Am I the Only Person in Texas Who Doesn’t Know How to Plop a Patty?

It all comes from deciding not to go to the Goat Barbecue and Craft Fair.

I don’t know what got into me. I read the blurb for this amazing event in the Sunday newspaper, and thought, “That has got to be the coolest name for anything. Ever.” And I mean, anything. Like the name of the new band I’m going to start with Jon Stewart. Or the bookstore I’m going to open in my garage. If David Sedaris can explore diabetes with owls, I don’t see why I can’t spend an afternoon embroidering a lamp shade with a goat while eating some juicy ribs.

I have to admit, though, that I was a bit confused about the goat’s part in all of this. Is the goat doing the barbecuing and the crafting? Or are the goats being barbecued? If so, is that before or after they make a craft? And, most importantly, how do you train a goat to make the Alamo out of Popsicle sticks without the goat actually consuming it?

I could have discovered the answers to all of these riveting questions if I had chosen to make an actual appearance at the Goat Barbecue and Craft Fair. But, as tempting as it sounded, I couldn’t convince myself that anything was better than hanging around the house morbidly depressed. Even the “cow patty plop” didn’t persuade me. Though it did bring up more questions…

So, instead, I stayed home. My daughter, who was bored, got herself invited to a friend’s neighborhood pool. The friend’s mom decided not to make an appearance at the pool, so I waited for her with our bulldog, Wonderbutt, in tow. Not surprisingly, Wonderbutt fell in the pool and almost drowned because, stupidly, I had not brought his life jacket along on what I assumed to be a Drop-Off-And-Drive-Away situation.

Now, if you would have asked me who would be more resentful about this whole experience, I would have laid odds on the daughter, who got yanked back home when her friend’s mother took too long to return to three unchaperoned girls at an unlifeguarded pool. Instead, it’s Wonderbutt who isn’t speaking to me.

Being spurned by an obese bulldog is even more depressing than the thought of eating barbecued goat.

This was the chain of events I began to relate to my doctor the next day as evidence that he probably needed to change my medication – again.

He stopped me at “cow patty.”

It’s kind of scary how little convincing was needed to persuade him to write out a new prescription.

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This is Becoming a Pain in the Butt

I did something truly frightening and scheduled a colonoscopy for myself on Halloween.  In retrospect, that wasn’t my best plan ever.  But Fate saved me from myself once again, and my doctor’s office called to reschedule because, apparently, the doctor’s husband is having surgery on that date.

I am not going to go into the details of the domino effect of this schedule change.  Being a teacher of gifted students at two different schools, I had to personally notify at least 500 people when I cancelled class for next Monday.  My students thought I was taking a day off for Halloween.  I didn’t take off for my own birthday, but I’m going to relax at home on Halloween?  If I was going to let that day effect my teaching schedule, I would go for the day after Halloween – when the kids are so sugared up from all of the candy they ate, and so exhausted from trick or treating that they are extra diligent about misbehaving, and drop their heads on the desk as soon as you ask them to expend some energy on anything that requires thought.

Anyway, my doctors’s office decided to reschedule me for next Wednesday.  After I dutifully marked that on my calendar and hung up, I contemplated the nightmare I had just agreed to.

I had just finished emailing all of the teachers about next week’s schedule change, and let Transportation know so they could get a different driver because the current bus driver has already scheduled his life around me once and refuses to do it again.  Now I was going to have to tell everyone that I was just jerking their chains. I really meant to cancel class next Wednesday.

And, let’s be logical about this.  If the doctor’s husband is having surgery on Monday, and something goes wrong, is my doctor going to be in any shape to be doing the sensitive things they do during such procedures?  What if the husband stops breathing during his mystery operation and everyone panics and the nurse drops a scalpel, and someone steps on it and slips, hitting the anesthesia guy in the crotch and then all Hell breaks loose?  Do I really want the doctor to be working on me a mere two days after this traumatic experience?  I think not.

Of course, rescheduling would mean I would have to call the office back again.  So, I need to weigh the likelihood of my doctor going off the deep end due to her husband’s brush with death against the likelihood of me talking to a real live person who can help me before I stab myself with the butter knife after being forced to listen to scratchy elevator music for fifteen minutes. This is not Dr. Jimmy’s office where humans pick up the phone after one ring and magically pull convenient-for-my-calendar appointments out of their uncolonoscopied rears.

Then I looked at my calendar more closely.  What?  OK – hide the butter knives.  Time to call the doctor’s office.  I could handle re-notifying 500 people rather than calling back to re-re-schedule,  but there was another event on the calendar that I could not cancel and I sure as heck didn’t plan to attend loopy on anesthesia with an aching butt.

David Sedaris is coming to town.  That man’s writings – and his readings of his writings – makes life worth living, and I am not going to miss his humor injection for a dang colonoscopy that will probably result in my doctor officially declaring me a hypochondriac once and for all.

So, I called the office again.  And, you have rightly deduced that I did not stab myself.  The colonoscopy is rescheduled.  I will be able to enjoy David Sedaris with my full faculties intact.  At least the ones that are usually present.

I haven’t told the 500 people yet.  I’m thinking of keeping things quiet.  After all, it might not be so bad to have the day off on Halloween.

Not sure if this is the best place for me to display this message, but thanks for the pic cafepress.com!