Random Fodder

I visited my grandmother in the hospital today. Before I left, I considered eating lunch, but I instead decided to get to the hospital earlier rather than later. I had eaten a late breakfast, so I just left without eating.

I'm not sure what it is, but that sterile/purified air that they have in hospital rooms always seems to cause me trouble. It always bothers me. Perhaps I just need more germs in my environment than everyone else. Or maybe it's the germs keeping me strong and healthy!

After I had been in the room for about twenty minutes, I started getting light-headed. After a few more minutes, it started to worsen, and I started getting clammy, too. My aunt got me some ice water and put some ice in paper towel for my forehead. She then went to find a nurse.

The nurse comes in and says, "You look really pale and sweaty. We better get you to the emergency room." (My uncle later commented, "You're always pale, aren't you?")

I raised an eyebrow, and the nurse said, "You'll have to get in the wheelchair and I'll wheel you down there."

Since I was feeling light-headed, I decided to get in the chair so I could at least make it down to the cafeteria. My uncle followed so someone would know where I was. Due to construction, we got in the elevator, went down, and travelled through hallways that were clearly not intended for public use. I'm talking large pipes with shutoff valves and all that jazz.

As we traveled through the hallways, people stopped and looked at me, the man in street clothes being pushed by a nurse. All I really wanted to do was yell out to them, "I'm just a visitor! I don't belong here!!!" I think an outstretched, shaking hand would have perfected the effect.

By this time, I had gotten plenty of air, and I already felt much better. I certainly did not want to pay the $50 ER co-payment to have them check my vitals and possibly give me some juice. I know how the ER works — you don't get much help unless you need a limb sewn back on . . . and even then, you've got a 50/50 chance that it's sewn back on in the right direction.

I told the nurse that I really only needed some juice and something to eat, so the cafeteria seemed like an equally good option. She countered by telling me that it's good to be sure "just in case."

I thought, "Just in case what?!? Just in case you have some strange disease that causes you to black out every 9-12 months? Or just in case we want to be sure and charge you for a CAT scan? Or just in case our ER budget comes up short $300 this quarter?"

After a couple minutes, we arrived at the ER admissions desk. The nurse told them that I had passed out and almost hit my head on the floor to get me quicker service. They took my last and first names and my date of birth.

The ER staff scrawled out a wristband for me and the nurse started to put it on my wrist. I asked, "This won't be billable, will it?"

She asked me, "Why, you don't have insurance?" Since she provided me with a good, solid excuse, I put a concerned look on my face and shook my head. She explained, "It's no problem. This hospital will work with you on payment plans. They do it all the time." Not only was this not the answer I was looking for, it was also a definite confirmation that this would be billable.

Here's the rest of the conversation. Feel free to grab two friends and act it out at home:

ACT TWO, SCENE TWO

Setting: A hallway in a hospital just in front of an ER admissions desk. Sick people with horrible diseases, severed limbs, mild rashes, and axes in foreheads can be seen stage left in the ER waiting room. Me sits in a wheelchair in plain street clothes. Nurse stands behind the wheelchair while Uncle leans against a wall.

Me: I'm quite certain that all I need is some juice and food in the cafeteria, and I should be perfectly fine.
Nurse: I don't know. It's best to make sure you're fine.
Me: Naah, I think all I really need is some juice.
Nurse: I'd feel horrible if you passed out and hit your head on the floor because you left without getting looked at.
Me [to audience]: I'd feel worse if I paid $50 for a cup of juice and a blood pressure reading, both of which I could get at the nearest drug store for a total of $1.25.
Me [to Nurse]: No, I'm quite sure it's the fact that I didn't eat lunch today.
Nurse [to Uncle, well within Me's earshot]: Do you think you could talk to him and convince him?
Uncle shrugs, Nurse looks back at Me]
Me [preemptively]: Thanks anyway, but I'm certain.

At this point, I stood up, and the nurse tells me that if I'm going to the cafeteria, I might as well get back in the chair and have my uncle push me there, since the chair needed to be returned to my grandmother's floor anyway.

The story ends with me purchasing an orange juice and sub at the cafeteria and feeling much better from then on.

Fin. [curtain closes]

As I walked out the door of work tonight, my foot kicked a couple soft items that rolled away like rocks but without a sound. I noticed that one of the rocks rolled out of sight, but the other rock started hopping away. The two things I had kicked were small little frogs about an inch or so long.

Walking away confused, I noticed that there were a few other small frogs nearby hopping around. As I left the covered area and walked into the parking lot, I saw several more frogs. As I approached my vehicle to put a bag in the trunk, two more frogs hopped away into the grass.

I wondered if this is how the Egyptians felt with the plague of frogs, except on a much larger and much more inconvenient scale. At least the frogs didn't try to climb up on me . . . and hopefully I won't be heaping them into huge reeking dead-frog piles in a few days.

As I mentioned in a post the other day, the Hooked on Phonics method started teaching my son Sebastian letter combination sounds recently. You should also remember that one method I added to the HOP method is that I will sometimes ask Sebastian, "What's that?" or "Like what?" so that he can explain what that word means and thus confirm his reading comprehension.

Two weeks ago, we got to the letter combination of "sl."

The word was simple: "slap." He read it with no problems, and I asked him, "Like what?"

His answer was a matter-of-fact "Like when mommy slaps me."

Of course, I couldn't help but erupt into laughter at his naive reply, and I ran straight to my wife to tell her what rumor I had heard through the grapevine.

Let's just wait until he offers that up in kindergarten in the fall. Hopefully I won't be home to take that call.

The Backstory

My 30th birthday is near the beginning of June, and my son's birthday is near the end of June. We both celebrated milestone birthdays this year: 30 and 1. I'll leave it up to you to do the math and figure out whose is whose.

Since I often work weekends (including the weekend of Dylan's birthday), it seemed only natural to travel out to the homeland for his birthday party a week early. Unbeknownst to me, the idea was merely a wily subterfuge to conceal my surprise 30th birthday party.

Another piece of backstory that is important is that my wife has, on several occasions, removed a number of my t-shirts from my dresser drawers and placed them in bags and hidden them in storage. Her claim is that not only do I own far too many t-shirts, but that since I don't notice them missing, they're not even necessary in the first place. My counterpoint is, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" Once, she wanted me to toss a couple bags of clothing in front of the Salvation Army for her. I initially refused because you're not supposed to dump bags in front of the Salvation Army shop during off-hours. After some persistence, I agreed to do it. I pulled two bags out and started walking for the front door of the Salvation Army. A few familiar words spoke to me through the clear heavy-duty plastic bag: "State Spelling Chimp." Indeed, it was one of my old t-shirts in the bag without my permission. After scanning the bag again, it became apparent that many of the shirts were in the bags. Needless to say, the bags returned to the car, along with a grumpy husband.

The Frontstory

When I arrived at the party, I walked in the house to see the usual family members. My mother was at the door and greeted Sebastian and me as we entered. Since my wife was still getting Dylan out of the car, I announced that Dylan was not with me, since it was his party. I then looked at my mom and noticed that she was wearing my Family Guy t-shirt for some strange reason. I told her, "Nice shirt." As I looked over at a couple other people, I noticed that they were also wearing my t-shirts. Confused, I offered the same "Nice shirt" to them as well. At that point, it became clear that many of the people were wearing my shirts, so I continued telling each of them "Nice shirt." Still confused, my eye caught the gift table, which had a couple large black signs noting that it was my birthday party. It should be noted that my 30th birthday cake was really a Twinkies pyramid.

I was further surprised by my gifts this year from the culprits behind the surprise t-shirt-wearing party. My first gift was a t-shirt stating "My wife hates my t-shirts." My second gift was yet another shirt, but this one said, "And I have 30 more just like it." The third gift was another shirt that said, "… in a box over there." The final gift/shirt said "… in a bag in the trunk." Each shirt also has the website address to my primary blog, smarmycarny.com. Check out the (low-quality) scan of the shirts:

Of course, strangers might be confused by all this. You'd have to know me personally to understand . . . and even then . . .

The first shirt works great. My wife hates my shirts . . . and visit this site. Since the other three are part of a "story," they make less sense on their own. (It's not often that I'm wearing 2 or more shirts at once, and even if I did, only one would be visible.) The best of the three confusing shirts is "… in a bag in the trunk." It sounds so suspicious, you can't help but wonder what that guy's been doing with his free time.

The Sidestory

Now, looking back at the events of that weekend, I came to some interesting realizations:

We brought presents for Dylan, but we also brought some gifts for my aunt as well because her birthday (39th, of course) was a couple days before Dylan's. I "knew" that the party was for Dylan, but I didn't know if we were also celebrating my aunt's birthday too. The day before the party, I asked my mom, "Who exactly is the party for?" Of course, I innocently wanted to know if we just brought the presents for my aunt because it was the only time we'd see her, or if it was also officially her birthday. My mom, on the other hand, took this as an accusation that the party wasn't really for Dylan. Discussing this later, she said that she was sure that I had figured it out.

Before the party, I took my family to visit my father. I made sure that we got there with plenty of time to spare so we would not be late for "Dylan's party" and we also would be able to spend a substantial amount of time with my dad. I calculated the time we needed to leave in order to make it back 15 minutes early and arrive before most of the guests showed up, but my wife was working against me, doing her best to make sure that we arrived after all the other guests. On our ride back, my wife drove with Dylan and I rode with my brother-in-law and Sebastian. At one point, she pulled off at a gas station behind us and called us to tell us where she had gone. We were on a road that my wife knew well enough to make it to the party, so I kept trying to tell my brother-in-law to just keep driving and to have my wife make her way there. If I had been driving, I would have left her behind and arrived much closer to the time of the party.

One coincidental thing that happened had to do with shirts. As I mentioned, many of the guests wore my shirts that day. Earlier in the morning, my brother-in-law put on a shirt that looked strikingly similar to one I had. Sebastian even told him that he was wearing my shirt. Once the surprise had been revealed to me, I assumed that he was wearing one of my shirts, but it really just was a coincidence.

I finally got around to moving Sebastian's page over to this site.

Currently, his page is incomplete. I have written a synopsis of the day he was born and added pictures for his first three birthdays (0 – 2 years). I find that it's much easier to write about birthdays as they are happening, not 1 – 4 years later. Hopefully, with my wife's help I can get those summaries written soon. I'm certainly aiming to get the page completed in advance of Sebastian's birthday on August 5.

In Hooked on Phonics, Sebastian started learning sounds at the end of words a few weeks ago. One of the first letter combinations they teach you is "ck."

No, it's not that word ending in "ck," so don't worry . . . and I won't bother you about the time he was reading "tips" by using the "t" sound a second time in place of the "p."

One method I have added to the HOP method is that I will sometimes ask Sebastian, "What's that?" or "Like what?" so that he can explain what that word means. Originally, I did this to ensure that Sebastian understood the words he was sounding out because even though he could originally put the "m" and "at" sounds together, he had no idea he was saying "mat." This mini-game became so enjoyable to Sebastian that he started telling me what many of the words were. Often, he would throw me off. For instance, when he read off "bat," I would expect him to mention baseball, but he would say "They fly around at nighttime!" This was not the only time that he surprised me with his description.

Hooked on Phonics will introduce sounds, and in the book, they have a page with various words using that sound. Here's the "a-ck" section from the "ck" page:

ack: back – Jack – lack – pack – rack – sack

After reading off the last of the "ack" words, Sebastian gleefully looked at me and announced, "Sack — just like the sack under my pee-pee!" I then felt obliged to explain that the word is more generally used to describe many sorts of bags.

Ahh, the joys of being a parent . . .

RandomFodder.com

I decided to change the point and purpose of my second website and now it is up and running. This fulfilled one of my 43 Things for 2006!

Random Fodder shares personal stories and anecdotes about myself, much like 43 Things.

See more progress on: Finish my website