True. Although the lecture I received from her teacher when she started singing Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping” loudly in class… I don’t think “The Aristocrats” would’ve been much worse.
I was a horrible parent.
(Side note: I’m pretty sure she’s getting engaged tomorrow! I know he bought a ring and it’s their three year anniversary. She is hoping for something romantic. She also sprained her ankle today AND hacked up her hand today, along with dealing with severe allergies. Her boyfriend’s notion of romantic is putting his dirty laundry in the hamper, sooo…)
So I was at the doctor a few weeks ago, and she called me out on being overdue for colonoscopy. I keep putting it off because I detest the prep. But I watch TV and I’ve seen those Cologuard commercials, where some little cartoon character giggles about “collecting your sample”. So my doctor agreed to send me a Cologuard kit.
It came in a disturbingly large box. It turns out they weren’t kidding about that sample thing. Basically, you take a crap into a little plastic bucket and send them the whole damn thing. Which got me to thinking that worst job in the universe is located at the Exact Science Laboratory in Madison, WI.
The large box included the plastic crap bucket, a bracket for affixing the crap bucket to the toilet, a big bottle of crap preservative, and a crap probe ( to be used before you pour on the turd fixative). Crap, probe, preserve, seal and label. The instructions include a little drawing of a turd in a bucket with the disclaimer that this sketch of a turd may not look like your turd. So don’t freak out.
Then you put the bucket of crap in a big ziplock bag and put the big ziplock bag in the cardboard box that it came in. Then you get to take your box with the bag containing your bucket of crap to UPS, and send it to Wisconsin using the prepaid return label. The DISTINCTIVE prepaid return box. Tomorrow morning I get to walk into my corner store, the place where I frequently buy milk, and hand over my crap box to my friendly neighborhood shop owner.
Dear Ann Hedonia: Thanks for this, for two reasons. One, I had actually thought of doing this and had the doctor order the box but it never came and then I had to have surgery, so…so I appreciate hearing all the details in case I do decide to do it. (heh heh: do do it? am I 12? yes)
And second, you gave me and DH a great big laugh, which is a great way to end our day. Have fun in the morning.
Been there, done that, with the exception that I had to walk mine (Can’t drive) almost a mile to the very crowded UPS place, where I stood in line with my “distinctive” return box for almost 20 minutes. Fun times.
And either is better than the alternative (of having colon cancer discovered far too late). Yeah, you all knew I’d have something to say on the topic
On the “walking mine” front, a digression. In the early 1990s, I was on a project in NYC for several years. At one point, I developed some kind of nasty intestinal bug that had me running to the bathroom, doubled over with cramps, and pencil-pooing each time, for a week. Over the counter stuff had no effect. So I went to a doctor. Who drew blood, and asked me to provide a stool sample.
For the first time in a week, the gut decided to clam up. So I went home with a sample jar.
Next morning, I had to return the sample jar. It was hidden in my purse. And all I could think of as I walked uptown to his office was “Lord, I hope I never have my purse snatched here in NYC. But if it is my fate, today would be a perfect day for it!” then I chortled inwardly as I imagined explaining the purse contents to a policeman.
When I was first pregnant, I had GD and needed to do a few 24 hour urine collections. In France, your doctor often sends you to an independent lab to get your bloods, urine, stool, etc. So, it went a bit like
See doctor on Wednesday, get prescription sheet.
Thursday morning, walk to lab down in the village and get blood drawn and your gallon plastic bottle
Friday afternoon, walk back to lab with gallon of pee
On my way back, with a gallon of pee in my shopping bag, I get stopped by two high school students who are determined- determined- that they will sell me their raffle tickets.
So I stood, in a light drizzle, a gallon of warm-ish urine dangling from my arm, trying to explain in bad French why today was just not their day. Or mine.
When I went home in May, I had a nice letter from my UHC system sending a little sample tube and instructions on how to take a sample, to be left in the appropriate box installed at any healthcare center: if the sample comes up clean, you get a letter and if it’s not clean you get a phone call about starring in a movie. Similar letters have been sent to half the people in the region who are over 50 and not part of colon monitoring for other reasons; the check will be done every two years.
The instructions included some stuff about sitting backwards on the toilet seat that I found quite confusing: I mean, I can understand not taking for granted that people have urinals but I’m reasonably sure that most people would have been able to come up with some methodology easier than what the letter described. Plus it didn’t seem like it would work too well for, uh, certain types of substrates but ohmygodi’mturningintoanoldwomani’mtalkingaboutpoo!
The backwards procedure still would have been easier than what you describe :eek:
I am feeling a newfound respect both for urinals and for people who have to write instructions about how to take a stool sample.
You all already know that my daughter has autism. Part of her specific needs include issues with sensory integration. Specifically, she’s not potty trained. Now, before you start telling me all your magical tips on how to potty train a stubborn child, please know that we have tried it, it didn’t work, it’s mostly like sensory and, hopefully, she’ll get better with therapy.
Anyway, she started school yesterday. Yesterday was a short like orientation day for all the new kindergarteners. Today is the first day of real school. And it started poorly. She needs a harness on the bus because she can’t sit still and will wander if given the opportunity, even on a moving bus. We had this put in her IEP, which we went over at the end of May. Transporation has had it since the end of May and they responded that they would be able to accomodate her. Last week, we went to transportation and got her harness, reminding them of her needs. Of course the bus showed up and was not equipped to handle her harness. Transportation called me and told me they would send another bus and then called me about 10-15 minutes later asking me to just take her to school, with the assurance that they would fix the issue for the afternoon bus.
So I did. Then, I went to work, angry, but sure things were getting better. I’m about 1/3rd of the way to work when the school called me again, telling me that my daughter has pooped her pants and that I must come and change her. And I’m like, wut? This is our plan? I told them she wasn’t potty trained in May. I was upfront about it. We put a “potty plan” in place. But now every time she has an accident, I need to come in and change her? That’s just absurd. Her teacher seemed genuinely surprised that my daughter has issues with this, as did the principal and her IEP coordinator.
And as the icing on the cake, when I got there to change her, she wasn’t even poopy. She just has the farts. (She was wet and does have the skills to change herself as long as someone prompts her.)
I sent emails, I tried not to be emotional, just concerned and with an attitude of teamwork on solving the problem. I feel so out of my depth.
I actually just ended up handing my crap bucket box off to a UPS driver I passed on the street. Kind of like playing hot potato, you picked the WRONG time to deliver to this street, buddy. This one’s for you.
The UPS driver was parked a few doors down from the mini-market/UPS drop place. I thought handing it to him was a safer bet, because he might have just picked up from the mini-mart. In which case my carefully packaged turd may have waited until tomorrow for transport.
It sounds like you are handling it great. I have been through something very similar, although I was lucky enough that neither of my kids were wanderers. My 11-year-old still struggles with the buttons on his pants, though. Fortunately he is so skinny that he can get them off without unbuttoning them.
But it appears that the high school forgot to put my 10th grader on the school bus list, so I am stuck driving him for the next week or two until they get their shit together.
In your 11-year-old’s defense, some of those buttons are really hard.
This morning went way better, no tantrums over not getting to ride the bus, only a little bit of running away from mommy for funsies, easy separation. I think today will go well. I’m not holding my breath though.
Today’s actual, less dramatic rant - The bus stop for our trailer park is right at the front at the only entrance to the trailer park. There is some parking but mostly you just pull off on the side of the street. Except this one lady this morning who basically parked AT the stop sign where everyone needs to leave the park. Are you trying to make it dangerous for the not-child-having people to leave the park? Also, can you at least put your hazards on??
Hitting them wouldn’t work in my case anyway, most of my users are either bigger than me or more of them than of me. The majority let themselves be calmed down and coaxed into Filling Up The Excels and so forth, but there’s the occasional one that makes me want to go Attila On The Rocks on them… right now, one of the people I’m getting rid of never provides the data files in the requested formats or with the data in the appropriate columns. Turns out the first thing she does is remove all the “extraneous” stuff, AKA the instructions.
Fortunately he is so skinny that he can get them off without unbuttoning them.