I was grateful for that because I had a long ride  to Amesbury (about 32 miles one way). I noticed when I got to the car that I was winded.  I didn’t think much of it. I used my inhaler and headed home. The ride home was pretty uneventful.

I knew for the first time that something was wrong when I got home. I had a short walk from the car to the house, and I was having difficulty breathing when I got in the door. I used the inhaler again. By now, I had used the inhaler far more often that the recommended two puffs every four hours. I remember sitting down at the table and turning to Beth. “Is it possible I’m having a panic attack? I’m having a real tough time breathing.” It was after this that all hell broke loose, and my memory is spotty from here through the 9th of September. I will relate what I can remember.

At one point, I felt like the inhaler was working. I decided to go upstairs to the bedroom and watch television with my son, Aaron. We were laying on the bed together when my breathing became a problem again. I remember saying to Aaron, “A, go down and get your other mom. Tell her I can’t breathe.” I could not lay down. I got up. I was gasping for air. I walked out onto the landing and looked over the railing. Beth was there and I remember saying, “Beth dial 911.” Now, anybody  who knows me knows I do not ask anyone to dial 911. Ever. Beth knows it. She called 911 immediately, then she came upstairs. When she got up to our bedroom, I was apparently standing in front of the air conditioner trying to suck in air. I do not remember that. Memories get even spottier here.

I remember hearing the ambulance. I do not remember the EMTs or how they treated me. I remember being carried down the stairs in a chair, and I remember seeing a policeman walk into my house. And, oddly, I remember thinking, “What the fuck is he doing in my house. Cops do not come in unless they are permitted.” That’s it. I do not remember the ride to Anna Jaques Hospital at all. I do not remember the emergency room at all. I only know what Beth has told me.

My oldest sister, Mamie, and her husband apparently arrived in record time from Medford, also more than thirty miles away. My sister Joanne had a shorter trip from Andover. I seriously do not remember the ER. I do not recall speaking to doctors. I do not recall doctors examining me. I don’t recall not being able to breathe, but apparently I asked to be put on a vent. Beth tells me that I threw her out of the ER repeatedly. I don’t doubt this. Beth tells me that she was in the middle of a panic attack and was apparenty vomiting in the other room. I know this vomit thing is a recurring phobia and we’ll get to that, but not tonight. Suffice it to say it doesn’t surprise me that I was tossing her out if she was in the yak mode.

I am also told that the two doctors taking care of me in the ER were promising Beth nothing. They told her they were literally taking it minute-by-minute, then hour-by-hour, and they’d go from there. They said I was very sick. They told her that, if I survived, I would probably be on the vent until at least Friday. So, what exactly did I have? Wouldn’t you like to know! (Just kidding.)

I apparently had pneumonia for a long period of time. However, I ran no fever and I was not coughing up anything. The only symptom I had was the need to use the inhaler more frequently over time. I didn’t make that connection. What really caused the problem was septicemia. I didn’t know much about this before it happened to me. There were two other things that happened as a result of the septicemia. I had a heart attack, and I now had stress cardiomyopathy. It was also determined that I have moderate to severe asthma. I was transferred to the ICU.

Pulling a Lazarus

When I woke up on Tuesday (yes, Tuesday) I had no idea where I was. I looked to the left and saw three pictures up on the wall. One was a picture of Medicine Buddha. On either side of him were pictures of Thalia and Aaron. There were two nurses there taking care of me.  I was no longer on the vent, but I still had an IV running with antibiotics being pumped in. I was not on solid foods and would not be for several days yet. I had a central catheter and an arterial catheter.

It was only then that I learned how close I had come. I didn’t even realize that it was Tuesday. I was being followed by two cardiologists (one was the ‘house’ cardiologist who worked with the actual cardiologist on my case), as well as a nephrologist and an infectious disease specialist. When I woke up, they told me that I had cardiomyopathy and that my ejection fraction was only 15%. However, Dr. Harris and Dr. Pourati believed that would remit over time. I do not remember them telling me that I had a heart attack. I found that out for the first time when I was released and went to the follow up appointment. I am sure they told me and I do not remember. It never came up in conversation between Beth and I, probably because she thought I knew. The prognosis was that I’d recover, but I would be out of work for at least three months. That was Dr. Pourati’s best estimate.

Beth called on Tuesday to ask if she could bring the kids up even though I was on a vent. They really wanted to visit. The nurse told her that she had a surprise, so she should bring the kids. She told Beth to call her from the waiting room and she’d meet them. When she walked in and saw me off the vent, she was ecstatic. We were talking and she pointed two things out to me. On the wall were two containers. One held a black liquid and it was three quarters full, the other a green liquid (there was significantly less here). She pointed to the green and told me that came out of my stomach. It was probably the remains of what I’d eaten that evening on my half. The other, the black liquid, had come from my lungs. Not only did I have pneumonia, but I had also harmed my lungs using the inhaler so much.

After Beth and the kids left, I couldn’t sleep. I had been out for so long there was no way I was sleeping right away. The nurse told me not to worry about that. I remember being up all night. I watched “The Omen.” Then came “Anaconda,” a movie I had never seen but one that was better than I ever thought it would be. After that, I was served a steady diet of WB 56 sitcoms until morning. Luckily, they had pretty good old movies on all day.

The one thing about ICU is that you never really sleep anyway. They were waking me up for medicine, then to check my vitals, and then to do chest x-rays. While I was in ICU, they brought the portable machine into my room. By the end of the week, I was sitting up for Beth’s visits. While I was up there, everything going on around me was very unnerving. I was stuck there, however, so there was no getting away from it. The woman in the very next room passed away. They could not save her. That was really difficult to watch. I caught glimpses of her family breaking down outside in the hall. I imagined what would have happened had I not been so lucky. By the time I moved to the step-down unit, three people had died in ICU.

I apologize for breaking here, but this definitely needs to be told in two parts.

Okay, this is sort of a here and now post but, at the same time, I refer to stuff that has happened in my past. So, let’s call it a “that was then, here is now” moment. I was inspired to write this because, a few weeks back, I met someone I used to work with. I haven’t seen this person since before Thalia was born, and that would be more than twelve years ago. As is just so typical of lesbians, she asked me, “What do your kids call you?” I replied, “Ma.” She looked at me, “And what do they call Beth?” I looked at her and said, “Ma.” She got this confused look on her face, “What if you’re together and you both answer at the same time? What happens?” I though about it for a minute, and then told her that Thalia will usually point to one of us and say, “You” or “This one.” That seemed to disturb her.

What this person wanted was two distinct names. Like, maybe ma and mom. Or mom and mother. I mean, you cannot imagine how long she went on about this. It made seeing her again a real chore. I call that “processing,” and lesbians are notorious for processing. Not this lesbian, mind you, but most lesbians. Shit, get a room full of lesbians together and you can almost hear the whirring sound. Let me tell you where I come from on this one.

I live in a “No Processing Zone.” Seriously. I come from a home where both my mother and my grandmother were called, “Ma.” We used to congregate at my grandmother’s house after Sunday morning mass to eat meatballs and dip bread in her gravy (that’s spaghetti sauce to non-Italians). When I say “we,” I meant our family plus my aunts and uncles and their families. There were more people calling each other “Ma” than you could shake a stick at. We worked it out. There has been absolutely no lasting trauma from it.

Now, for the benefit of those who haven’t seen the evil mother-in-law, I’m going to include her photo here. Doesn’t she look like a lesbian? She processes too. Yes, she wants Thalia and Aaron to call her Mamé because that’s what “her boys” call her. Her boys, of course, are her other grandchildren. I knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Miss Thalia would comply. When I told her, she looked at me and said, “I’m not calling her that.”

Now, there was a period in my life when I lost my fucking mind. I’m not prepared to write about that in much detail yet, but I’m getting there. Suffice it to say that I was involved with someone else, and this person was a processor par extraordinaire. To this day, I’m not sure WTF happened to me. This woman had every characteristic that I just about disliked in a person, and processing was just one of them. Needless to say it was over before it began.

I don’t say that I never think things through. I do, but I’m more likely to just “go with it.” I also don’t over-analyze a situation like my bride does. If someone does something that hurts her, she has to know why the person did it. I don’t want to know why. I just want the person to fucking stop. It’s simple for me. The less time I spend in the processing zone, the more productive my life is.