Misadventures of an Overheated Drug Addict

Ugh. Today is just one of those days that is not destined for greatness. I knew this to be the case when I woke up half an hour before my alarm went off, sweating profusely and unable to fall back asleep. It's just started to get cold down here and we haven't quite figured out the heating system in our apartment yet. It's consistently freezing in the living room, but I think that's because all the heat is being channeled into my room, where it waits and gathers power in the vent before blasting me at 3 in the morning.

Speaking of apartment quirks, our internet has been flaky at best the past few days. After spending the weekend writing verbal hatemail to Charter ("Dear Charter, you are not nice. We do not like you and sometimes wish you would die." Hey I never said we were wordsmiths...) my roommate and I discovered that the problem lay with an Ethernet cord gone bad. And by 'discovered', I mean I placed a technical support phone call to my brother, who immediately diagnosed the problem. Oops. Excuse me while I contact the fine people at Charter to cancel the service appointment I demanded yesterday.

I've been to the doctor twice in the past six days, which has me thinking it really might be time to get my own physician in Greenville. I think the people at Urgent Care are starting to get suspicious, like I'm just a lonely person who has nowhere else to go on Monday nights. Which is only half of the truth. The other half is the swelling of my right ear to several times its normal size, which caused the latest visit. The doctor was like "Oh, yup, that's an abscess. Let's get that outta there". Ew. He numbed my ear then basically cut into it like a thanksgiving turkey. And of course, just because you are numb during a procedure doesn't mean you aren't going to feel it later... and when I saw the amount of blood coming out of my ears, I knew it was going to hurt once that shot wore off.

It took me back to my first ear piercing, when the teenage girl at Claire's got the gun stuck in my ear and started screaming. I couldn't feel anything but I knew the look of horror on her face was probably not a good sign, a suspicion confirmed when I saw the rivers of blood pouring from my ear. I don't think they had equipped her for that kind of medical emergency in high school health class. And that was only the first in a series of dramatic events which ultimately led to getting my ears pierced by our family physician.

And here's something I'll bet you've never thought about one way or another- you can't really rip a band-aid off your ear. It's pretty much guaranteed to be slow and painful no matter what you do.

Anyway. What was I saying? Oh yes. In case I didn't feel like enough of a drug addict going to the same Rite Aid pharmacy twice in one week, when I handed in my prescription today, the pharmacist pointed out that the doctor had signed the prescription but forgotten to put my name on it. That's right. I gave a signed, nameless drug order to my friendly neighborhood pharmacist. Sigh.

There have been a few bright spots lately: I went apple picking this weekend and came home with approximately 10,000 pounds of apples. The first batch of applesauce has already been cooked and eaten, and hardly a dent has been made in the stash. We drove up into the mountains, which I always love, and after the orchard, we ate dinner at Haus Heidelberg in Hendersonville, which is AUTHENTIC. GERMAN. FOOD. I tell you what. Like every-item-on-the-menu-included-some-kind-of-schnitzel authentic. The highlights for me were definitely the spatzle and my beer, which happily was called The Optimator. It was so rich and heavy, I couldn't even finish this beast, though goodness know I tried. At $4.50 for a 17oz glass, you can bet your boots I'll be back soon.

Well, I'm off to Rite Aid, for potentially the last time ever. I don't think I'll be comfortable showing my face there again after recent events...

I really do not need ESPN the Ocho... no one does

I think if Dante were writing The Inferno today, he would reserve the seventh circle of hell for Charter Representatives. Seriously.

Look, Charter guy, I don't think you're stupid- I really don't. I just think there must be some sort of bug on the phone line that garbles the message between my mouth and your ears. Because when I said "I'd like to cancel my service" what you apparently heard was "I'd like to upgrade to the most expensive package you offer". And you phrased it in such a way that I replied by saying "Yes. That's correct. Do that." So don't act all put out when I ask you what my next bill will be and then freak out when you give me a figure that's twice the amount of the original number I wanted slashed.

In other news that DOESN'T make me want to slit my wrists, I had the most lovely time this past weekend at the Sippin' Safari. Now, gorillas and booze are two things I never would have put together, but thank heavens the good people at the Greenville Zoo are capable of thinking outside the box. Turns out wine and primates are a perfect complement.

Let me set up this delightful scenario for you: 4 hours on a Friday night spent eating any number of delicious foods (including cupcakes with little icing animals on them) and drinking about 45 different varieties of wine... all while strolling leisurely past monkeys, lemurs and tigers. Let's ignore the fact that the "fence" surrounding the elephant habitat barely came up to my waist. If I can climb over it, I feel pretty confident that Dumbo can as well. But fear of stampedes aside, it was truly a perfect evening.

And now we've moved merrily into autumn time and I am just itching to get my hands on a bushel or 17 of apples so that I can continuously run the crockpot full of applesauce until Thanksgiving. Too bad it's still 85 degrees out...