161,280 Minutes...that's how we measure our last days at work...

161,280 Minutes. Come hell or high water, I will not be in this office in 161,280 minutes.

It's not my fault you can't edit the website. Fact is, you can barely turn on the computer. And you think the entire internet resides on your personal machine. You have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a beautiful yet dysfunctional turd that we have been forced to live with for years. You want yer stuff to work on the intarwebs? Create a workaround like I've done. No, I won't help. I'm too busy counting down my minutes. (kthxbai).

It is hard to work in a tiny office where my co-workers absolutely don't care about what's going on in my life. It really is. They ignore me in a way that borders on violent.

I'm not the annoying girl who talks all day. I'm also not the person who ignores their lives. I know what they like, what they watch on TV, what their kids are up to, who's going to college where and what they're studying, you get the idea. If they tell me something they're worried about, I listen. I don't offer advice unless asked--and I check back with them to see if whatever they were worried about turned out ok. I don't participate in their boss-slamming, but I would never rat 'em out either.

I do not get this courtesy in return. Today, I have an MRI for a problem that, for me, is the boogeyman. Friday, I have an EMG. I am terrified--close my office door, chug xanax and try not to shake terrified. My co-workers have seen me walking around this office with ice pack slings across my body. They've seen me leave for multiple appointments and multiple rounds of PT. No one's asked what's going on or if I'm ok. Once, I brought it up and said that I was scared--it elicited no response. The person I said this to literally took a cell phone call in the middle of our conversation and didn't come back. I hope I'm not a whiner or a topper--I'm pretty careful to avoid this stuff.

Yes, co-workers, I make more than you. You should be able to guess this--but the fact that the bookkeeper shared my salary with you can't help. I have a professional degree that I sacrificed a lot to get. The same with my experience--it's prestigious and you guys don't have it. If you want it and were to ask, I'd be the first to tell you how I did it if you wanted to do what I do--or I'd support you in what you wanted to do.

I'm younger than you. It's true. I'm even kind of cute. And, to some people, likable. I liked you guys. I still would if you'd just be fucking decent. You'd be surprised what we probably have in common...and what we don't might even be funny. I don't think I'm better than you...in fact, I'm clumsy and can be awfully stupid about things that you probably do better. I do think you suck for being assholes. But maybe you think I'm an asshole? I dunno.

Sorry for the rant. I don't have anywhere else to post this. And my husband has already been far too accommodating to lay this dumb shit whining at his feet. Fingers crossed no earthquakes happen while I'm in that machine that feels an awful lot like a coffin. More fingers crossed that the EMG hurts less than last time and doesn't find more nerve damage.

And finally, prayers that they figure out exactly what in the hell is going on in my shoulder/neck/whatever. 'Cause I never wanna be on a spinal surgery table again.

Nightmare on my street...

Ever heard the Bill Cosby routine where he talks about being left home alone while his parents went out? They left him in bed and told him that if he got out of bed, venomous snakes would bite him and he would die...so he tests it by sticking his toe out of bed and asking the snakes not to bite it, but to give it a "little snakey lickey lick" if they're out there. Once he decides they're not, he jumps out of bed and listens to a horror show on the radio--and the show scares him so bad the he winds up setting the couch on fire and coating the floor with Crisco to get away from a monster (who turns out to be his dad).

I have the same problem...except that I am 28 and he was, like, 8. I love horror movies. Always have--I bought six or seven tickets to Snow White so I could sneak into Nightmare on Elm Street 3 when I was seven or eight (hooray for parental supervision). The next year, Kristen and I rented every Hitchcock movie we could find, and also such gems as Sleepaway Camp, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Prom Night, and the entire (existing) Nightmare on Elm Street series. I went on a serial killer kick in the fifth grade--where I devoured any information I could find about any serial killer. And I took dissection classes at the junior college. My parents started sleeping in shifts after that.

I continued on this kick through high school and college. I was the only girl who actually looked at those medical emergency books that the weird kids brought to school. As far as I was concerned, the gorier the better--Reservoir Dogs didn't make me flinch, and neither did Seven. I watched Copycat with a friend and was able to tell her who he was copying as soon as they talked about the crime scene. She and her roommate may have considered sleeping in shifts too.

Fast forward six years: I cannot watch the stuff anymore. I have no idea what happened--I still have a taste for it, but then I watch it and cover my eyes or I have nightmares. First, it was The Ring. Every time I'd take a bath, I'd be wishing I could see the TV because I was scerdt that something evil with a bad hip was gonna crawl out of it and drag water across my floor. Then came The Grudge. If I close my eyes while I'm washing my face in the tub, somebody's gonna come in and drown me. On to Dark Water: Something dead is going to make my tub overflow until it kills me, too.

Stay Alive: Some mean woman who likes to kill teenage girls is going to appear in my mirror while I'm sleepy and on the toilet at 2am. She's not going to care that I'm 28, so I gotta watch out for her. And I better not go out and watch TV to calm down, 'cause a Poltergeist is coming out when the station signs off and it turns to static...or I'll find out who the bad guys in White Noise really were. If I'm still up at 3am, I'd better wake my husband up...'cause this is hour that I could get possessed by the devil. And I don't want to die like Emily Rose did. This goes on and on.

Now there's this new movie that advertisers are comparing to Hostel and The Saw. And there's another one that looks like it could make me scared of our appliances, too. I want to see these movies, and Richard says "no." Stupid Richard.

PSA No. 87

Don't chop jalapeno peppers without wearing gloves. If you do this anyway, don't use your thumb to peel off the skin that holds the seeds. Seriously.

After a couple of hours, I washed my hands for about ten minutes. Then I tried to take my contacts out. Holy God. Don't do that either. Just sleep in them. Oh, and washing your hands the next day (or swimming!) just makes them burn more.

Milk doesn't help. Neither does bleach, lemon juice or ice. According to the cat, ass pie doesn't work either. She ate some of the sauce I made and then licked her butt, apparently to diminish the spiciness. Then she dragged her butt across the floor and sat in her water dish.

Jalapenos can cause much havoc. And much entertainment if you are married to me.