Shit Happens in the USA…Honolulu

Our family has recently returned from a month long trip to the USA.  Shit happened on the trip so often that I had to create numerous blogs to fit it all in, lest it become my next novel.  This is the first blog of the trip.

We had to wait an extra year for Miss Marvellous to complete Year 12.  During the wait, we started to organise ourselves.  We applied for our USA VISAs in February and hit our first snag during this initial stage.  Unfortunately Captain Fantastic (a.k.a. Felonious) had some trouble organising his VISA due to an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Nevada.  Don’t panic, it’s not as sinister as it sounds.  He incurred a speeding fine in 1988 and in the USA, when you get a speeding fine, you don’t get handed a piece of paper with a notification of your offence and the loss of demerit points, you have to attend court.  The Captain did not attend said court appearance due to the fact that he had returned home to Australia and stupidly, didn’t pay the fine or advise US officials…possibly because he was young and stupid and couldn’t think beyond his current circumstances.  30 years later, it came back to bite him on the arse.

So the kids and I had our VISAs, we just had to wait for the Captain to jump some hoops before he could be granted his.  Before he could attempt to gain his VISA he first had to provide an Australian Criminal Report.  He was advised by the local constabulary that this piece of paper would take 10 working days…it took 6 bloody weeks because every Aussie and his dog was planning to join us in the USA.  After this documentation finally arrived and the Captain’s honour was reinstated, the lengthy process of having the scanned document and passport verified in the USA commenced.  This is not an arduous task; it is simply a case of sheer numbers of similar requests and government workers at the other end who move at the pace of a sloth whilst giving absolutely no fucks about the people requesting the documentation. 

In April, while we patiently waited and tried not to fret, the Captain became concerned that we would all miss out on the holiday, or that the cost would bounce outside of affordability if it was left too long to book flights, so he called me at work and suggested he go ahead and book the kids and I passage in a flying machine.  Of course, this was out of the question as it’s not a family holiday without Dad.  The captain advised that this was not my call and he would like to put it to the kids.  I agreed but warned that the children would have the same reaction as me because there was no way they would want to go to the USA without their father.  Turns out I have no fucking idea because he called a family meeting that very night and put it to the kids and whilst I sat there with my arms crossed and a smirk on my face because he just doesn’t know our kids like I do, the little fuckers actually said. “Yep, that sounds good.”

Wait, what?  So now I’m back pedalling with my startled emoji face on, barking at them, “You do realise that there’s a chance he may not get his VISA in time and we will be flying over there without him?”  Miss Marvellous shrugs a shoulder and adds, “sure, we’d love you to come, Dad, but I don’t want to miss out on this trip.”  She refrained from adding “…because of your stupid fuck-up.” At this point, my bottom jaw was dangerously close to the table top when Boy Wonder joins, “Yeah, hope you can come, Dad.” Can you believe what little shits they are?  Worse than that, Captain Fantastic is sitting opposite me with a smug look on his face because he knows our loin fruit better than I. 

So he booked our flights on various agreed dates and the deed was done.  As the months ticked by, Miss Marvellous ventured, “He will be coming, right?” suddenly worried she’d jumped the gun and we’d be sending him postcards from the other side of the world.  I wanted to shout at her “well it’s a little late for that!” but I kept myself in check because frankly, I was starting to get a little worried myself.  Boy Wonder was constantly assuring us that The Captain will definitely be joining us.

 

Five months later, we finally got the green light and we heard the loud self-congratulatory trumpeting of Boy Wonder and he starts the “I told you so” spiel that I’m sure he’d been practicing for months.  By this stage, Captain Fantastic is lucky to get himself on most of our flights except two, both the flight to New York from Los Angeles and from New York back to Los Angeles.  The times differences were close enough for it to be only a half to an hour difference so not a bad outcome.

We arrived at Melbourne airport and straight away the Captain started causing trouble.  His carry-on luggage doesn’t pass security (a white powdered substance apparently…whaaaat?) so we’re all on the other side of security waiting for him.  He was standing akimbo getting patted down and I was bored with his fuckery so I darted to the loo.  Whilst I was gone, the bag failed a second test.  I returned to a grinning Miss Marvellous and Boy Wonder, but no Captain.  I looked askance and both of the kids were snickering.  Miss Marvellous blurted, “I think he’s getting a cavity search.”  I was startled, “Whaaat?”  She looked awfully hopeful, then conceded, “Well I don’t know for sure but I hope so.”   When he finally came back out of the interrogation room, he was grinning and I was thinking either he’s up for a little kinky, or a hot blonde with big boobs did the probe…or it was just a chat.  Either way, he didn’t look violated so I relaxed a little and he confirmed it was the latter…a little chat.  Miss Marvellous was disappointed and I was starting to get alarmed.

We caught our plane to Sydney, sunk a few refreshments in an airport bar and then finally, our flight departed Sydney for Honolulu at 7.30pm at night on 12^th December.  Woot, woot!  The Captain was seated a few rows behind us somewhere.  The flight was non-eventful for the first few hours as we caught up on multiple movies, enjoyed a tasty meal and a cheeky vino or two.  After midnight, I felt weary and was fighting to keep my eyes open except for the indigestion.  I wasn’t sure what had upset my stomach but I dozed fitfully until the acid woke me.  Actually, the gastric reflux was getting so painful that I had to buzz a steward for some antacid.  By this stage I felt like I had burned my entire oesophagus and when the steward arrived with chewable antacid tablets, I almost cried in relief (I am a drama queen).   No sooner did the soothing tablet make its way down, it became clear that the acid wanted none of it and the whole lot was making its way back up.  My skin grew clammy and my bottom jaw shuddered…fuck, I was going to puke. 

I almost broke all of the nails on my left hand as I hastily yanked my seat belt open, startling Boy Wonder on my left.  I dived out of my seat and tried to run down the aisle unsteadily before I spewed all over everyone dozing peacefully in their seats.  An unsuspecting dolt had chosen that moment to exit his seat and stretch his legs.  I careened into him as I tore down the aisle and bounced off his legs as I rushed past him…unceremoniously dumping him on his arse, back in his seat.  No apologies, or fucks for that matter, were given because if I opened my mouth, I would deliver a wet pizza all over him.  I no longer cared about anything except getting into that small cubicle…I’d started burping acid bubbles and vomit is imminent.  Thank fuck the toilet was unoccupied.

I looked like a crazy, psycho bitch as I yanked and pushed at the door back and forth to gain entry because in my panic, I couldn’t work out if it opened inwards or outwards and the vomit was making my stomach lurch.  Jesus, fuck I was almost crying in desperation when the door finally gave and I stumbled in, slammed the fucker shut and slid the bolt home. I then yanked the lid of the loo up and proceeded hurl violently.  I was throwing up convulsively, unable to stop my stomach from dramatically flinging me around in the small room as it purged the contents of my stomach all over the back of the toilet seat.  Finally, after ten theatrical minutes of hurling, I sagged over the toilet, totally exhausted by the experience.  My eyes were streaming, I had vomit in my nostrils (I could smell it like parmesan that had been left in the sun, in my olfactory) and my whole body was quaking from the violent incident.  I precariously stood and rinsed my mouth in the small basin.  I surveyed the mess that was the toilet and realised I had to clean it because I am a responsible adult.  I wet paper towel and cleaned the carnage with shaking hands.  I wished I was five years old and could curl up in someone’s lap whilst they stroked my back and murmured soothing words in my ear.  I felt totally spent as I gently eased the bolt on the door and made my way back to my seat.  I was lathered in sweat and looked for all intents and purposes like I’d just run a marathon…it certainly felt like I had.

As I took my seat, it felt particularly draughty around the back of my legs and after snaking a hand over my butt, it became evident that a rent had torn in my cargo pants during the calisthenics performed in that small room.  I reluctantly chewed another of the antacid pills in the hope that if there was any more acid bubbling in the petri dish that was my guts, that it would halt.  Boy Wonder looked at me and asked if I was okay…I was so exhausted that I’d lost the will to live so I nodded at him and resisted the urge to cry like a small child.  I put the ‘u’ shaped cushion behind my head and drifted restlessly to a shitful sleep.   

At some point whilst I was dozing during the 8 hour flight, it became daylight outside of the shuttered window and we’d entered US air space.  Considering we had left Australia at 7:30pm, it was rather disconcerting to my equilibrium to discover that we had arrived in Hawaii at 8:30am the same morning...like we’d climbed into a DeLorean and went back to the future.  Actually, when we returned, we would be leaving on 7^th January and arriving home on the 9^th.  We didn’t even get to see the 8^th of January…the 8^th didn’t exist for us.  This statement would be thrown at me during the rest of the trip because apparently, I told everyone who would listen those exact words because I am unoriginal and careless who I bleat it in front of...namely, my children.

So we shuffled off the plane and straight away, The Captain’s indiscretions affect us all.  We were, all four of us, ushered into a room.  It was winter there but Hawaii doesn’t suffer the cold like most places; it is a tropical paradise and was a lovely 24°C.  We waited in our plastic bucket seats with the fan whirring lazily overhead, eager to start our holiday.  We were all a little weary because none of us can really sleep on a plane.  My thigh kept sticking to the plastic seat where it was exposed through the rip in my pants.  The Captain was called into another room and Miss Marvellous took great pleasure in gesticulating a disposable latex glove being stretched over a hand.  The Captain grinned at her and the three of us giggled.  He was in there for a while and were speculating about all manner of invasive searching that was being conducted beyond the doors but as he was released from the room, he was walking normally and Miss Marvellous deflated in disappointment beside me.  He had again eluded the cavity search.  My daughter was becoming worrisome. 

We returned to the baggage area and there was nobody around.  Everybody had collected their luggage and were on their way, all except us.  Four lonely cases stood in the centre of the looping conveyor belt, alone and uncollected. 

The cab ride to Waikiki was fascinating and alarming all at once because everyone was driving on the wrong side of the road.  We arrived at the hotel complex and had to sit around the reception area, which was outside because we were in paradise, like browns cows because the room wouldn’t be ready until about 1pm.  To kill the time, we took off in groups, always leaving someone to watch over the luggage, to discover the beach, which was just meters down the road.  Finally we were allowed into the unit and we dumped our stuff and started our holiday.

Each day we wandered down to the beach in the morning, returning late in the afternoon to shower before walking down to dinner.  Most evenings we had to wait at least an hour for dinner because it was very busy in Hawaii with Australian and Japanese tourists.  The food was nice and Miss Marvellous and I had discovered Ahi, fresh tuna, and ate it like we were possessed.  We started to sort our way through the tax and tipping system.  Whatever the price on the menu, tax was added afterwards, and there is no rhyme or reason to their system so we couldn’t guess how much would be added to our bill.  Then you had to add around 15-20% for the tip.  It’s not cheap to eat there but the food was fresh and delicious.  I mistakenly assumed that most of the food in the USA would be like that, it’s not.  They are all about quantity over quality.  This became evident when we bought sandwiches for lunch one day and depending on the cold cut of meat in your sandwich, this took up 90% of the sandwich contents with only a thin layer of lettuce and a slice of orange cheese to inject a little colour.  We had to pull some of the meat filling out because really, Colon cancer called and we had to hit decline!

One particular day when we were loathe to wait for Boy Wonder to complete his ablutions, we left and advised we’d meet him at the beach.  When he finally arrived he was a little quiet.  After some probing, we managed to extract from him that he’d seen more than he wanted to see of a woman who was sitting on the ground, wearing shorts that didn’t quite contain all of her bits.  A wayward labia with a liberal scattering of course pubic hair had made its way out of the side of her shorts and was dangling like an old blood hound’s mouth.  He was so horrified by the sighting of the flange that he was rendered scarred into silence by the incident.

Miss Marvellous and I, on the other hand, were enjoying the shenanigans of group of young college hard-bodied men playing NFL in water in front of us.  We shared our admiration of the young men, although Miss Marvellous advised that some of them were a little too cut for her liking…her type is tall and skinny.  I nearly lost an eyeball in the mother of all eye rolls.  I’m as old as fuck so all of them were appealing to me for a little surreptitious perve.   Not so surreptitious it seems because we sat there with our heads together pointing out winning features of the men in the water like a couple of desperate creeps when a young guy sitting right beside us stood up from his towel and made his way to the group.  Miss Marvellous and I shared a startled glance, because we realised he had heard our creepy conversation, then we collapsed in fits of giggles.  Sprung!

ABC convenience stores hug most street corners in Waikiki.  Boy Wonder started counting them, like he’d suddenly made an appearance on the Asperger’s spectrum.  Everything was for sale in these stores.  You could purchase alcohol, trinkets, souvenirs and even clothing.   Miss Marvellous gave way to her snow globe addiction and started adding an unhealthy number to her collection right there in Waikiki.  Window shopping was a pastime in the streets while we waited for a table in the restaurants.  The Captain found a hat shop that sported exorbitant price tags on its wares and enjoyed trying them on whilst the staff got excited within.  Of course he walked away because frankly, $6,000 for a hat?  Fuck off!  I found a gorgeous black pearl necklace in a jewellery store but talked myself out of the purchase because I am an idiot.  This was a self-disciplinary action that I later regretted. 

As a result of the scarring acid vom episode on the plane trip over, I was now paranoid and taking acid prevention measures daily in the form of a pill.  This had an adverse effect on my guts and I found I had a runny bum for much of the trip.  Considering most of our accommodation throughout the month long stay in the USA was a single room with two beds and one shared bathroom, my bowel movements became public to the family and a source of great merriment to my offspring.  I’d scream at them to turn the television on and dance on the spot in the bathroom with my arse clamped shut while I waited for the fucking thing to switch on only to have the noises from my bowel eclipse whatever decibel the TV produced…followed moments later by loud, raucous laughter from Miss Marvellous and Boy Wonder.  Not the kind of music I want them listening to.

All too quickly, the chilled relaxing leg of our trip came to an end so we found ourselves again at an airport.  This was our first encounter of the “no shoes allowed through security” rule and it was a little fascinating.  Boy Wonder waltzed through with no problem.  Miss Marvellous was pulled aside and the wand was wavered over her ankles.  Something beeped as I went through and I was asked to stand akimbo whilst they waved their wand over me.  I am a moron and inexperienced in all things security so before he started waving his wand, I yanked up my top and pointed to my belly jewel, “Is this what is beeping?” He jerked back in alarm when I abruptly lifted my top because he’s very nervous, possibly because in the USA they allow any fuckwit who can stand upright the right to own a gun, which quite often ends in tragedy.  The security guard held his hands up in a “calm the fuck down, ma’am,” kind of way and started chuckling because I think he might have actually left a small skid-mark in his jocks and he was embarrassed by how scared he just was of a harmless little Aussie.  He shook his head at me because although I was showing him my pierced navel, it was not the source of the alarm.  He pointed at my arse and it turned out I had a US 1c coin in my pocket.  I have no idea how the coin ended up in my pocket but his nervous laughter was making me jittery and I wanted to get the hell out of security. 

Surprisingly, The Captain and his bag made it through with no problem at all.  Miss Marvellous sidled up to me and said, “did you see them going over my feet…like I’m hiding something in my ankles.” I reminded her she has a whole lot of shrapnel in the form of screws and rods in her feet since her double bunionectomy last year. The penny dropped and she was no longer feeling special…she’s just part cyborg now and I think I might start calling her nuts and bolts for shits and giggles because I am an arsehole. 

The flight out of Honolulu on December 16^th to Los Angeles was supposed to land at LAX at 10pm but it was delayed for 6 fucking hours in Hawaii so I took the time to commence the first edit on my completed novel.  Boy Wonder was sighing because he doesn’t do boredom well and there were a lot of hours to kill.  Miss Marvellous window shopped in the airport to kill time so she didn’t kill a family member.  Finally, we were allowed to board the flight and I was delighted to find Captain Fantastic is in the same row, just on the other side of the aisle.  On this leg we were flying American airlines and it was delayed by so many hours that we were hungry before we even boarded the flight but we’re also stupid and inexperienced because there was no food or drinks on the flight (if you don’t count the tiny bottle of water and a small packet of pretzels that contained 8 of the salty, loopy, mini morsels that didn’t go far enough and had us licking the inside of the bag) and we weren't prepared for starvation.  .  I wondered during the journey if Boy Wonder would actually starve to death on the 5 hour flight. 

When we finally landed in LAX, we were still stuck on the plane because some arsehole pilot from another airline had taken our parking bay because he’s a prick.  So now we were all sitting on this plane as it bumped along, taxiing around the airport like a scenic bus tour for another fucking hour while we waited for that selfish prick to fuck off out of our parking space.  By this stage we were tired, sick to death of waiting and we all had hanger (hunger anger) because we hadn’t eaten in so many hours that we were snippy and shitty and spitting words at each other like camels.  The baggage carousel took a light-year to start up and start producing cases and I wanted to scream “feed me!” at random people or just punch someone for no reason because I was intolerant and hangry and as the minutes ticked by, we were thrust us into December 17^th…

Doona

SHIT HAPPENS AT THE SPA - WHY AM I SO AWKWARD?

I have just come home from an Endota spa treatment and I can’t believe how fucking awkward I am.  This is the second such experience in the past year.

In August last year, I decided to have my 1 hour massage on my birthday.  This sounds like a great idea but it was only months after my father passed away and being my first birthday without him, I discovered as I sat in the waiting room filling in the sheet and ticking the “no talking’ box that I was feeling teary and sad.  We started with a foot bath and I felt like I was going to cry so I started to talk.  I didn’t stop babbling until the whole hour was up and I realised that I had completely fucked up the experience.  I basically wasted my one hour massage because I talked through the whole thing.  The poor girl working on me must have been so confused and weirded out.  I am sure it must be noted on my file somewhere and that they draw straws when my name comes up for a treatment.  After today, there’s possibly a red flag.

So today I decided to use my foot treatment well before any occasions that could ruin it. Before any such treatment, one goes a little stir crazy in the bathroom.  Considering I was getting a foot treatment with a pedicure, you’d think I’d just turn up and let them do their thing.  No, I waxed and plucked every visible hair on my legs (and those three Maria hairs on my big toes), removed my nail polish which had been there for 2 months and had resulted in a discolouration stain on my nails, cut the nails and almost took an angle grinder to them to ensure she didn’t think I had horse hooves in my shoes.  Finally, I was ready.  I had convinced myself that I can actually turn up to the spa and relax and enjoy the treatment without being weird…I was wrong.

From the get go, it was awkward because it involves me.  I turn up at the exact time of my booking, even though I was asked to turn up 5 minutes early.  Some old bag driving a roller skate for a car pulled out of a side street and almost collected the car in front of me and we all slammed on our brakes.  She managed to see him seconds before impact but this was a sweat inducing incident for me because I am currently in a loan car from the panel-beating workshop who is fixing my dinged-up car at the moment.  We then had to wait for the bloke to get out of his car and give old Blue Rinse a piece of his mind.  His point was moot (or mute?) because she was a deaf as a post and all but put a trumpet to her ear after winding her window down at the pace of a weed smoking snail.  I could hear her from my car saying “Pardon?  What’s that?”  I watched him gesticulating in front of the woman, agitatedly tapping his toe on the asphalt and clenching his butt cheeks in an effort to control his ire.  She was nodding at him, like she understood, but I’m reasonably sure none of it went into her head because she’s extremely old and shouldn’t be on the road – she should be sitting in a wing chair knitting scarves and crocheting doilies.  The guy eventually gave up because she was nodding when she should have been answering his questions, so he got in his car and did a burn out when he took off.  This took about seven minutes out of my life that I will never get back.  By the time I parked and walked to the spa, the five minute early arrival was gone.  The cheery girl behind the counter greets me with, “Oh hello Donna, thank you for coming in early.”

Instead of politely nodding at her, I feel the need to state, “I didn’t come in early, I am at the exact time of my treatment.”  This was supposed to be an apology but I fear it came out as a correction because she started stuttering and blushing and I wanted to panic yell at her “Wait a sec, I’ll just start that again” and then run outside and re-enter the premises and say absolutely NOTHING.  Jesus.  I decide to just shut the fuck up and let her do her job but it’s too late, she’s giggling to cover whatever I made her feel.  Awwww man, I want to go home already.

She leads me into the waiting area and tells me my consultant/therapist (I don’t remember what her title is because I fail to notice the small things) will be with me soon.  There are two other people in there and it is silent except for the ’babbling brook in a glade’ music getting piped in and the scratching of the pen as the woman sitting to my left fills out her form.  She is so relaxed and in the zone that she is almost laying across the couch and I feel spa etiquette envy.  I want to talk to fill the void but remember that I am in a spa and I’m supposed to just shut up so I awkwardly sit perched on the end of the long lounge, which has too many cushions so I can’t sit back and look cool, and I have to sit on the end looking like I’m ready to take off at a sprint at any moment…like I spook easily.  My consultant (that’s what I’ve decided her title is) comes into the room and introduces herself, but of course I don’t retain her name because I’m stupid.  She asks if I have chosen a colour and points at the array of nail colours on display on the wall in front of me. I want to slap my forehead because I haven’t noticed them.  I didn’t know I was supposed to choose a colour because the poor girl who was supposed to tell me got all flustered because I did the weird shit when I first entered the establishment.  I am embarrassed that I am wasting her time and alerting everyone in the waiting room that there is a fuckwit in their midst so I feel the need to tell my consultant that this is my first time…like I’m a fucking virgin and she’s about to pop my cherry.  I am only thinking this but my face lights up and I almost give myself awkward burn when I leap up and my bag falls off my lap and lands with a loud splat on the floor.  This is the exact opposite of how one should conduct one’s self in a spa waiting area.  Oh my fucking God.  Then, instead of just picking a colour, I peruse the display like I’m choosing a new car colour.  My brain screams at me to hurry the fuck up so I reach out and grab a dark maroon colour and knock two other colours off and onto the floor in the process.  They’re all looking at me and I nearly set fire to my hair with my face…because it’s so hot with embarrassment.  She apologetically advises me that we’re upstairs.  I don’t give a flying fuck where we go, just get me the hell out of this room with all of these people witnessing and listening to my weird.

We finally make it up the narrow, steep staircase and into the designated room.  A relaxing aroma fills my senses and I am finally ready to chill in this dimly lit room.  It is warm and comfortable and I am excited for my foot spa treatment.  She advises me to take my socks and shoes off and put all of my stuff in the basket on the shelf.  The first thing I do is put my handbag in the basket, which is too small for the suitcase-esque bag I use, and the whole lot falls to the floor with a thump.  I giggle because I can’t believe I just did that and because I feel like a dick.  I quickly bend over and try to cover my embarrassment with words.  I am wondering why she is lingering in the room when they usually go outside while I undress so I whip my shoes and socks off and drop the socks into the basket (hovered my shoes over the basket before I realised they should go on the floor – I really shouldn’t be allowed outside of the house).  Then I went to my special place…and started removing my jeans.  I got them all the way to my knees, with my Bridget Jones style leopard print knickered arse up in the air before she declares in a panic, “Oh, you don’t need to take your jeans off.”  Of course I don’t need to take my jeans off, she’s doing my feet.  What a fuckwit!  I giggle again like I’m five and hoick my jeans up and wriggle my arse into them.  A Play School song pops into my head – something about jelly “…wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble, jelly on a plate…”  All the while she is nervously giggling beside me whilst I jiggle my arse back into my jeans.  Fucking hell! She asks me to take a seat so I do, with both of my feet splayed either side of the giant bowl of water in front of me.  It is actually hurting my knees to have my feet at this absurd angle but I don’t want to do anything without her advice because I’m just a walking blunder at the moment.  She sits before me and looks at my splayed feet, then back up at me expectantly.  I giggle again and I can tell she thinks I’m out there…like fucking Pluto!  She reaches for my feet and submerges them.

She wets my feet and applies an exfoliate, then rinses them off.  I want to groan in pleasure because her warm hands are magic on my tense feet.  I think “Wow this is relaxing” but the words that come out of my mouth are “Wow, that’s making me feel all floppy.”  Wait, what?  Why the fuck did I just say that?  She looks up at me like she thinks I’m a nut bag and I am looking back at her…because I am a nut bag and she says “Well that’s good, I guess.”  I watch her finish rubbing and rinsing my feet then choose that time to close my eyes and relax.  A nano-second later she dries my feet and I have to get up again.

She tells me to lie down on the bed face up, and she tells me where to put my feet.  I guess she does that because I have proven how fucked in the head I am and will more than likely lay face down with my jeans around my ankles. She asks if I am cold but I reply that I’m not too quickly because I’m suddenly nervous.  She walks around the side of the bed that I am lying on and asks if I would mind removing my glasses as she wants to apply a lavender-scented towel over my eyes.  I whip them off and hand them to her, belting her in the stomach with them as she tries to pass me.  She makes an “Oooof!” sound because I just punched her in the guts, and I start babbling an apology and the girl is flat out laughing.  She is astounded at my fuckwitism  I start to giggle too because I am embarrassed by my fuckwitism and can’t believe this shit is happening.  She applies the towel to my eyes and I sigh in relief and admonish myself, choosing to shut the fuck up from this moment forward.   She starts to wedge something between my toes and I am waiting for the pain of hyper extended toes because toe separators are a form of torture.  Applying them hurts like a bitch but removing them after the nails are dry evokes painful “ooh, aah” sounds from me when the toes are allowed to return to their natural space; the dints take hours to disappear.  I don’t feel any pain and think that my nails will rub and smudge because she hasn’t taken the proper precautions. 

She gets to work on my toenails filing (and I resist the urge to pull my foot away when the pinky is filed), pfaffs with the cuticles and cleans the bastards right up.  I am sure that if I remove the lavender cloth covering my eyes and sit up, I will hear Angels sing and see a warm glowing radiance surrounding my toes.  Next comes the massage.  Oh my God it feels sooooo damn good.  I have to physically stop myself from groaning in ecstasy as she firmly runs her thumbs up the underside of my foot, making me sink into the bed like a dead horse.  As she squeezes and pulls my toes, a ‘gdkt’ sound like cracking knuckles as she squeezes the ends of my toes.  It feels almost painful until the ‘gdkt’ and its ecstasy again.  She pulls on my feet and it tugs up to my hip joints and I’m sure I will be 4 inches taller when it’s over; it feels amazing.  Then she scrubs the shit out of them as she prepares to paint them.  Apart from the croaking frogs and singing crickets in the rain-forest that is piped into the room, there is silence as she bends over my toes and paints them.  I get an insane itch on my knee but cannot touch it lest I ruin the pain job.  It is all I can do not to twitch and I feel a film of sweat break out on my forehead.  I am thinking ‘Stupid, itchy knee” then I have to stifle a giggle because it sounds like I’m counting in Japanese.  Then something rolls from somewhere (wasn’t me, I am the epitome of a statue on the bed) but it makes a loud noise in the silence and I get such a fright, that I jerk and almost kick her in the mouth.  I felt her breath on my toes when I jumped so I know how close I got giving her a fat lip.  I am trying to stifle a nervous giggle and I can feel myself shaking with the effort.  I feel her hands still and I know she is looking up at me with a “What the fuck?” look.  I bite my lip and pretend to be normal, it doesn’t come naturally to me.  After an eternity, my nails are complete, she removes the cloth covering my eyes and I am allowed to sit up, s-l-o-w-l-y.  I am allergic to this pace and almost belt her in the face with my forehead because I sit up fast.  She tells me she will meet me downstairs but asks if I could please remain in the room (downstairs??) for five minutes before coming out to reception.

She leaves and I swing my legs over and make my way over to the basket to retrieve my shit.  I have brought thongs along so I won’t fuck up my nails but when I look down, the toes are separated by a cloth of some sort and I don’t know what to do.  She didn’t mention the cloth and I’m not sure if my nails are dry enough to remove the cloth so I stand awkwardly near the door wondering what to do.  Was I supposed to wait here for five minutes or downstairs?  I don’t fucking know so I poke my head outside of the door and look left and right a few times (I possibly look like Forrest Gump when I do this).  The door next to me opens and the consultant exits and nearly bounces off my face with her boobs.  I get such a fright at her unexpected arrival on the landing that I try to pull my head in and close the door at the same time and nearly rip my own ears off.  She puts a hand to her beating heart, she got a fright too, and asks if I’m okay.  I say “she told me to meet her downs stairs but to wait five minutes before going into reception and I don’t know if I’m waiting here or downstairs.”  She frowns at me and does that downward turn of the mouth thing that conveys “how the fuck should I know?”  I make a decision, tell her I’m going to wait down stairs and she nods, like “fine, just get the fuck out of my face.”  So I walk down stairs bare foot with the fucking material shit still woven between my toes.  I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do. I get downstairs and there is a pregnant woman in the waiting room and she looks at my feet and back up at me then smiles and offers me a tea.  I assume she is wondering about my woven toes so I just play it cool and pretend it’s normal to be sitting downstairs with your bag and boots on your lap.  The polish on my toes looks like gel and I am loving the shit out of them.  I read a pamphlet to keep up my ‘cool’ persona and notice the polish is for sale.  Gonna get me some of that shit, I decide. 

I wait ten minutes and she doesn’t show so I unwind my toes and slide the thongs on and go out to greet her at reception.  I can’t see a bin so I shove the material things in my bag.  My consultant is not there.  The same poor bitch is on reception and she gets flustered before I even open my mouth.  I tell her I want to purchase the colour used on my toes and she’s asking me what colour it was.  How the fuck would I know?  I tell her it’s still upstairs in the room.  A light bulb goes off in her head and she looks at her screen and finds the colour.  She turns around to the rack behind her and is picking up every colour but the one on my toes.  I tell her it’s the one on the end but she acts like I didn’t speak.  I say again. “It’s the one on the end. The far end…the opposite end.”  Dumb fuck must need a hearing aid because she’s still up the wrong end.  My consultant comes out and plucks the colour from the far end of the rack, like I fucking told her, and hands it to her.  Her face is flaming but I haven’t said anything so I shut up until she tells me to pay.

I walk back to the parking lot and have to sit through 2 sets of lights because even though there were a dozen people waiting when I got there, nobody thought to press the button.  Dicks!  Some bloke in a wheel chairs does a Kamikaze and zooms across the street when our walk sign should have happened.  He yells at us all standing there like stupefied cows that we have to press the button.  I want to agree with him but I’m part of the pack and have to shut up and eat shit silently.

When I get to my car, I use the blipper to open it but when I try to open the door, it doesn’t open.  The fuck?  I try again then spy my car four across.  What a tool.  I note that some arsehole has parked so close on the driver’s side that I’m going to need a can opener to get into the vehicle.  I manage to wiggle, gyrate and squeeze in and almost tear my tits and arse off in the process (bum, titty, bum, titty, bum, bum, bum), then it takes an eternity to get out without grazing the cars parked tightly next to me.  I go home and straight upstairs and Miss Marvelous has to endure my giggles as I relay the events.  She shakes her head and me and says “What the shit is wrong with you?”  I don’t know but shit sure does happen to me a lot.

Shit Happens in the Pathfinder - Death Defying Driving

I’ve heard that a child’s teenage years can age the parents.  I always thought this was in reference to the years after they turned 18; when they were adults and could do whatever the hell they wanted.  I have recently had an epiphany borne out of some hair raising experiences.  It seems the aging process is accelerated during their teenage years whilst they are learning to drive.

Most of you will remember my blog about Miss Marvellous learning to drive from the Blog Titled: Shit Happens - Learning to Drive posted on 22nd January 2015.  Here it is almost a year to the day and I am posting about it again.  This time, I am not posting about some elderly citizen who needs to be reamed with a cactus for behaving like a jerk, this time I am sharing some experiences that have surely contributed to the ever increasing lines etched onto my face.

Having  recently endured an operation on both feet, it had been a while since Miss Marvellous had sat behind the wheel sporting the ‘L’s.  She was not allowed to drive until her feet had healed enough to be able to stomp on the brakes.  I’m kind of glad of those criteria given the experiences of the last month or so.  I take my hat off to my daughter; she handled the mishaps (near death experiences?) like a boss and took the lessons learned in her stride.

A brief account of the first occasion actually appeared as a status update on my Facebook account.  We were once again located in Bright, our usual Christmas holiday location.  Miss Marvellous was eager to get back into the car and after the first day, she and The Captain decided that she would do a two hour drive most days to get some hours and some experience under her belt.  On this particular day, we had decided to visit Yackandandah, approximately a 50 minute drive from Bright.  The drive there was fine.  Miss Marvellous was driving, The Captain was in the front seat riding gunshot and Boy Wonder and I were in the back seat.  Yackandandah is a gorgeous country town that actually housed a couple of really nice galleries.  As we were sitting outside a small café sipping a latte before heading back, we heard the distant rumble of thunder.  The sky was a boiling mass of dark clouds that promised rain in the very near future.  Captain Fantastic looked skyward and felt the need to unnecessarily state that the clouds held rain.  You don’t have to be a water diviner to work that one out but I let it slide without comment (a miraculous moment in time right there).  We had no idea that the rain would be as horrendously torrential as it turned out to be.  Had we known, we’d have just stayed in town until it passed.

As we headed back to the car, the sky had darkened and it had started to spit but I was hopeful that it would not get too heavy before we reached the safety of the caravan park.  About 15 minutes into the trip home, it had started to rain with earnest.  The speed limit on those rural highways is 100km/hr and it was at this speed that the heavens opened up and the torrential rain started.  Not prone to panic, Miss Marvellous set the windscreen wipers from fast to ‘hopped up on cocaine’ but still nothing could be seen though the windscreen.  She dropped to about 80km/hour, still dangerously fast when you can’t see a Goddamned thing out of the window. 

The Captain finally asked her if she’d like to pull over and to my horror, she said,

“No, it’s okay, I can see the lines.” 

What the fuck?  How can you see the lines?  You cannot see anything outside of the window except the pelting rain – you couldn’t even see more than a meter in front of the car.  If someone had stopped on that highway, we would have seen them seconds before we ploughed into them and died.  Boy Wonder and I were holding hands in the backseat, united in our terror.  The Captain was holding on to the Jesus bar and although he would never admit it, he was absolutely shitting himself.  Boy Wonder had started twisting my fingers painfully in his panic.  I seriously thought we were going to die…so much so that I wanted to scream,

“I love you all!”

but I was paralysed with fear so I just squeezed Boy Wonder’s hand harder.  Then Boy Wonder stepped over all sorts of boundaries, swearing to himself then yelling,

"Holy Shit!"

when the rain got even harder.  He looked at me and said,

“How can she be driving in this?”

Unable to even form an answer in my mind, I was thinking that I didn’t want to see death coming so I looked out of my side window and told him not to look out of the front windscreen.  I was planking in the backseat and my eyes were bulging like a panicked cow; Boy Wonder continued to stare out of the front windscreen.  It was at this point that I started emitting a high pitched squeal and squeezed my eyes shut. Miss Marvellous continued driving, not even a little worried, even though NO ONE COULD SEE A FRIGGING THING OUT THE WINDOW!  Finally the rain eased but I was so tense that I could have cracked walnuts with my butt cheeks and was breathing like I'd just escaped the clutches of death...which is literally what had just happened!  

Miss Marvellous looked in the rear view mirror and smiled wickedly, saying,

"Are you all calm in the back there?"

My lips had been squeezed together for so long with such pressure that I couldn’t open them enough to form words, let alone scream,

“No I am not fucking calm...you nearly killed me you Satanic Sorceress!”

All hail the queen of calm and evil.

So, it turns out that I can hold my breath for five minutes.  My right thigh was quivering from braking in the back seat and all of my senses were on high alert for a very long time.  I spent the rest of the afternoon curled up in the foetal position trying to restore my heart rate to something akin the ’normal’, not an easy feat when Satan’s lovechild kept taunting me for the remainder of the afternoon.

As a side note, that annoying rain ended up staying for about five days.  Weather doesn’t usually bother me but considering we were staying in a cabin in a caravan park, there is not a lot one can do when it rains like that for so many days straight.  I wrote some chapters for my new novel and I went for a walk (and by the time I got home it had started to rain so heavily that I was saturated though and my clothes were rendered transparent).  One night, just as I’d put all of the kebabs on the barbeque, it started raining so heavily that the food was swimming all over the hotplate within minutes and it was mixed up leaves and gumnuts that were falling with the rain out of the trees and onto the barbeque; sizzling with beetles and frying spiders.  I tried to hold an umbrella over the whole mess but the umbrella broke and the rain continued to pour down and all I managed to do was to steam my face and frizz my hair so I looked like a crazy Italian woman boiling food on a barbeque.  In the end I had to scoop that shit up and take it inside the cabin to finish cooking it, minus the added bonuses provided by nature.  That relentless rain, uncommon for the area at that time of year, had me questioning my state of mental health a number of times as I became surly and short tempered in annoyance.  Then, we woke one morning to the song (or throbbing cacophony, if you prefer) of cicadas in searing heat and it was all over. 

Back to the driving experiences; whilst we were in Bright, Miss Marvellous clocked up 40 hours in total in her learner’s book so we vowed to keep it up when we got back, if only on weekends.  This past weekend, instead of just ticking a box, we decided to go visit The Captain’s parents in Mount Martha for Miss Marvellous to clock up a few driving hours.  Apart from some complete knob travelling at 75km/hr in a 100km/hr zone; holding up traffic and having The Captain declaring,

“People who sit on 80 in the centre lane need to be shot,”

the trip was cool.  As we were nearing the neighbourhood of our destination, The Captain missed the turn off so we decided to go down to take the scenic route along the esplanade beside the beach.  That was a complete fail.

Word has recently spread on Social Media about a ‘The Pillars’ in Mount Martha with headlines like Victoria’s Biggest Secret Named Among The World’s 20 Best Trips, so now thousands of beachgoers have started flocking to the beach to jump off these cliffs.  This new phenomenon equates to cars parked on both sides of the esplanade, hundreds of people walking beside those cars with prams, towels and beach bags and two single lanes trying to pass without accidentally flattening these beachgoers. 

Miss Marvellous crawled along with the other cars past these careless individuals meandering all over the place like Brown’s cows, with complete disregard to the congestion they were causing.  As we passed, we could see that the beaches were a simmering mass of scantily clad people and the waters were populated with jet skis and small boats.  The situation worsened as we approached the winding roads where cars had parked haphazardly on nature strips that were not wide enough to leave room for passing cars and clusters of beachgoers were rambling across the road in front of us.  We were looking forward to entering the street leading up to The Captain’s parents’ house to escape the mess.  This was false hope and as when we turned into the street, we noted that it happened to be opposite the entrance to The Pillars.  This road was narrow and had cars parked on both sides of the street so it was actually quite dangerous and nigh on impossible for Miss Marvellous to negotiate her way through the quagmire of randomly parked vehicles where the concept of ‘near enough is good enough’ was employed with too much regularity.  The flashing lights of a police car up ahead validated our opinions of how dangerous the clogged street had become.  Miss Marvellous was navigating her way through this complex assembly of negligently parked cars when we spied another car coming in the opposite direction.  The other vehicle didn’t appear to be slowing and as Miss Marvellous attempted to move over to the side of the road, she came dangerously close to hitting a car that was parked precariously angled with its corner poking out and as I am want to do, I panicked out loud and said,

“Look out you’re going to hit,”

at the same time that an alarmed Captain yelled something similar.  She stopped and said,

“What am I going to hit?”

but we had already safely moved past the car so I was breathing heavily with my heart thudding painfully in my chest and blood roaring in my ears.  By the time we exited the vehicle and walked into the house my breathing had returned to normal but I had a film of sweat all over my face and I seriously felt the need for a little lie down.

We decided to take a different route home to avoid stupid people doing stupid things and the threat of a heart attack for Mother in the back seat.  During the trip I decided to call my Aunt to pass the time.  She answered on the second ring but with the air conditioner blowing and the radio on in the front seat, albeit at a sensible decibel, she couldn’t hear me property.  She was yelling down the phone like I had a hearing problem until the radio was turned down and then she started talking to me.  After establishing that I was in fact me and not my cousin, a normal conversation ensued until Miss Marvellous took the Freeway exit like a rocket sled on rails. 

The Captain told her to slow down as she exited but she hadn’t slowed down enough and we were propelled to the right side of car as the g-force of the exit speed on a sharp bend had us feeling like we were on a rollercoaster at Dream World.  The Captain’s left bicep, the same one he constantly thrusts in our faces, asking if we want to have a feel of its magnificence, was bulging impressively, whilst clinging to the Jesus bar, and straining from the effort not to succumb to those g-forces and slide to the right like the rest of us.  His right hand was on the dashboard and he looked to all intents and purposes like he was about to scream like a thirteen year old girl at the One Direction concert.  I had found Boy Wonder’s hand and I was wringing the bejesus out of it like it was a life support and babbling nonsense down to the phone to my poor confused Aunt.   The tires were squealing and I was just waiting to either go up onto two wheels or hydroplane into a ditch, either way, I felt like I was in a Dukes of Hazard episode and all that was missing was,

“Yeeeeehaaaaaaw!”.

My Aunt was yelling down the phone at me,

“What the hell are you doing? I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

I wanted to whisper,

“She’s trying to kill us,”

but that would have her fretting.  Finally as she completed the exit, the car rocked back onto all four wheels evenly and we all unclenched.  By this stage I was sweating profusely and had the sudden urge to giggle, as I tend to do when panicked.  The Captain’s breathing was laboured and he appeared edgy.  I was waiting for my hair to fall out; Boy Wonder was glaring at me and shaking his head as I silently giggled in my corner.  I quickly ended the call to my poor puzzled Aunt and sat silent in the back seat.

Normalcy resumed in the Pathfinder until a car up ahead jammed on its breaks which had a knock on affect with all the cars behind it and we were suddenly thrust into another perilous situation.  Captain Fantastic yelled,

“Brake!”

Miss Marvellous had to suddenly stamp hard on the brakes to avoid colliding with the rear of the car in front.  We all pitched forward, our faces alarmed and our seatbelts snapped taught; mine digging painfully into my boobs.  I half expected all four of us to be sitting in the front seat by the time we came to a complete halt.

We were all stress sweating; The Captain was barking orders like a drill sergeant, Boy Wonder was looking everywhere but at me and valiantly defending his sister, poor Miss Marvellous was learning a valuable lesson in velocity and all the while I was breathing hard in the backseat, feeling my heart palpitating and my toes tingling with the after effects of the adrenaline rush.  No matter how many times I tapped my heels together in the backseat muttering,

“There’s no place like home”

I still had to wait for the fucking Pathfinder to take me there. 

Doona

Shit Happens - Colonoscopy (A Passage Less Photographed)

Aaah, the Colonoscopy.  Such a common procedure but if you’ve had to endure one, you will understand my angst.  The procedure itself is not as painful as it may sound…it’s the days and hours leading up to the procedure that curls toes and makes the sphincter clench involuntarily.

This simple but invasive procedure, the colonoscopy, is a photo-shoot in your waste management system.  This is usually necessary if you’ve had some additional hues or spatter pattern changes to your rectal expulsion.  Another reason for this spectacular filming of brown landscape is a history of disease located in the waste chute.

Armed with the necessary equipment (multiple sachets) and an instruction sheet, I was sent home to plan the most uncomfortable hours leading up to the procedure.  My actual appointment was mid-afternoon on a Friday.  This meant that the internal wash must begin on the Tuesday when the food ingested changed dramatically from the gastronomical delights I usually bring to the table to a boring and tasteless journey that made my upper lip twerk in an Elvis-esque manner.  “Thankyouverymuch”.  Devoid of colour, fibre and flavour; my senses were offended from the get go.  Unfortunately, clear fluids did not include wine – alcohol was off the list.  Boo!

Then, the special laxative drinks came into play the day before the invasion.  Oh my L-o-r-d!  I was advised by the Specialist to take this day off, as I would be frequently hosing the porcelain and must not venture far from the throne.  What an understatement!  The first little sachet was like an appetiser for the bowel.  Designed to stimulate the expulsion gently, I held my breath and sculled this first drink followed by a clear lemonade chaser.  Shudder.  Nothing happened.  I remained near the toilet for a full hour with absolutely no response.  That’s probably because I had been starving myself for days and there was NOTHING IN MY BOWEL TO SHIT!  An hour later I made up the first sachet of Picoprep and placed it in the refrigerator to chill (apparently it’s easier to ingest if chilled…no it aint!).  I commenced the consumption of this vile fluid, a glass at a time (the instruction sheet advised to consume it all within an hour but not in one go).  Jesus H Christ on a popsicle stick.  This stuff was HORRENDOUS!  I managed to down the first glass, followed by some heavy retching over the sink, but managed to keep it down.  My bottom jaw is shuddering and my mouth is filling with saliva at the memory of this revolting solution.  I waited a full half an hour and still got no response from my lazy bowel.  Grrrr, annoying shitless tube!

Never one to remain idle, I decided to climb a ladder and mend the curtains.  We have high ceilings and so the windows are also high – and it was as I was on the top rung of the ladder getting all up in the curtain’s business when my stomach made a slight lurch.  I froze for a nano-second before it became quite clear that a mass exodus of some description was imminent.  I went from standing on that top rung of the ladder to the floor in one graceful fluid leap, miraculously not blowing a hole in my pants or spray painting the back of them on that short leap; and with my butt cheeks clenched as taught as a fish's arse, propelled myself down the hall and managed to make it to the commode in time pour my guts into the toilet.  I will mention at this point that the painful cramping and cold sweats that I was expecting were absent but the fluid was expelled at great speed, sounding much like a member of the equine class was urinating in the bowl.  Once empty, usual functionality was restored until twenty minutes later I had to have the second glass of that vile fluid.  Pinching my nose, I downed the fluid as fast as I could but vomited half of it back into the glass.  The retching continued for a few minutes before I gingerly walked to the couch and collapsed into it, fighting the shuddering jaw and urge to purge, my stomach lurching about behind my ribs.

I managed to restore my breathing to its usual rhythm before I was forced to sprint again to the toilet as fluid burst forth from my backside at an alarming rate.  Oh Dear God, I had only consumed two thirds of the first sachet – I still had to finish this lot and then go another whole round the following day.   It was at this point that I started to talk to myself out loud, to mentally slap myself on the back and tell myself that I could DO this.  Enter The Captain.

A HUGE smile adorned his face as he asked me how the ‘cleansing’ was going.  I groaned and mumbled something about the vile liquid.  He energetically blurted “Isn’t it great?  You’re so lucky.  I love the clean out.  I wish I could do it once a month”.  I looked at him like he had taken leave of his senses.  Who would want to do this to themselves on purpose?  He is a special kind of unit.  He watched with a smile on his face as I downed the last of the first sachet, throwing half of it back up as I had the previous one.  He was taking great pleasure in my discomfort.  The retching was interrupted by the need to pee through my backside again so I hiccupped and belched in a most unladylike fashion as I briskly rushed to the latrine.  Blow it out your arse you say?  I say ‘pour it out your arse’.  Oh, I felt so wretched.  It’s always rather disconcerting to purge into the loo then turn around to find only clear liquid in it.  The brain does not compute!

Finally it was over for the day and I drank water for the remainder of the day to keep my fluids up but thankfully, had no more runny bum… for now.  I went to bed early, reserving my strength for the onslaught the following day.

I was allowed a glass of water on the morning of the arse fisting as long as it was before 9am.  After that, the consumption of sachet two and expulsion of all things fluid were the rest of my day.  I was finding it more and more difficult to down the liquid shit-inducer and by the last one, hurled the whole lot back up into the sink.  I am reasonably sure my arsehole actually made it half way up my oesophagus.  It’s okay, within ten minutes it was hanging back out of my arse again as I race-horse pissed whatever fluid I had left in my body back out.  I was surprised to note that the top of my head actually hadn’t collapsed, as I had expected.

I hadn’t eaten in two days but surprisingly, was not hungry but I had the mother of all headaches caused by dehydration.  I couldn’t wait to come back out the other side of this so I could suck a tap dry and float my cerebrum in some fluid again.

A few hours later The Captain dropped me off at the surgery and wished me well.  He still had that sinister smile on his face but he had been in these shoes before and so I had no recourse.

I was taken into a room, handed a monstrously large paper bag with my name on it and a gown and some very sexy white knee highs (compression stockings?) and a pair of what looked like blue shower caps for my feet.    Woah!  Don’t let The Captain spy me in this get-up, he would most likely lose all control and just take me in the waiting room.  There were two other people in the waiting room with the same attire.  I lost myself in my novel until the nurse called my name.  They took my blood pressure, asked me a series of questions in which I was expected to describe the colour and consistency of my shit during the past few weeks and then sent me back out to the waiting room. 

Careful to keep my gown closed, I spied the girl opposite stifling a giggle.  I’m not sure if she was embarrassed to be sitting there nude with nothing but a gown on, if she’d spied my sexy get-up or if she had already had a toke on the gas; but she was bopping up and down like a loon and giggling like a little girl.  Jesus, I felt like I was in the nut house and damned if my stupid mouth didn’t quirk up at the sides and smile right back at her.   The old man on the other side of the room also had a big-arsed grin on his face.  I wanted in on the joke!  The nurse called my name and I was ushered down the corridor and into the room where I was asked to climb up onto the bed.  If I was 6ft 3 this would be fine but I’m 5ft nothing and the bed came up to my tits.  Jesus!  I took an almighty leap and gave the room full or nursing staff a twisted smile of another kind but missed my mark and almost tore myself a new one as one cheek gripped the bed but the other slid off.  The bed bounced into the nurse’s stomach and she quickly stamped her foot onto something at the base (the brake perhaps?) to stop the bed from rolling.  The male nurse came over and lowered the bed so I could climb up without exercising the vertical splits.  They rolled me on my side with my bare arse pressed up against the side of the bed and the anaesthetist inserted the cannula into my wrist.  I felt something cold and blinked and then my eyes focused on the nurse's face before me.

“How do you feel?” she queried.  I feel great, thanks.  Hey wait, are we in a different room?  Where did everybody go,  I was wondering.

 “The Doctor will be in to see you shortly to discuss her findings.  While you wait, would you like a cup of tea and something to eat?”.  Wait, what?  It’s over?  When the fuck did that happen?  Like a small animal distracted by something shiny, I felt my stomach rumble and decided I could absolutely murder a sandwich
.

The Gastroenterologist came and explained her findings blurting out “it’s not cancer!” excitedly.   We were all so very worried that my diagnosis was going to be grim and whatever else followed was just blah, blah blah.  She made an appointment on the spot for me to meet her in a fortnight in her rooms to discuss treatment.  At this point I was levitating above the bed and weak with joy (and lack of food).

The sandwiches and tea arrived.  The bouquet coming off that small little plate of quartered sandwiches on white bread with mustard, ham, cheese and tomatoes was intoxicating and the most delightful thing to touch my lips in five days.  I savoured every mouthful and inhaled every morsel.  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and saw the giggle-pot sitting in a seat near my bed with a stupid grin still plastered to her face.  She abruptly started commenting on the sandwiches and I wondered if she was waiting for the special blue bus to collect her and take her away to a special place where she could lick the windows in ecstasy.  The nurse collected my empty tea cup and spotless plate and offered to call the Captain to collect me and take me home.

All the way home I dreamily planned what I would eat for dinner.  Captain Fantastic asked if I had received the ‘all clear’.  I happily announced,  “Well it’s not cancer so I'm really happy.”  He looked perplexed, “Of course not”, like the thought had never entered his head.  She told me of the condition but I could not recollect the name let alone what it was.  I would tackle that one in a fortnight when I saw her next.

Now, I have a terrible habit of wishing ill upon people who shit me.  Nothing life threatening, of course, just a little discomfort for the rest of their lives.  I have been known to wish a severe case of knob-rot  to assail the genitals of child molesters or gonorrhoea of the throat afflict rapists.  Paedophiles, rapists, wife beaters, child abusers and those who are cruel to animals receive my harshest ill-wishes.  For people who shit me in the traffic, or just generally piss me off,  I wish them a disease in the arse.  I don’t recall how this all came about but as long as I can remember, I have been quietly casting spells and  ill-wishes on arseholes.  Imagine my surprise when I was diagnosed by the Gastroenterologist with Ulcerative Colitis – a disease in the arse.  How the hell did this happen?  It turns out this isn’t just some inflammation that can be ‘dealt with’, it’s an ongoing disease that requires the intake of six tablets daily for the rest of my life.  Buggar!  It’s not Cancer, and for that I am eternally grateful, but as I look to the future and see the vast expanse of my years containing multiple colonoscopies and that vile horse-pissing arse-purge inducing liquid, I feel a desperate fear for my state of mental health.

Colonoscopies shit me!

Doona

Shit Happens – Getting Burned is a Bitch

Being olive skinned has its benefits.  I don’t usually look pasty in winter – I retain my healthy glow all year around; I get a really good tan very easily in summer and I very rarely burn.  As a matter of fact I could probably count on one hand the number of times I have been sunburned and it hasn’t gone brown overnight.  This equates to an unexpected pain induced horror fest that continues for up to a week after the fact and gets meaner and uglier every day during that period.  Let me relay my recent experience.

Day 1

I attended the Biennial Airshow at Avalon with Boy Wonder, Sister Farrah & her two girls. After a week of gorgeous weather, the night before the event, Mother Nature decides to wreak havoc in Melbourne with gale force winds that had my hair standing vertical whilst I was sitting in my living room with a window open.  She then unleashed the mother-load of rain and had Farrah & I distressed about the carpark quagmire that awaited us at Avalon.  The forecast was for a cloudy & overcast day with a slight chance of a morning shower.  I have a message for the Bureau of Meteorology…YOU LIE!  I would have a better chance of predicting the forecast based on the bend of a hair plucked out of my arse that these pricks!  I did not pack hats or Sunscreen but big sisters think of EVERYTHING…so we slopped on some sunscreen at least, just in case.

Avalon is an airport.  There are open fields and no trees so the wind whipped up in cyclonic proportions and a hat would have been ridiculous unless you tied the thing around your throat or suction cupped it to your head (only people with a balding pate should attempt the latter).  I tightly braided my hair so I wouldn’t spend half the day getting whipped to death and consuming it.  Coughing up a fur ball is nasty business. 

Over the course of the day we watched numerous people chasing their hats – even retrieved a few for our fellow spectators and we congratulated ourselves on the no hat decision.  Now I wish I had stapled a hat to my frigging head – the sun came out and dried up all the rain and the hot wind burned the bejesus out of my head!  The wind blew against my head so much that I ended up with a furry aura surrounding my tight braid – and by the time I got home, I looked like Clive the orangutan in the movie ‘Every Which Way But Loose”.  My lips were stinging slightly and my forehead felt tight – not so bad.

Day 2

I turn on the faucets, step into the shower…and scream like a stuck pig!  Holy shit!  My forehead feels like someone has just branded it with an iron and my scalp is on fire.  My lips feel tight and sore and my eyebrows have made their presence known.  I quickly complete my ablutions, step out of the shower and ever so gently dab myself dry, emitting little ‘eeps’ and ‘oohs’ as I dabbed at my tender skin.  I then go and stand before the mirror to assess the damage.  Holy Mother of Murgatroyd!  My forehead is indeed red, so red in fact that it looks purple and makes my grey roots stand out like dog’s balls.  I solemnly declare that I will be rectifying the issue with my roots when I get home from work that afternoon and hope my boss and colleagues don’t notice the skunk like ugliness.  My eyebrows look fine but they sit atop an angry strip of ouch and my nose looks like a red beacon glowing loudly in the middle of my face.  I have a very large white area where my sunglasses sat.  My lips are dry and very sore but show no colour – they hurt enough to be purple too but remain unremarkable in colour.  I look like I have a red priest’s collar around my neck.  Where the fuck did that bit come from I wonder?  Although not really badly burned, my legs have enough colour between where my shorts ended and my socks began that I look like I am wearing red leg-warmers. I am fetching indeed.  Boy Wonder screams upstairs as the shower jets hit his burned neck (he has a burned bit of skin about a hand-span wide on the side of his neck).  I think my big boof-head shielded him most of the day.  I don’t think he will peel – his face has gone very brown.  I am very envious at this point and uncharitably mumble “lucky bastard” under my breath.

We have a staff meeting at work and everyone is in the office, nobody is absent and everybody notices.  My tight red face endures comparisons with a monkey’s arse in heat.  The woman who owns the café on the corner mentions my roots.  I smile tightly and swallow the urge to yell an expletive at her.  Back at the office I add insult to injury by giving myself a paper cut across the chin (don’t ask how – I am gifted in all things stupid – stupid is as stupid does and this stupid does it a lot).  Now I have an angry red horizontal line running across my chin – I look like a South Park character.  I kill the urge to scream ‘Kick the baby!” to my colleagues.  My day is not improving.

I cannot show any expression without hurting.  Surprise, frown, smile, laugh (just give me a reason) – they all hurt.  Applying makeup and brushing my hair makes me want scream…seeing my reflections makes me want to cry.

I exchange several text messages with my niece, who shares the same fate, and we make ourselves feel better by taking the piss out of our burned heads.  She makes me laugh and it hurts so badly that I want to slap a granny – I am feeling irrational.  Windburn turns me into a bitch.  I make it through the day without venting.

Day 3

It is like “Groundhog Day”.  Why is it still so fucking sore?  It has been days and my tolerance is limited.  Last night I nuked my scalp with hair colour to irradicate the skunk hairline and today it is burning like I set it alight.  I would not recommend allowing vanity to supersede the realms of normalcy – I should have waited…normal people would have waited.  My head is a giant ball of ouch. 

My face, eyebrows and scalp are starting to itch like a bastard but if I touch them, I scream.  I am applying Aloe Vera by the bucket load and look perpetually wet and shiny.  I really don’t want to peel but the constant itch tells me it is a given.  People around me are still verbalizing their observations, like I have no idea my face is a monkey’s arse – I’m just walking around oblivious and should be grateful that they are pointing it out.  

Boy Wonder awoke to an even darker tan and a hand span of tan on his neck.  Everyone at school asked him how the hell he got such a tan on the weekend – he’s one of the lucky ones.  I wish I had tan instead of this tight red ball of fugly.

Day 4

Finally, it doesn’t hurt anymore but the itch has stepped up to insane.  I am constantly scratching like I have an infestation of head lice and skin allergies (I just scratched my head at the mere mention of head lice…shudder).  I am deriving so much pleasure from scratching that I have the expression of a dog licking its balls with every scratch, and have to remind myself to stop scratching lest I suddenly climax at my desk.

I check my look in the mirror at lunch time and I am alarmed to see the skin on my forehead looks like dark crepe paper and when I touch it…it rustles like a dead leaf.  The skin has lifted and is wrinkled.  When did that happen?  I dare not scratch – imagine how it will look when it peels.  I look like a tribal elder – my skin dark, shriveled, leathery and mummified.  If the lid was lifted on a sarcophagus and this head was inside, no one would bat an eyelid.  My collar has gone brown but will not peel; it looks stupid.  The legwarmers won’t peel either, they too look stupid.  There are flakes in my eyebrows and I am disgusted with my appearance.

Day 5

Today I belong to the apache tribe.  I look so frigging ridiculous.  Overnight, my forehead and nose started to peel and I awoke to discover the evidence flaked all over my pillow.  I am disgusted with the dried up bits of dead skin and even though I know it is just my shedding skin, this results in my stomach roiling and my bottom jaw shudders.  

I walk into the office and immediately someone points and laughs.  The skin underneath is as pink and a new born baby’s arse and when surrounded by patches of dark brown dried up dead skin, looks hideous.  I have brown patches of skin that are not loose and will not peel and look a lot like pigmentation.  This look is fugly to the power of fugly.  My head is still itching and flaking skin is floating down all around me like dandruff.  I recall a similar situation in the 90s where my bikini line got sunburned and when it peeled, I had flakes of skin falling out from under my skirt.  This was back in the days where women sported full pubic afros so it did look a lot like I had dandruff inside my knickers.  That was wrong town.

I feel horror that this is happening to me and cannot wait for this week to end so I no longer need to endure this daily tedium.  I return home and despite all the advice about caring for burned skin, I wet a cloth and scrub the entire forehead, nose and eyebrow area; exfoliating all the dead skin away.   I am left with a very pink and glowing complexion, but no longer look like I belong in a museum.

Day 6

I enter the office to what almost seems like applause.  Everyone who has been noticing (and vocalising) the changes on the canvas of my face, see that the artwork is complete now and my head is back to resembling the bag of shit it did before I baked it silly the weekend prior.  When the Airshow returns in 2017, I will wear the headgear of a beekeeper and save myself the angst, pain and humiliation of hard baking my nut!

Doona