When I was a kid, Monroe NC was pronounced MON-roe. Now it’s pronounced MUN-roe because of all the transplants. One of my co-workers remembers when Paris, KY was pronounced PAY-ris. Now it’s pronounced like the French capital. Versailles, KY is still ver-SAILS, though.
Ok, in the spirit of this petty little thread I’ll cough up my whiny mini-rant, but flatlined, really … a whole bunch of anonymous strangers are hoping for the best for you.
So … what’s more annoying: driving up to a sign that says “Lane closed ahead” and doing the slowdown/merge dance, only to find that the lane isn’t closed.
or
Finding out at the verylastsecond that a lane is closed and that you need to get the hell over NOW but there was no sign at all?
Wrong! It’s getting BOTH within the span of three or four minutes.
Obstacle courses like that notwithstanding, I still say they’re handing out driver’s licences too easily. They’re not candy - they’re permission to pilot a half-ton of metal.
Oh no flatlined! Hugs and tissues and good thoughts coming your way.
I don’t know what I’ve done to myself, but I’ve got this gawd-awful pain in my neck and shoulder. My head is spinning too. Walking across the room is an adventure. I didn’t even do anything fun to feel like this now.
Thank you all so much for the kind thoughts. I was pretty scared last night, knew I couldn’t sleep a couple of hours before I had to drive to the airport and thought I’d hang out here. Once I posted, I couldn’t do anything but cry.
Bill is asleep now. He was feeling “funny” most of yesterday, so went to an urgent care unit after work. They said he was having a cardiac event and sent him to the ER. This morning, he had bypass surgery. I’ve done this before, so I don’t expect him to be talking tonight.
I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals, so while I’m not happy, I’m familiar enough with what is going on that I’m not panicing.
My boss is super cool. I can’t take FMLA (which would give me another 200 hours off), but she understood that I’d want to use the rest of my Paid Time Off for this. I only have a month left, but that will be enough to get him back on his feet.
He’s going to have to pay a driver for the last 2 weeks of his recovery. Not because he won’t be capable of driving, but because the risk of getting in an accident and having the airbag deploy will be unacceptable.
I’ve been here with friends, I know what to expect and what to do. Bill is not going to die and we both will quit smoking.
I know that I bitch a lot about Tony, but he always has my back. My cats will be fed, litterboxes will be cleaned, the last domestic terrorist will get taken to adoptions and picked up. The important stuff will be done.
Thanks again to everyone for the kind words. They really did mean a lot to me.
Oh hell, no! CALL A DOCTOR ASAP!!! This could be very VERY major, as in stroke major.
Can’t we just go back to The Adventures of Shredder Guy and the Rat King and forget that this other stuff ever happened?
Okay, seriously, I’m so glad that Bill is on the mend and that you’ve regained your equilibrium, flatlined. Good wishes x a gazillion to both of you.
And hie thee to the doctor NOW, Dr. G! As flatlined advises, your symptoms may be serious! (And they may be nothing, and you can come back and call us worrywarts and use up a year’s supply of ‘told you sos’ and ‘neener neeners.’
Gulp… um… ok. I wasn’t that concerned about it because I have an old shoulder injury and a history of sinus infections. But you guys have me worried now. I’ll get checked out and I’ll let you guys know. Yikes. I really appreciate the concern!
I’m so glad to hear that things seemed to have stabilized, flatlined. I will send you and Bill healing thoughts.
My miniest of mini-rants, given the above:
Rant the first: The Wonder Dog was doing better - painkillers and muscle relaxants. Then, yesterday I came home (on day THE END of puppy meds) and he’s limping worse than before. I don’t know if he did the regular stupid dog thing of “Pain gone, time to jump and run and climb and frolic and overdo it yay!” or if it’s something other than muscular.
Another round of painkillers and muscle relaxants (and keeping him in a small room while I’m out so he doesn’t overdo it too soon) and then we start investigating more serious issues.
Rant the second:
Look, Ms. Off Your Rocker Student. It’s the beginning of the second week of the semester. You didn’t address the main point of the assignment. The assignment that’s worth 5% of the points in the course, even if it ends up being NOT the “lowest grade” that I drop. Your opinion in this particular issue is not backed up or validated by the research in the field, so you were wrong. And I, as the professor, get to say “this is incorrect.” It’s MY FUCKING JOB.
So feel free to play Ms. Internet Tough Bitch by calling me names and making threats via email, right before withdrawing from the class because I’m “so obviously against freedom of expression.” I’ll still be reporting your communication to the appropriate school authorities, because you don’t get to make threats and then run away. Even though I’m a professor, I still have rights, and one of those rights is the right to say “you’re wrong” to a student who’s…wait for it…WRONG.
Thanks for making the very beginning of my semester suck.
Dr G, glad you have decided to get it checked.
Flatlined, all will be okay.
Thoughts for both of you.
Thanks Dr. G. We do care. As has been mentioned in the past, we are the family who puts the FUN back in dysfunctional.
Thank you all again for the good wishes. I am so thankful for modern medicine. I’m thankful that it was just something “minor” like semi-scheduled heart surgery. It could have been much worse. Houston’s freeways are huge and many of the drivers seem to think that 1 car length of distance between bumpers while driving at least 120 mph is just right.
I’m not sure what Bill told the hospital about me, the Nurse who called me didn’t say. Bill and I both have blond hair and fair skin, and from how the Doctors’ talk to me, I think they think I’m his daughter. This is a good thing, so I lie by omission so that they will talk to me.
OK, found a minirant! The cookie I just bought at the coffee shop in the lobby is stale. The coffee is good, though 
Oh, no, not a stale cookie!
Well, the fact that you can Pit a cookie is a wonderful sign… that you’re coping, and that you’ve still got your sense of humor.
So glad Bill’s okay. You scared us (but that’s what we’re here for).
Glad to hear that Bill is ok flatlined, you take care of yourself Dr G and hope your puppy feels better Kolga.
I don’t really have a rant right now, mostly when I have them they belong in the work ones and then I forget by the time I have time to type. Oh well.
Oh good! happy dance for modern medicine
Wait, are happy dances allowed in the Pit?
Dr. G, I hope it’s nothing.
I had a minirant about my family but well, trying to explain it in detail would take way too long and not be particularly entertaining. Let’s just shorten it to “my mother is a control-freak bitch, my sister in law is another control-freak bitch who thinks other people’s work costs no time and no effort, plus she’s one of those people that if you tell them your woes you’ll end up trying to comfort them, my unemployed brother is barking up all the wrong trees in his search, oh and did I mention Mom is a control-freak bitch?”
YES!
Umm, hang on, this is getting way too huggy-n-kittens for the Pit, isn’t it?
Mini-rant, my mother the hoarder. She’s not as bad as the people on the US show sound like, she’s a lot better than she used to be (I think there’s just the one room in her house you can’t get into at the moment. Let’s not talk about the cellar though.)
But two recent incidents:
- I’d been at her house with the baby, changing bag, etc. As we were leaving, I realised the bottle of spring water & fruit juice in the baby’s bag was past its “drink within 24 hours of opening, keep in the fridge” etc, so I binned it.
About a week later, I’m back at my mums house, and she produces this now cloudy and clearly growing things bottle of half drunk juice and asked if it was mine
Come on, it was in the BIN! It hadn’t been left behind by mistake, and even if it had, use some common sense, it was obviously going off and undrinkable!
Her argument was she thought another visiting family had maybe left it, but even then, it was still in the bin and past its use-by-date, they wouldn’t have wanted it back either!!
- The other day she produced a nice looking giftbox set including two latte glasses. I explained no thanks, very nice, but I already have enough cups and mugs that they don’t fit in the cupboard (thankfully there’s usualy two on the go/in the wash so it works out) but actually, it’s a friends birthday, could I regift it to them?
My mum laughs, and says no, it’s years old so the various sachets of coffee and hot chocolate in the box are out of date.
Umm, so why didn’t she use it, or regift it when it was in date?
I then suggesting donating the glasses to the local charity shop, but no, she wouldn’t hear of that either. So she’s hanging on to these glasses just for the sake of it now.
So it was okay for you to use the out of date coffee, but not your friend? Guess you know where you stand 
Look on the bright side–at least she’s out of your hair this early.
I’m so glad Bill is doing okay and that he’s treating this seriously and making changes for his health. That’s more years to enjoy!
I do want to say however that:
Come to Toronto where is you leave a car length of distance someone will change lanes into it. We don’t go quite that fast though - 407 usually runs around 140KPH (~90mph)
So I get home last night and find our sweet little dog has been hit by a car. I didn’t even notice when I let her in the house (it was dark). It was only after I put down my groceries, hit the restroom and went over to see why she was so skittish that I discovered the right side of her face was bloody and mutilated. Her right eye was a red mass of pulp just hanging from her face. I then spent part of the night at the emergency vet. Minnie lost the eye, but will survive.
Here’s the pit: I got home at nine o’clock last evening. My neighbor hit the dog at four- thirty in the afternoon. There was a call on the answering machine saying “I may have hit your dog.” She didn’t try to reach either my wife or I at work. She didn’t call another neighbor to find out how to get in touch with us. Instead, she let a badly injured suffering dog lie on our porch for four and a half hours for me to find. Thanks, neighbor.
We also live in a very rural wooded environment back on dirt roads. It is two miles to the nearest paved road. All the neighborhood dogs run around together in a pack and we all watch out for each others pets. This woman is the only one without a dog.
Yes I know it was an accident, and there are risks to pets running free. But good god, couldn’t she have at least a minimal neighborly effort to help. Is that too much to ask? I don’t know how I will control my temper when I see her next.
Biotop, would this person have known what time you would have got home? If she had expected you home close to the time of the phone call I can sort of understand.
The other thing of course is that she did not have to call at all.
I know. She probably had no idea when we would get home. No she didn’t have to call.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still have crazy ideas that neighbors ought to look out for one another.
We are only five or six families living back here. Several of the other neighbors would have known what to do. If I were to accidentally injure someone else’s animal, a dog everyone in the neighborhood knows, I would try to at least see if the dog was OK, or to call one of the others and say, “Hey, do you know how to reach the Biotops? I hit their dog with my car.”
We only live three lots away. Couldn’t she at least have checked up during the four hours? A call to any of the other neighbors and I bet they would have been over in a flash.