I Just Want To Heat Up A Frozen Pizza, For Pete's Sake

Our oven broke a while back and after several weeks of being ovenless our property management company (who I normally refer to as our 'slumlords' but instead let's just call them ABC) finally replaced it...with one that doesn't work right either.

After a week of nagging, today they finally called and said they spoke with the appliance company they bought it from and it's still under their warranty so they will repair it. But the company doesn't do on site repairs so ABC will send someone over to pick it up and take it to them.

After I finished laughing hysterically and confirming that I had heard her correctly I said fine, whatever it takes. I was instructed to pay the moving company whatever fee they charge and then deduct the charges from our next rent check.

The movers show up, slightly confused as to exactly why they were here, so I showed them the oven and told them they are supposed to take it to the appliance repair place.

MR. MOVER: Uh, do you know how to disconnect it?

ME: (Incredulous) No I don't know how to disconnect it!

MR. MOVER: Well who hooked it up?

ME: The appliance store that ABC bought it from.

Mr. Mover and his assistant discussed the situation and felt like they could probably handle the task. He asked if I knew where the breaker box is. I pointed him in the right direction and told him that the breaker for the oven was marked on the box.

Once the power was off he pulled the oven out of the wall, examined the connection, and conferred with his assistant:

MR. MOVER: Oh I see...This shouldn't be too hard...Let's try this...Yeah, okay, I can do this. Excuse me, ma'am, do you have a piece of paper and a pen?

I handed him the paper and pen that he used to write down the instructions for how to reconnect the oven, I presume. I told him I wasn't feeling too good about this whole thing. He just smiled and said he'd never done this before.

He asked if ABC had left payment for him and I told him that we would take care of it and I would need a receipt. He said the charge is $50.

While Mr. Mover and his assistant loaded the oven into their truck I wrote out a check payable to the company name on the side of their truck. He came back inside and handed me the receipt. I handed him the check:

MR. MOVER: Oh we normally don't take checks.

Me: Excuse me?

MR. MOVER: Yeah, if you want to write me a check you have to make it out to (insert real name here) and add $7 cuz that's what the bank will charge me to cash it.

Me: Are you FREAKING KIDDING ME??!!!???

MR. MOVER: Uh, no ma'am. I'm sorry about that but you see I don't have a bank account and Chase will charge me $7 but if I go to Wells Fargo they want $8 and blah blah blah blah.

Me: (Eyes closed, nostrils flaring and firmly holding the palm of my hand up to his face to indicate that he should immediately stop speaking, breathing, and doing anything else that I might find even remotely annoying.)

I asked Jayson if he had $50 in cash on him and between the 2 of us we were able to pay Mr. Mover's fee in cash since he doesn't have a bank account which means he doesn't pay taxes so I'm pretty sure he's not licensed, bonded or insured and I just let him into my house and showed him how to unlatch the other side of our double front doors. Fabulous.

Later....

TAYLOR: Who were you yelling at earlier?

ME: I wasn't yelling. I was just speaking firmly to the guys who picked up the oven.

TAYLOR: They sounded scared. I think you scared them.

ME: At this point...I. Don't. Care.

A Shell Of A Woman Playing Quarters With The D

**WARNING: Look away if you can't handle gross body functions, 

disgusting hospital procedures or my mother.**

Humor is my coping mechanism. If I suffer a mild trauma I can usually see the humorous side of it almost immediately but more severe traumatic experiences could take years.

I recently suffered a trauma at the hands of my mother (Who hasn't, right?) and I'm just now able to talk about it. I have shared it with some family and a few close friends who asked that I never speak of it again. I reminded them of my life's motto: If I have to live it, you have to hear about it.

Around the first of October my mother (let's call her...."Mom") went into the hospital to have an endoscopic procedure done on her esophagus to help with some swallowing issues. During that procedure the surgeon, who has been out of medical school for all of 10 minutes, accidentally cut a 1/4" hole in her esophagus with the laser. The esophagus is only 1" in diameter so 1/4" is comparatively huge. However, he felt sure that if she stayed NPO for 7 more days the hole would just seal up on its own and save her from having to endure another more invasive surgery.

My sister and I knew this probably wasn't going to happen but we couldn't exactly force him to do surgery on her when he felt it wasn't necessary so I drove home to stay with Mom for what I thought would be a couple of days. Since my sister lives in the same town with Mom she bears the burden of all the caregiving so I was glad to be able to give her a break. For a couple of days. That was my plan.

My home for 10 days.

My sister ended up with a nasty case of bronchitis which resulted in me sleeping on a cot in my mother's hospital room for 9 nights. I didn't leave the hospital for 10 days, 9 nights. I spent 9 NIGHTS locked in a hospital room with my mother. Don't get me wrong, I love my mom. But I was there only a matter of hours before I became a shell of a woman. Moms will do that to you.

I didn't mind getting up every 2 hours to help Mom to the bathroom since she couldn't very well lower the bed railing, unplug her IV machines, and haul herself to the potty after just having surgery. Not to mention the fact that she had an NG tube down her nose which is not only unpleasant but ended up wreaking all kinds of havoc on us both.

When I first got there I discovered that during the night she would call a nurse to help her instead of waking me up. I thought the whole reason I was there was to help her with things like this so when I woke up one night and found a nurse helping her to the bathroom I asked Mom about it:

ME: Why didn't you wake me up?

MOM: Cuz it's not your job to take me to the bathroom.

ME: But that's why I'm here.

MOM: No, I need you here just to be here now go back to sleep.

So I went back to sleep. It wasn't long before I got into her rhythm and started automatically waking up around 2 a.m. then again at 4 a.m. cuz I knew she would need to go. One night my internal alarm failed to go off and the night nurse failed to respond to Mom's call button. I woke up just in time to see Mom bolting out of bed, yanking the IV machine plugs out of the wall and sprinting to the bathroom like Florence Griffith Joyner with her hair on fire. After that I didn't worry so much about helping her to the bathroom even though she continued to lean on me and wobble as if she could barely take a step on her own. I knew better.

I learned a lot during my stay with Mom. She doesn't have a low pain tolerance, she has no pain tolerance at all. She cried and carried on as if she was having an amputation without anesthetic when the nurse had to move her IV. I discovered that I have no tolerance for people with no pain tolerance. Mom can't help it, I understand that, but...okay no I don't understand it. Pain is one of those abstract subjective things that I just can't wrap my brain around so I did my best to roll my eyes as quietly as I could while I patted and soothed her.

As expected, the hole in Mom's esophagus didn't heal on its own so Doogie Howser had to cut through her neck to fix it. When the anesthesiologist came in to talk to Mom before the surgery I realized he had gone to school with me and my sister:

ME: Oh hey, I haven't seen you since we played quarters in your dorm room freshman year.

SISTER: YOU played quarters, I would never have done such a thing. (I didn't say it out loud but we both knew that while I was drinking illegally she was getting into a lot worse trouble!)

MOM: What's quarters? You didn't take anything off did you??!!

I think Mom had her surgery after that but I can't be sure since mortification caused me to project myself into another plane of existence that I like to call my happy place.

Mom made me take a picture of her PICC line and send to my sister because Mom wanted confirmation that it was in the right place.

For the next couple of days after her surgery, Mom stayed pretty out of it (my personal thanks to the makers of Ativan and Dilaudid). They were unable to get her NG tube back in place after surgery so she had a PICC line put in for intravenous nutrition. Fortunately there wasn't any drama during that procedure since I made sure she got her meds just shortly before.  

I spent the next couple of days changing Mom's bandage every few hours because her incision had a drain tube and she couldn't tolerate it when there was neck juice on the bandage.

I would frequently ask Mom if there was anything she needed and she would frequently reply with, "My ice melted, I need some more. I need a bigger cup. My feet are cold. Can you scratch my back? Why is it so cold in here? Do my stitches look okay? Why does it still hurt? Is it time for my Dilaudid? I'm nauseous. Raise my head. No, that's too much. Now back the other way. Do I have to wear the bubbles on my legs? Do they have softer pillows? I'm freezing I need more blankets. That's too many, fold that one at my feet. Why do I need oxygen? I have to go to the bathroom. Can you brush my hair? I'm still nauseous. I need more Kleenex. I need a fresh swab. Where's the Chapstick? Will you put lotion on my legs? Why is it so hot in here? My ice melted again..." Rinse and repeat daily.

The nutrition stuff they had been giving Mom through her NG tube gave her tummy issues and when they switched to the intravenous stuff those issues just got worse. She stayed constantly nauseated and had really bad diarrhea, which at my house we call "The D" because my daughter thinks the word 'diarrhea' is more disgusting than the act itself.

So Mom had The D. And she had it bad.We've all had The D at one time or another and we all know it's unpleasant, right? And we've all experienced the uhhh....very unpleasant burning sensation which often accompanies severe cases of The D. It's not fun, it's painful, and it usually doesn't go away until The D goes away.

Mom swore that her hiney hole was on fire worse than anyone else's in history. She cried crocodile tears as she described it with words like 'scalding', 'raw', 'ruined', 'flaming', etc. I went to the nurse's station to get some barrier cream and was horrified to see that the nurse on duty was the one who moved Mom's IV which hurt so badly that she refused to let the nurse come near her again and called her "That Red Headed Devil Woman". I knew that for the nurse's own safety I would have to be the one to apply the barrier cream to my mother's scalded nether region.

I cursed my sister (who is a nurse) for having bronchitis, snapped on 2 pairs of rubber gloves (because boxing gloves wouldn't have been thick enough), then hauled my whining mother to the bathroom for the event that would scar me for life.

I told myself that my mother was in pain and she needed me to do this for her. I thought Mom might be more comfortable having me do it instead of a nurse since it's a rather personal thing. Then I thought that maybe because it's a rather personal thing she might prefer to have a nurse do it so I asked her. She informed me that she didn't care who did it. Then she dropped trou, grabbed the edge of the bathroom sink and bent over.

I put some of the barrier cream on my heavily gloved finger tip then gently patted Mom's hip and said, "Okay, I'm going in."

"Going in" wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. My mom is a big girl. I mean this with all the love and respect in the world when I say there was so much butt flesh to wade through that I'm really not sure I ever hit pay dirt. I really could have used at least 2 more sets of hands just to help corral the extra cheekage. When I moved one cheek out of the way, the other one filled the space. I couldn't separate the butt cheeks with one hand cuz all the extra flesh just closed up around it and my hand disappeared. I did my best to apply the cream to the "affected area" and it did make her feel better so I guess I got close enough.

It's bad enough to have to go through a life changing trauma like that once....but I had to do it after every single episode of The D, which lasted for several days. I tried to tell myself that nurses do this kind of thing all the time, it's no big deal. But it was a big deal for me. A big, fleshy, traumatizing deal. I actually longed to be back on neck juice maintenance if it meant not having to doctor my mom's backside anymore. When I was telling a friend about this horrific trauma that I had to endure, he suggested that next time I should use Gold Bond Powder. All you have to do is step back, aim it in the general direction, then give the bottle a firm squeeze and the stuff will shoot out towards its destination. Like fireplace bellows. Now I know.

Eventually Mom's tummy settled down but after being on IV antibiotics for almost 2 weeks she got the inevitable yeast infection. One evening I requested Diflucan for her but when the nurse came in she said that it doesn't come IV form and since Mom was still NPO her only option was a Monistat vaginal suppository, which she held up like it was Excalibur.

I told her that would be fine then I kissed Mom's forehead, told her goodnight, put in my earplugs, curled up on my cot and went to my happy place.

How Many Shannons Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb?

It only takes one. But it takes her over an hour to do it.

I know, bad pic. I'm too lazy to take a good one.

I was cleaning Chad & Jamie's room so they can use it this weekend and noticed the bulb in the ceiling fan needed to be replaced. The only bulb I had was one of those eco-friendly twisty ones which I figured would work just fine. I put in the twisty bulb, flipped the switch, nothing. I grabbed another bulb which was a GE Reveal that I usually save for lamps but just wanted to see if I was having a bulb issue or a ceiling fan issue.

Evidently I was having an idiot issue. As I was trying out the Reveal bulb it dawned on me that I didn't pull the chain on the fan to make sure the light was on. I had just flipped the wall switch which will only work if the chain is pulled to the 'on' position. Sure enough, I pulled the chain and the light came on. I dug the old bulb out of the trash thinking that maybe it wasn't burned out after all but it rattled when I shook it so I told myself I wasn't a complete idiot for changing it. I was just a partial one.

I put the twisty bulb back in the fan's fixture so I could save my Reveal bulb for a more worthy lighting source. The ceiling fan globe was all dusty and had a couple of dead bug bodies inside so I took this opportunity to wash the globe and wipe down the fan blades. After the globe was all nice and clean and dry I went to put it back on the fan and the bulb hit the bottom of the globe before the top of the globe reached the screws. I forgot that some of those twisty bulbs are longer than regular bulbs so the globe would no longer fit on the fan.

Ideally I would just go buy the right size bulb but that seemed wasteful since I already had a working bulb in place and we're not exactly in a position to be buying light bulbs all willy nilly. I dug through the basket of light fixture globes that we all have sitting in our garage, right? Don't ask. I found a lovely antique clear one that was taller than the original globe but the opening was the same size so I figured it would work. I brought it inside, washed it out, shined it up and took it upstairs to put on the fan.

My fan is similar to this but not as fancy. And with fewer blades.

I was rewarded with a "clink" as once again the bulb hit the globe before the globe reached the fixture. I went back out to the garage to reassess my options. They looked limited since most of the larger globes also had larger openings which I wasn't sure would fit the fixture. In a stroke of genius I decided to measure the diameter of the opening which would save me a lot of running up and down the stairs trying to find a fixture that fit. I was so proud of myself but my pride deflated somewhat as the tape measure reached less than half way across the opening before hitting the socket. No, I didn't consider the socket when I had the diameter-measuring-epiphany, thank you very much.

I measured from the edge of the opening to the edge of the socket, multiplied by 2, added in the estimated diameter of the socket (I could have gotten an exact measurement for that had I thought to remove the bulb but it never crossed my mind either.), then went back downstairs armed with a number that did me absolutely no good whatsoever. According to my measurement, the globe I took off the fan shouldn't have fit in the first place.

I ditched my faulty measurements, grabbed one of the longer globes, took it inside then had another stroke of genius and decided to stick one of the twisty bulbs inside the globe to make sure it fit before hauling it upstairs. I was pleased to find that it fit all the way down quite nicely. I thought it might be smart to take the globe upstairs to make sure the opening was the right size. But the globe was really dirty and I didn't want it dusting up my clean room so I took a leap of faith.

I put the globe in the sink to wash it out and heard water running upstairs so I waited for Jayson to get out of the shower so I wouldn't have to hear him whine about how I scalded him half to death. Finally I took my clean globe upstairs, put it in the ceiling fan fixture, and found that it barely fit. I don't care about the barely part, it fit and that's what matters.

I put the original globe in my basket 'o globes then sat down with a cool drink, exhausted from my light bulb changing ordeal. I do need to finish cleaning my house but I also need to put a new roll of toilet paper in the holder in the downstairs bathroom and at the rate I'm going that might eat up the rest of my day.

The Agony and The Irony

I have recently discovered, much to my surprise, that I'm a city girl. I grew up in an average size town of about 100,000 people and was content to spend the rest of my days there. It never occurred to me that after I got married we might end up having to move somewhere else but that's exactly what happened.

After spending 37 years in the same town we moved to Lafayette, Louisiana where we spent the next 8 years. Lafayette is about double the size of my hometown but still not a big city. We were comfortable and content there but as fate would have it Jayson was offered a better position in his company which required us to move to Houston.

Being the 4th largest city in the U.S., Houston was completely out of my comfort zone. I had always thought I would hate living in a big city with millions of people, insane traffic, and hour long commutes. Much to my surprise, I find that I actually prefer it. Of course we live in the 'burbs but I  love having quick access to a large metropolitan area where there is always something to do or see.

Shortly before we moved to Houston, one of Jayson's coworkers (let's call him Bob) had already relocated here. About a year later Bob took a different position with the company and ended up moving his family back to Lafayette. Then a few months ago Bob was let go which is just part and parcel for this economy. Fortunately he was able to find another job and he moved his family to Snyder, Texas.

I've been to Snyder, several times in fact. Actually I've been *through* Snyder several times. I can't imagine why anyone would ever stop there on purpose. I don't mean to offend those who live in or love Snyder, it's just a very small town and not my personal preference for a place to live.

When Jayson told me about Bob's relocation I asked about his job because I couldn't imagine what kind of opportunities there would be in a town of 11,000 people. I imagined Bob might be working the drive through at the Dairy Queen. Then I thought about his family and what they would do. Would they take a family outing to the Scurry County Museum or the public library? Or would they treat themselves to a movie at Cinema Snyder which boasts TWO whole screens, and is open SIX days a week?!

For all their shopping needs Snyder has its very own Walmart. Should they require a mall, Snyder is conveniently located just 90 miles from Lubbock, Midland, San Angelo and Abilene whose malls might not have a Sephora but they all have a Radio Shack AND a Sears, by gosh.

Okay so I made fun of living in Snyder. Bob and his family may love it and I truly hope they do, but I'm fairly certain that if I had to live there I would slowly shrivel up and die. Do they have wifi there? Or are they proud of being conveniently located just 90 miles away from 4 different sources of wifi? Frightening thought.

The universe has a funny way of slapping you upside the head sometimes. Jayson was recently "let go" just like Bob was and is searching for a new job after spending the past 19 years with the same company. He's applied for over 20 different jobs in the past two weeks and talked to numerous recruiters but he's only had one interview and it was a phone interview that lasted less than 2 minutes. He was starting to feel a little discouraged until a company contacted him and asked him to come in for an interview. Do you care to guess where that company is located?

Snyder, Texas.

AT&T Thinks I'm a Perv

I have decided that the time you spend on the phone with service people, tech support, etc. should be measured in something similar to dog years. Yesterday I spent a combined total of about an hour on the phone with AT&T but it felt like 7 years.

Jayson's previous employer let him keep his cell phone after they fired him cuz they are just generous like that. They released his number so we could add it to our personal account. I called AT&T to ask how to do that and the nice lady sent me a link for the website, told me what to do and said that if I do it online it's free but if they have to do it for us over the phone they will charge us $18. I'm all about free, especially now.

I went to the website, followed her instructions and got one error message after another. Then I decided to actually read the email that the ex-employer sent when they released the phone and saw that they gave a different AT&T number to call for the transfer.

I called that number, told the gal what I was trying to do and how important it was that I do it for free. She was able to see that I did try to do it through the website but what I need to do can't be done online so she offered to do it for free.

Apparently when you have a phone that was previously on a global corporate account you can't just transfer that number to your personal family account. This makes no sense to me, I'm just telling you what she said. She said that in order for us to keep Jayson's same phone number, I would have to close out our current AT&T account and open a new one. Nothing would change except our account number. She would transfer our current phones from the old account to the new one and then add Jayson's number to our family plan. We'd keep our rollover minutes and everything would stay the same. All I would have to do is go to the AT&T website to create a new online account if I want to access our stuff online.

It still made no sense to me why it had to be done this way but apparently it does so I sat back and let her do it. The process took 30 minutes, I kid you not. In case you don't believe me I've included unnecessary photographic proof. The gal kept saying she was waiting on the computer to open the new account, transfer one number, transfer the next number, add the new one, finish processing, etc. I really thought AT&T's computers would be faster. I wanted to ask the gal if her computer was a 286 or 386 but figured she probably wasn't old enough to even understand what I was making fun of.

I dangled that participle on purpose because sometimes proper grammar just sounds stupid.

After the excruciatingly long wait, the AT&T gal said that all 3 phones had been successfully added to the new account, there would be no charge and now all I needed to do was set up a new online account.

Great, problem solved. I went to the AT&T website and began the process of setting up a new online account. Since our old account had been closed I tried to use my old user name but apparently the account wasn't closed enough to let me do that. I always use my own name as my user name whenever possible because it's one of the few names I have a chance of actually remembering.

Since Shannon Green is a fairly common name it gets snatched up fast on large websites. When this happens I do have a backup name that I use: shannnongreeen. That name is always available so I typed it in then stared at my screen in stunned disbelief when a big red error message popped up saying that I was not allowed to use profanity in any part of my user name. I shrugged it off thinking it was a glitch and retyped it. Again I got chastised for trying to use profanity in my user name. I still can't figure out what part of shannnongreeen is profane but now I'm all worried that AT&T thinks I'm a perv. Anyway I chose another one that I had to write down in half a dozen places so I wouldn't forget it.

Once that was done I logged in to my new account to make sure that everything was there like it was supposed to be. I figured the computer took so long to transfer everything because it was moving all of our history from the old account to the new one. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that's not the case at all. The new account does have all 3 phones on our family plan like they should be but there is no usage history for any of the phones. There is a little message that says since this account is new it could take 3-5 days for our usage history to show up.

I was wrong to make fun of AT&T for having a 386 computer. Apparently they're still using a Commodore 64. Bless their hearts.