Mar 222019
 

You know what day it is.

  1. UNSOLICITED PRAYERS

I came back from my lunch break walk on Tuesday to the dreaded red light all lit up like a Bad News Beacon on my phone. A VOICEMAIL.

NO!

Turns out though that it was from some place called the Hope Prayer Center or something, and the message was from a very serious sounding woman (a nun, maybe!?!?!) urging me  to call them back with any urgent prayer requests I may have.

Lady, I need all the prayers. Can I have a flight of prayers? One big blanket prayer?

I thought for sure that Glenn had finally mustered up the motivation to get revenge on me for having religious pamphlets sent to his house (Todd tried to stop me but I could barely hear over my internal menacing cackle), but then I found out that a bunch of other people in the department also received a call, so it’s just some robo-call thing going down the line I guess and now I feel way less spiritually-targeted. The fun is gone. I’m not special, as suspected.

2. YEARLY CRACKLE

Once a year, I get a cold that settles in my chest, so that my voice gets all smokey and it sounds like there is a thimble of Rice Krispies chilling in my lungs. I.FUCKING.LOVE.IT.

No, I didn’t use my invisible sarcasm font on that. I legit love that crackly, wet cough so much that I will sit there and force it to happen. There have been times when I have nearly knocked myself out because I breathe in and out so deeply and unnaturally, calling forth that delightful crackle. Henry HATES this time of year. He thinks I’m insane and tries to deter me by googling worst case scenarios so that I’ll suddenly start to fear the crackle (apparently “chest crackle” is an actual thing that people call it so maybe there are others like me out there and  I can find a club to join or something – NOT a support group. I don’t need “help.” I just need some friends who I can loaf around with, reveling in productive coughs and wheezing in each other’s ears with glee, something that Henry shuns me for. Even my own son has disgustedly said, “Could you stop?” when I’m engaging in an evening of wet-wheezing and snap-crackle-pop huffs.

I’ve been like this my whole life! I was even convinced for a while (thanks, Merck Journal) that I was going to develop pleurisy because of my hacking hobby.

My favorite time of the day this week has been 5:35pm, when Henry picks me up from work and I am able to LET IT ALL OUT because I’m no longer in a quiet office. I sharply exhale until I feel like I’m going to crack a rib and then hold up one finger when the chest-crinkle starts. Henry just curls his lip and tells me he hates me.

Sadly though, the crackling is beginning to run its course and I’m afraid it might not even last through the weekend. :(

I think Henry’s breaking point was when I wistfully said that I wish I could see what the crackle looks like when it’s cracklin’.

Also, my coughs tastes like the essence of Slim-Fast. Not the pre-made kinds in the can, but the Slim-Fast that you actually blend yourself from the big canister of powder. My cold symptoms are very specific.

3. That Time Engagement Letters Were Fun

On Wednesday, we had this lunch & learn thing at work where the department gathers ’round to learn a new thing that’s valuable to their job, etc. The topic for this one was ENGAGEMENT LETTERS so some of the ladies from one of the teams I belong to were on charge of putting together a presentation for this and NOT GON’ LIE I was prepared to snooze my life away because ELs are like the bane of my law firm existence. However, they were prepared for this to possibly be the general consensus, so they planned a game of JEOPARDY and it was so much fun and I actually learned some things which is good since one my jobs involves reviewing eng. letters. Anyway, one of the questions was “Erin wants to renew her employment contract with SHINee. Which type of letter should be used?” AND THEN A PICTURE OF SHINEE APPEARED ON THE POWERPOINT! Carrie told me that they called her into the conference room the day that this was being put together because Wendy couldn’t remember what my favorite Kpop group was so Carrie was like “SHINee” and Wendy was like, “NO THAT IS NOT RIGHT” but Carrie was like, “LOOK I SIT IN FRONT OF HER SO I WOULD KNOW*. THAT’S THE GROUP TAEMIN IS IN” so that’s what they went with and I was absolutely TICKLED.

(Sometimes I get up and thrust my phone at Carrie so she can see whatever Instagram video of Taemin I’m currently squealing over. Perks of sitting in front of me.)

AND MY TEAM WON because of Carrie’s fancy and uber-particular Final Jeopardy answer which included something that even stumped one of the game hosts and made the other host groan because it was A TRUTH that she had forgotten to include, so we got motherfuckin’ bone points, bitches.

Later, Wendy was like, “I THOUGHT YOUR FAVE GROUP WAS SOMETHING DIFFERENT, SHINEE DOES NOT SOUND FAMILIAR” and I was like, “That’s because you don’t look at all the pictures on my desk but keep pretending to my friend, it’s cool” sike I’m not that petty (BUT MAYBE PEEK AT THE ‘GRAM EVERY NOW AND THEN AND YOU’D KNOW!?). Anyway, I did say that BIGBANG is my ult but SHINee is pretty much neck and neck with them and she was like, “YES THAT IS WHO I WAS THINKING OF” and if they really wanted to, they could have included both in a question by saying that in addition to renewing an employment agreement, my husband Kwon Jiyong (a/k/a G-Dragon) and I were looking to get some estate planning help.

Anyway, it was fun to know that two of my friends were in a conference room arguing over who my favorite kpop group is!

4. Acid Eye Bath

Sunday night, I was taking out my contacts but ran out of saline solution so I grabbed a new bottle from the closet. I don’t know what your routine is like, but I always fill up the case first and then dunk my finger in the tiny saline pool before plucking the things off my eyes. WELL when I did this on Sunday, I immediately fell to my knees and started screaming because it felt like my left eye was MELTING. SEARING PAIN LIKE A KOREAN BBQ BEING HOSTED RIGHT ON THE SURFACE OF MY EYEBALL. I ran into the bedroom and woke up Henry, screaming, “WHAT IS THIS SALINE SOLUTION?! WHAT DID YOU DO??” because he was on this “spending up my FSA” kick at the end of the year and did a good deed, supposedly, by stocking up on saline solution for me.

“I don’t know, it’s some overnight contact cleaner. It has hydrogen peroxide in it. You’re not supposed to put it in your eye!”

HOW WOULD I KNOW IT HAD THAT IN IT?!

“Well, the cap is red…”

SO WHAT?!

I’m sorry, but I don’t read boxes. I saw that it said stuff on it about contacts and that was good enough for me.

I finally got my eye to stop stinging and Henry, having just finished reading the instructions, swore that it would be OK to use it because after 6 hours, it “neutralizes.” OH OK Mr. Wizard.

I vaguely recall hearing him say something about the “special case” that came in the box, but I glossed over that fact and still used my regular case, and HOO BOY was I in for an A.M. surprise!

Yeah, it was like soaking my contacts in straight toilet cleaner and then jamming it onto my eyes on the ends of wrought-iron stokers pulled straight from the fireplace. I couldn’t even open my eyes long enough to get the contact out! After several minutes of flushing it with my own natural tears, I rinsed it off real good with my NORMAL saline solution because luckily he bought more of that too, and then shoved it back in my eye and it seemed OK so I did the same rinsing thing with the other contact but IT HURT JUST AS BAD AS THE FIRST ONE DID, why!?

By this point, my eyes both looked like they were straight bleeding, like I was in some religious horror movie and suffering from optical stigmata while being banged by Beelzebub. I honestly thought I was going to have to call off work, which anyone at the Law Firm will tell you rarely happens, maybe thrice in the 9 years I’ve worked there.

“Or you could just wear your glasses?” Henry sneered when I called him crying.

UM NO THANKS I’ll suffer!

Anyway, the pain mostly subsided by the time I had to leave for work but my eyelids were fighting to close the entire time I was on the trolley. I was too afraid to give in to it though because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to open them again!

Then I spent the entire time trying to hide my demon eyes from my coworkers. I did whine to Margie about it and she kept trying to give me saline solution that she keeps in her junk drawer and I was like, “I DO NOT NEED SALINE SOLUTION NOW MARGIE THE DAMAGE IS DONE” but then the next day I asked her if she had any cough drops because I was having a coughing fit and she was like, “No sorry” and I was like, “OH OK BUT YOU HAVE SALINE SOLUTION, WOW.”

#needy

(I just produced a really great chest crackle just now, you guys.)

5. Bless This Mess

OK confession time: I think that I am falling a little bit out of love with Emarosa. I thought maybe it was a “It’s Not You, It’s Me” sitch since I am so embroiled in Korea Stuffs. I have tried several times to listen to their new album, but I’m just not vibing with it—it’s not that I don’t LIKE it, but it’s not gut-punching me, I haven’t latched on to any particular song, and it always winds up being background noise while I’m putting on my makeup before work. Aside from my revisit to Pierce the Veil-land a few weeks ago, I thought that maybe it just meant I’ve outgrown that part of my life, etc etc. BUT THEN DANCE GAVIN DANCE RELEASED A NEW VIDEO TODAY AND RIGHT AT THE .0002 SECOND MARK I WAS LIKE HELLOOOOOOOOOOO BOYS. And when Jon Mess started screaming, something in my woke up and I realized that no, that part of me is still there so maybe it’s Emarosa that’s changed too much?!

Oh man, DGD gets me so pumped. They’re coming to Pittsburgh next month and I already told Henry we have to go and he’s like, “….oh, good. You….still like Dance Gavin Dance. Sigh.”

What a beautiful start to Friday!

***

Well e-friends, that’s all for today. I hope everyone has a lovely weekend! I’m supposed to be seeing “Us” with Chooch and Janna and then hopefully going to see Kara’s kid in his school play, provided that Henry the Recreational Mechanic is actually able to change whatever part on the car that he recently ordered. I made the mistake of asking Henry a question about something he’s fixing on the car and then he elaborated into oblivion. I finally told him to stop when he was a second away from telling me what tools he needs, like a clawjack and nutball, who even knows. Later, because I was dumb and asked him another question about the upcoming car surgery, I learned that there is something that is like a LIBRARY, but for TOOLS. The knowledge just keeps pouring in on a tide of WD40 when you’re dating a Blue Collar Guy.

  One Response to “On Fridays, I Can Count To Five”

  1. Your friends is so funny. I wish my friends are like yours though.

Say it don't spray it.

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