Diagnosing the Chicken (and other cool tricks)

My husband (aka Ward) is totally ignorant to the fact that I've been playing games with him for the last, oh, ten years or so that I've known him. He really has no idea--- the entire game is in my own little head. I'm a sore winner, so when I am victorious in the secret competition, he's completely baffled as to why I'm suddenly all full of smug sassiness.

The gist is this:

He's a physician. I'm not. But if I can beat him to diagnose someone, or better yet, I correctly diagnose someone--- and he doesn't, I win. And since there's never an end to people who want to air their laundry lists of symptoms to two medical professionals, this secret pastime of mine had no end in sight. Yay me!

First there was a patient that kept crashing in the ICU when Ward was doing his neurology rotation in med school. I was this guy's OT, and I had a gut feeling about what was going on. In the meantime, the MD's were just scratching their heads and ordering more tests.

My hunch was right--- sepsis! Bada BING!!

Then there's this friend of mine that was having troubles with falling and tingling extremities. She's not diabetic.

"Oh my God," I thought. She has MS.

When I relayed the symptoms to Hubby, he said "She has MS."

Uh huh, that's right. Who thought of that first, Mr. Smarty?

Fortunately, I came off my winner's high quickly, when presented with the seriousness of the situation. Turns out it wasn't MS after all--- just some random minor thing that's easy to fix. Thank goodness.

But I still won.

Yesterday, I put on the full June Cleaver Act, and roasted a chicken. It smelled wonderful, and I praised myself on my ability to appear somewhat domesticated, at times.

I cut into it at dinner, and it was the juiciest damn thing you ever saw. I served it to the kids. And I noticed, too late, that there was some yellowish spongy thing near the spine. By that time, the kids had inhaled their dinners, so I was left to retch in peace. I thought I recognized The Thing, since it looked too much like something I found in my cadaver during Gross Anatomy. Still, I hoped I was wrong.

Sure enough, Ward comes home and confirms my worst fears.

"I think this thing has a tumor."

I must have had a look of absolute horror on my face. So he tried his best to make me feel better by saying, "What? Look, just because you eat a tumor doesn't mean you're going to get a tumor."

I was quite aware of this, thank you. And still, it took a few tries to swallow my bile back down.

Suddenly, The Win doesn't taste so sweet.

And I'm now, officially, a vegetarian.

I Wonder How I Would Have Handled This Without the Happy Pills...

I love a lot of things that most people despise. Fury-of-Hell thunderstorms, for instance. Sushi. Half-popped popcorn kernels.

And there's a lot of things I can do that many others can't. I can wiggle my ears. Cross my eyes one at a time. Give me a Top 40 '80's song title, and chances are I can name the band, album track AND year it came out. I'm weird that way.

Something I loathe, something I just can't do, would be selling this freaking house.

I've done everything. I clean like a madwoman, to the point that this place looks like a G.D. showroom. For open houses, I buy flowers, light the fireplace, put in nice music. The works. I even made coffee and bought fancy decorated sugar cookies once. At the end of the day, the cookies were gone, but the For Sale sign wasn't.

All the feedback we've been getting has been tres fab. Everyone luuurves the house. ("Oh! It's so beautiful," they tell my realtor) So, even though we priced it quite reasonably, we lowered the price. Suddenly, one couple wanted a second look.

We got the call from our realtor around nine at night, to tell us we had an appointment at eleven the next morning. So, even though we're broke, I had a sitter come over at 7:30 in the morning, so I could tear through the place to make it sparkle. I was so excited.

As I'm getting shoes on all three kids to get out the door, my realtor called to say that the people had to reschedule. To say I was pissed would be an understatement, but that's how it goes, so what could I say? I couldn't force them to come over. But I was tempted. The least they could do is come over to tell me what a great job I did cleaning. At that point, I didn't care about selling the house. I just wanted the props, yo.

Last night, my realtor called to say that the same people wanted to come over at one this afternoon. YAY!!!! Once again, I shelled out $50 for a sitter for the morning, and by 12:45, the place was so glittery and beautiful. I have fresh pink roses the size of basketballs on my dresser, irises on the fireplace, and gerber daisies floating in a vase in the dining room. I simmered together apples, oranges, cinnamon and cloves, and had to fight the urge to eat the mess for lunch. Oh yeah--- I skipped lunch so I wouldn't stink up the place. The twins, however, decided to take craps in unison as I put on their coats, but whatever. And I had a fire absolutely roaring in the fireplace.

I herded everyone to my neighbor's house, and then realized I locked myself out of the house. So, my realtor called the other realtor, and she promised to leave the house open when she left. All I had to do was sit back and turn into a huge peeping Tom on my friend's couch, and the house would be sold.

Just as I start to relax, I see the realtor and the buyer pull into the driveway and try the front door. No luck, because the lockbox is on the back. So they try the back, and after about 10 seconds I see her swearing as she came back to try the front again. So I called my realtor, who called her, and it turns out my sitter locked the back screen door. So, no one could access the lock box. My realtor told me to go over to the house (which is soooo never done. "Katy, look, they know you're watching them. You have to go over." ), and see what I can do to get them inside.

I felt like a total idiot, because, quite simply, I'd been busted, but also because I looked like I'd been cleaning all day. Anyway, the only way we could get in was to send my son in through the milkbox, and we'd be all set.

Except that Boy wasn't in the mood to be a Rescue Hero. "I don't WANT to!" he whined. I smiled at the nice people and hissed into Boy's ear that I would take him to the Children's Museum to play AND to Chammps for dinner AND he could have the half-eaten bag of Veggie Booty that I found in the milkbox,

if he would just go through the milkbox and open the freakin' door for Mommy.

Still, no deal. I was bright red by that point, and started down the driveway to get my neighbor's kid to do the deed. Suddenly, Boy insists that he will do it, because he can't stand to be one-upped. So I pick him up and hoist his feet in. Just as he's in to his armpits, just at the point that I can't pull him back out (well, maybe I could have), he freaks and starts screaming. And I know that Child Protective Services is probably on the way over as I'm writing this, but the realtor and the buyer were right behind me, and I was mortified, so instead of pulling him out, I stupidly reached in and stuffed Boy the rest of the way into the kitchen.

And of course, he froze near the stove and screamed his fool head off. I saw the neighbors' kid running over, so I grabbed him and threw him through the milkbox. I swear, anyone under 50 pounds that was in my general vicinity was goin' through, like it or not. The kid opens the door, Boy gets pissed off and screaming at him that HE wanted to be the Rescue Hero, and I'm standing there smiling at the buyer and wanting to
die.

I continue to fall over myself apologizing. The realtor turns to me and oh-so-sweetly says,

"Well, we really don't need to go in. We found another house a few hours ago. We just came by because we had an appointment. And you were locked out, so. But you have a BEAUTIFUL home....so thanks!"

Mother FUCK!!!!

And I'm all "Oh! No problem! Good luck!!! Congratulations!! Where are you moving?"

They looked at each other nervously and said, "Well, we don't want to jinx the offer, so..."

....SO, they didn't to tell me---why??--- did they think I was going to burn the place down out of spite???? Please.

On second thought, that's exactly what I'd like to do. Maybe it's for the best that they didn't tell me.....