Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

My Back Is Still A Little Sore, But The Nerdiness? Is Alive And Well

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As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I frequently find myself having hot, sweaty, lustful thoughts about cleaning products. The most recent object of my obsession has been this, the Sonic Scrubber.

sonicscrubber

Words truly cannot describe the joy I felt in my heart when I found this at my local Kroger and was able to purchase one of my very own. And then, for MANY days afterwards, the second my husband got home from work he would be accosted with up-to-the-minute reports of my progress in The Battle Against Soap Scum.

Meanwhile the rest of the world has been getting all caught up in that new book and movie called “The Secret”, which is all about learning how to understand and apply the Law Of Attraction to the various circumstances of your life. I was actually introduced to this about 5 years ago, but the recent press on this subject has made me think about what kind of changes or additions I’d like to make to my life.

So I took a little inventory of how things have been going, and then I had myself a little talk with the Universe.

Did I address such issues as money? Career? Relationships?

Nope.

“Universe,” I said, “I could sure use a bigger brush head for my Sonic Scrubber so that I could clean more of my shower in less time.”

And then, the next time I went to Kroger, what to my wondering eyes did appear?

attachments

Seriously? There might have been some drool.

But wait-the Universe wasn’t finished yet. Because a few days after that I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and I found THIS:

ultimatescrubber

I couldn’t wait to get home and show this to my husband.

His response: “So, are you gonna take the other one back now?”

…

WHAT?! W-hh-yy would I ever do that?

“No,” I said, trying patiently to explain. “Because now? I have 8! Interchangeable! Heads!”

And people? The fact that all he did was sigh slightly and walk quietly away, leaving me to my passionate love affair with cleaning? That. Is love.

And I Thought I Was Doing So Good

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All this week I have been working so hard to take care of my back-bending at the knees, not lifting anything heavy, going to physical therapy, etc. I was so proud of myself for taking such good care of my body, until I went yesterday and got a massage. As I was happily relaxing away, suddenly the massage therapist piped up to ask, “Why are you wearing a knot in your ass?”

At first I panicked and thought, “Oh no-did I wear strange underwear?!” But then I realized that no, she was just asking how on earth I had managed to acquire a knot in the muscles of my ass.

“It’s a special talent,” I replied.

“Well, then I wanna see you crack some walnuts,” she declared.

Did I mention that she works in my chiropractor’s office, the office where, ever since I limped in bent over at a 90-degree angle and had to crouch on the floor until the doctor could see me, the receptionist now affectionately refers to me as “Gimpy”?

It’s good to be loved.

Falling Down The Rabbit Hole

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Today I went back to the chiropractor to see if she could ungnarl my back any further. She decided to put me on this special machine with a fancy name. But truly it should be called The Rack, because that is what it is. They strap you into a harness and then pull the ends of your body in opposite directions, which results in tremendous pain and The Renewed Inability Of Your Legs To Support Your Own Body Weight.

I managed to stumble into a chair in the hallway, and I was firmly prepared to sit there for the rest of my life if it meant I never had to feel that much pain again. Unfortunately this meant that I overheard the entire conversation taking place between the therapist and the next patient on The Rack.

Patient: (Being Dramatic, with lots of moaning and groaning) “I think they should just take us all outside like they do with old horses and shoot us.”

Therapist: “Oh that reminds me of this piano recital I had when I was ten.”

Me: not really seeing the connection.

Therapist: “My piano teacher lived on a ranch out in the country, so after everyone finished performing they took us all outside, brought up a steer, and shot it right in the forehead while we all watched.”

Me: “EEWW!””

Therapist: (Not really seeming all that concerned.) Then they hoisted it up on a truck (I sort of tuned out right here because this part of the story involved very yucky things such as slicing open and things falling out.) Then we all walked by and touched it. And then we went back inside and had punch and cookies.”

Me: What?!The?!F*&@?!

Patient: “Or maybe they should just wring our necks.”

(Me: Dude! With the death wish!)

Therapist: “You know, that’s a lot harder to do than it looks. I had to wring a chicken’s neck one time so that I could feed it to my snake.”

Me: Why, God, why? Why did THIS have to be the moment when I lost the use of my legs?!

Therapist: “We used to feed it rabbits…”

Me: Dear God in heaven! Save me now!

Therapist: “…but you know, rabbits can fight back. They have really sharp claws, so the snake could get hurt.”

Me: Oh, heaven forbid the snake gets injured!

Therapist: “But the rabbits still have to be warm when you feed them to the snake.”

Me: What happened? Where the hell am I?

Therapist: “So we had to put the rabbits in a burlap bag [and do very bad things to them resulting in their death] before we gave them to the snake.”

Me: Holy Mother of God, that may be the worst thing I’ve ever heard. And I still can’t walk away! This day SUCKS!

Therapist: “So one day we decided to give it a chicken instead. We almost had to take the snake to the vet, because it took him 4 hours to get past the wings, and we were worried that he wouldn’t make it.”

Me: Seriously. Am I on drugs? Because if I’m not, I think I need to get some.

Apparently I Rub Off On Those Around Me

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Today I had to go and see my chiropractor, AKA “She Who Healed Me Of Neck Pain”, because my back has been killing me lately.

I explained what was hurting me, got up on the table, and then heard her say something along the lines of “Holy COW!”

“What?”

“Your pants are really crooked. See, here (pushing in on one butt cheek) is the top of one pocket, and here (demonstrating on the other cheek) is the top of the other pocket.”

“Uh, sorry about that. Can you still help me with my back?”

“Yeah, but can you wear some level pants next time? This is really throwing me off.”

You Know It’s Going To Be A Long Day

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when, as you are sending your husband off to work in the morning and you casually mention that you will see him in a few hours for your lunch date, he stops, really looks at you, and then is forced to resort to sign language in order to convey the message of, “OK, yeah, but first you really might want to do something about your GINORMOUSLY pouffy-assed hair.”

A Tiny Moral Quandary

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When we first moved into our house seven years ago, our next door neighbors were wonderfully welcoming. They lent us tools to use when we worked in the yard, they helped us repair our roof when the ice storm hit, and they brought us tons of freshly canned fruits and vegetables that they grew in their own backyard.

But as time went on we started seeing them, especially the man, less and less. He was already quite elderly when we met, and was suffering from a number of different health problems. And now it’s been about a year since I’ve actually seen him at all. So here’s my quandary: I think he might have died, but there is really no good way to find out whether or not that’s true. Because no matter how I’ve tried to formulate this question in my mind, it always comes out sounding like some variation of,”So, did the old fart finally kick the bucket”.

And what makes it worse is that I have seen a new man over there, quite frequently. And I can only assume that he lives there, because almost every time I’ve seen him he’s been standing outside the front door, smoking in his underwear. I’m not a smoker myself, but as far as I know being almost naked is not a regular part of smoking protocol. I have friends who smoke, and not once have I ever had a conversation with them that went like this:

My friend: “Hey, Jenny, do you mind if I go out on your porch and smoke a cigarette?”

Me: “No, not at all. Go right ahead.”

My friend: “OK, great, thanks. Just let me take me take off my pants.”

So there you go. Monica and Rachel had Ugly Naked Guy; we’ve got Nearly Naked Smoker. I can live with that.

Breaking Up: Still Hard To Do, But Getting Easier

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Tomorrow we are going to break up with our bank. And I can’t wait!

Earlier this year I wrote about how I moved some of our accounts over to a new financial institution. Because, as I said, “I decided that I was tired of paying the old bank every month just for the privilege of keeping my money there.” More and more our monthly statements were starting to look like this:

Monthly Service Fees:

Driving past our building on the way to the grocery store: $3.00

Breathing air: $5.00

I have been ready to leave them for a while now, but my husband was not quite ready to pull the plug on this banking relationship. (“I’ve been with them longer than I’ve been with you.”) Until we received a letter from our bank informing us that it was time to pay the annual rental fee for our safety deposit box. It was the same old stuff, until we got to the part explaining that, seeing as how this fee was no longer going to be automatically paid to the bank (since the account that used to pay it has since been closed), it was now going to cost us an extra $25 to rent this box because we were going to be sending the payment in manually.

I can only imagine that this new fee breaks down something like this:

Having to take time out from sucking away all our clients’ money by opening an envelope: $2.00

Possibility of getting a paper cut from opening said envelope: $2.00

Expensive bottled water transported directly from clear mountain springs on the back of tiny, beribboned poodles in order to replace the saliva lost when we said, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, we figured out how to get extra money out of you even though you’re no longer sending us payments automatically! Neener, neener, pppffbbtt!”

Manicure for poodles: $1.00

I really, really REALLY hate this bank! (Also? Not that fond of poodles.) And we need to get out now while we can, because I know it’s only a matter of time before our bank statements start to look like this:

Medicine needed to relieve headache brought on by excessive meditation on the question, “How can we suck away even more of our customers’ money?”: $10.00

Expensive, hand-woven towels and personal manservants needed to delicately mop the sweat off of our furrowed brows: $250.00

Bonbons needed to stimulate the rush of endorphins that will cause us to have the brilliant revelation that actually, our clients should just be automatically turning over every single cent they ever make to us, and hey, why aren’t they doing that already?!: $1,000.00

Penalty for failure to automatically sign over to bank all paychecks and personal assets: $100 katrillion dollars, + 1 kidney + firstborn child.

Needless to say, I am VERY excited about tomorrow. Because,

monthly payment to host website: $19.95

electricity: $15.00

hating: FREE!

The opportunity to snark about my bank online so as to milk every possible drop of enjoyment out of breaking up with them: priceless

A “Dear John” Letter To My Spammers

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Dear Shemale Michigan Swinger,

I am sorry to have to tell you this bizarre-dating-game slots, but I am writing to my-personal-loan-debt-eliminate break up with you.

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You just don’t Goodyourbusiness.bravehost.car-in-insurance-quote-uk, or acknowledge my BIG TITS requests at all.

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And don’t think for a moment that you can lure me back with your Big Penis-Voyeur-BMW. It’s over. And there’s nothing that you can informally mendacious skullduggery!bookings whichever.gunning fueling!online keno that will ever make me change my mind.

Because I’ve found someone new, a Word Press plug-in named Akismet, a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, someone who gives to me in ways that you never can.

Goodbye, LevitraValiumSoma,

Jenny