Oh! My epiglottis!

I stayed home from work today to go to the doctor.  I had what I thought was strep throat.  I started having a sore throat Tuesday…by Wednesday evening; I had gross, oozy looking ulcer things on the back of my throat and my uvula.  Very un-cool.  I went to the local doc-in-a-box, had a blood draw and strep swab.  The doctor declared strep-negative & said it was a viral infection.  He gave me a steroid shot, an antibiotic (afraid that the oozy pustules might get a bacterial infection) and prescription for “Magic Mouthwash.” True story.

My lovely daughter, home for fall break, offered to drop the prescription off for me.  I was a little jazzed about getting something that was forreal called “Magic Mouthwash” to be honest with you.  I was thinking it was probably made from rainbows and fairy dust or something.  Last month, I went to a managers’ meeting in Kentucky and this pub we went to had a drink called a “Pixie Stick.” It was purple and awesome and could kick your butt in record time (haven’t had Everclear in 25 years, probably, but funny how you can still pick up the taste of it in anything.) I was hoping that “Magic Mouthwash” was going to be something like that…powerful, yet whimsical (and might stain my tongue an unholy color).

The first pharmacy the child went to said that they didn’t have all of the “ingredients” for my concoction, but directed her to a nearby store that did.  She dropped off the Rx and was told to come back in about an hour and a half to pick it up.  She got way-laid at her orthodontist appointment, so I headed over to pick up my “Magic Mouthwash” myself.

“Magic Mouthwash” does not taste magical.  At all.  It tastes like a combination of Cepastat, Maalox, and monkey spit (I assume.)  And that’s because IT IS.  Wikipedia states that “The most popular formulation of magic mouthwash contains viscous lidocaine as a topical anestetic, diphenhydramine as an anti-inflammatory and Maalox (no lie) to help coat the tissues in the mouth.”  I’m guessing that “diphenhydramine” is the Latin word for “monkey spit.”  It does numb the mouth though…AFTER you get a full 5 seconds of wanting to rip your own tongue out and then rinse your mouth with bleach.  The numbing lasts for quite awhile too.  I’m afraid that nothing is going to taste right for the next week, though.  Can someone please bring me some Everclear?

Pretty Fly for a White Girl

So, the other day, the child and I are out and about, goofing off…and something happens (don’t remember…it could have been anything) that causes Daughter to roll her eyes at me in a way indicating that I am perhaps the LAMEST person on the planet. To which I replied…”Nu-uh, honey…I am SO fly.”

She just looked at me and said, “You’re what?”

“I’m FLY.”

“Do you mean fie?  Because that’s what people say, Mom.  Not fly, fie.”

“No they don’t. The saying is “fly,” as in the Fly Girls.”

“Who?”

“The Fly Girls? From In Living Color? Jennifer Lopez?  J-Lo? You don’t know who the Fly Girls are?”

“Must’ve been some old show…”

I’m thinking that she is somehow tragically mistaken…like how she thought that her Papaw saying “10-4” as an affirmative was kind of code that the two of them had and was not known by the rest of the world.  So, I go to my old stand-by Urbandictionary.com.

And although “fly” is there as “cool, in style,” “fie” is also in there…apparently it is a shortened version of “fine.”

This public service announcement was brought to you by Mothers Who Are Old and Lame.

Scratch my itch...or not

Every year about this time, Jeff gets this flaky patch on his back.  It’s like seasonal-related-super-duper-localized eczema.  I’ve known him since he was 16, and it’s been the same thing every year…the spot is about the size of a quarter and it’s on his left scapula (shoulder blade). (God, why did I say scapula if I was just going to put shoulder blade in parenthesis?) It appears in the fall, and he battles it all winter.  Over the course of the cooler seasons, he will ask me to scratch his flaky-itchy-spot eleventy-jillion times. His itchy scapula-rot made its annual appearance yesterday, and it reminded me of an amusing Jeff-story…

So Jeff has a best friend, Brad.  Back in the days before Brad settled down & got married & had kids, he used to hang around the house quite a bit, particularly on the weekends.  He’d come over, watch TV or play video games with Jeff…and then inevitably, he’d call for a Wal-mart run.  Brad didn’t like to do his weekly dog food/shampoo/detergent/whatever-stocking when it was crowded…but he also didn’t like doing it alone.  It wasn’t unusual on your average Saturday night at 11:17 p.m. to see the two of them pulling into the local Wally-World parking lot.  If I caught them before they left the house, I’d send Jeff with a list of whatever I needed too, so I didn’t mind in the least.  Did I mention that the two of them could bicker like an old married couple?  They’d come home from a Wal-mart trip, and Jeff would joke that he was sure everyone working 3^rd shift there thought he & Brad were a “couple.” (To quote the Seinfeld episode…”not that there’s anything wrong with that.”)

Well, it so happened one year when Jeff’s eczema (or whatever it is) flared up…he was having an AWFUL time with it, and decided to resort to actually treating it.  Unfortunately, for two weeks running, every time I was in Wal-mart, they were out of Cortizone cream, and nothing else seemed to be helping.  Cue the weekly boys-night-out to the store…

Jeff decided since he was already in the store, he’d see if they’d gotten any more Cortizone in…and as he rounded the corner into the Health and Beauty section, he saw a nice, middle-aged woman stocking the shelves.  As a matter-of-fact, in her hand was the red box with the very visible yellow “10% Cort…” on it.  Jeff, being the theatrical guy he his…runs up to her, takes both her hands, looks into her eyes and said fervently, “Oh, thank GOD!!! You have no idea how much I need this!” while Brad waits patiently at the end of the aisle.  With a bewildered look on her face, the nice stocking-room lady slowly and carefully handed Jeff the cream and told him to “Have a good night.”  The guys finished up their shopping and headed to the register.  It wasn’t until Jeff handed his purchase to the cashier that he stopped to fully read the box:

Yes, that says exactly what you think it does.