back a $5,000 tip HE left and leave $300 in it’s place WHEN IT WASN’T HER MONEY is maybe not the gal for him.
People and US will be having a field day with this, you know they will.
And lastly, maybe someone should tell Jennifer Lopez that she doesn’t have to marry every guy she dates. She doesn’t seem to understand that.
* * *
So. I bet MY weekend was more exciting than YOURS.
Friday night, 10:30ish, I was sound asleep. I heard a very very loud noise and jumped out of bed and fumbled with my nightgown. Any other time, I can just pick it up off the floor and put it over my head without any fumbling, but this time I was so freaked out that I ended up putting it on inside-out and backwards.
I was fairly certain that the noise had come from inside the house, and thought for sure that one of the cats had knocked over one of the big bookcases somehow. I went out into the hallway, and Fred opened his door.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” I said, surprised that he was so calm.
“I think it was an accident up at the end of the street,” he said. Then he stopped and looked at me. “Wait, you heard that?”
“Yeah, it was loud as hell!” I said.
“Then it must have been on the back side of the house,” he realized, and we went back into my bedroom. We looked out the window.
“There’s a truck by the side of the road,” I pointed out. “Maybe he hit a dog.”
“Oh my god! There’s someone in our back yard!” Fred said. “Call 911!”
“What?” I said, wondering why I’d need to call 911 if someone was walking around our back yard. Fred was in the closet getting dressed, and he yelled “You don’t see them, they’re upside down in the corner of the yard near the neighbors! CALL 911!” Which is when I saw a car sitting on it’s side next to the fence that separates our yard from our next-door neighbors.
I called 911, and while I won’t recount the entire conversation, I will say that I’m pretty useless in an emergency. The 911 operator wanted to know where we lived, and I told her, but then told her that the ambulance needed to come to the busy street running alongside the back of our yard, and I got confused and switched street names, and so on. It finally occurred to me that I needed to go out into the yard to see what was going on, and I went downstairs, dodging really freaked out kitties on the way, shut the window so the cats couldn’t go outside, and then went out into the back yard.
Fred and another man – the one who owned the truck that was by the side of the road, which I’d seen from our bedroom window – were standing by the car, bending over a man who was laying on his stomach on the lawn.
I was certain that he had to be either dead or dying, and I could not force myself to go any closer than the middle of the lawn. The 911 operator transferred me to the ambulance service, and the operator there asked me questions that I had to ask Fred – is he breathing? is he conscious?, and the like.
When she finally started asking how to get to the house, I got confused and ended up handing the phone to Fred, and then retreated to the edge of the patio.
Moments later, the police and ambulance were there (I make fun of the fact that we live in YuppieTown, but we’re very close to the police and fire stations, for which I was very grateful Friday night), and only a few minutes later they had the guy on a stretcher and out of there. The police began asking the witness (the guy in the white truck) what had happened, and Fred turned and realized that I was still in my nightgown, and suggested that I go get dressed. I did as quickly as possible, and went back out.
We spent the next hour and a half or so talking to the police and our neighbors, and watching the tow truck pull the car out. Fred took a ton of pictures as well (AFTER they took the guy away), and to see his side of the story and some pictures, you can go
here and
here. I believe he’s going to put up more pictures later today, as well.
Fred called today to find out the guy’s name and where they took him, and then called the hospital to find out his condition. They’d never admitted him to the hospital, which probably means that they treated and released him, which just amazes me.
(And to be sure he hadn’t died on the way to the hospital, I checked the obituaries for the weekend and today, and my heart almost stopped when I saw that two people with his last name had died over the weekend, but they were both elderly women.)
Because he had no insurance and the owner of the car had no insurance, we will be paying for the repair of our part of the fence ourselves. No, we won’t turn it over to our homeowner’s insurance so that they can go after him, because as a result our insurance would go up, and the repair to the fence would cost less than our deductible anyway. No, we won’t be suing him for the costs of the repair to the fence, because it wouldn’t be worth our time to do so and we are very sue-averse, not to mention the fact that we can afford the repair to the fence (which we know because we’ve already got an estimate). We’re only relieved that it didn’t end up worse than it did.
Once we got back to bed – sometime after midnight – I tossed and turned and slept horribly. Saturday – once Fred and the spud got the back yard cleaned up – we fell into our usual pattern of watching a crappy movie and hanging around the house.
Saturday night, Fred’s parents came over to watch
The Blue Collar Comedy Tour with us. Fred’s seen it twice, and knew that his father would enjoy it a great deal.
They came over and inspected the back yard, and then we sat down to watch the movie. Fred had a big bowl of popcorn for a snack, and I debated about what to have for a snack. I thought about skipping the snack for once, but my stomach was rumbling, and I decided on a bowl of almonds.
About halfway through the movie, my stomach started feeling slightly sour, and I debated going upstairs to get a Maalox, but decided to wait until the movie was over.
Fred’s parents left a few minutes before 9, and I turned to look at him. The “sour” feeling had increased quite a bit, and I was on the edge of feeling nauseous.
“Do we have any Maalox down here?” I asked him.
“No, just upstairs. Why?”
“I’m starting to feel nauseous,” I said. “Could you grab me one?”
“You wouldn’t rather take Pepto?” he asked.
“No,” I said, the thought of drinking that peppermint-flavored crap making me feel even more nauseous. He went up and changed into his comfortable hanging-around-the-house clothes and brought a Maalox back down with him. I chewed it and then got a Diet Coke to sip while we sat in the living room and watched TV.
As we sat and watched, the nausea only increased, and soon it reached that level where you know that there’s no forcing it back. I ran for the bathroom and couldn’t even get on my knees in front of the toilet before I was throwing up everything I’d eaten that day. And might I just say that beef burritos, while yummy going down, are NOT what you want to have coming back up. And also, I am a very very loud vomit-er. Fred stood outside the bathroom door and when it was silent asked “Can I do anything?” To which I responded by vomiting yet again.
After I was done and had cleaned up what hadn’t made it into the toilet, I went back out into the living room. I felt much better, though a bit shaky, and we decided to go upstairs and watch TV in bed. As we lay there, I began to feel crappier and crappier, and exactly an hour after I’d vomited the first time, I went for a second round.
Between 9 pm and 3:30 am, I vomited violently every 30 – 50 minutes, and GODDAMN it hurts when you have nothing in your stomach and your body is insisting that there’s still something you need to get rid of. Fred ran out for ginger ale and rubbed my back and then finally went to bed around 11:00, since there was really nothing he could do for me.
They aren’t kidding when they call it “praying to the porcelain god”, are they. Folks, I thought I was gonna DIE. Every time I vomited, I went back into the bedroom, sipped ginger ale until I couldn’t stand it anymore – because it hurts less to barf when there’s something TO barf – and then dozed for almost exactly 30 minutes, when my stomach would start hurting again, and I’d sit up and wait to see if it would go away (dreamer!) or get worse.
When the whole thing ended, I fell asleep and slept hard. When I woke up Sunday morning, my eyes were swollen and full of burst blood vessels.
(click on either picture to see the full-sized version)
Today, my eyelids are less swollen, but my eyes look creepier.
I tried to put my contacts on this morning, but my eyes are too swollen for me to wear them comfortably, so I’m wearing glasses. I was a little worried that lifting weights would put pressure on my eyes (they ache when I bend over), but weight lifting went fine. Now if my eyes would only go back to normal so that I don’t frighten small children…
* * *
Oh, please. I know why you’re really here. You’re really here for the Nekkid German Men!
AKT decided to go simple for this one. I think the boots and socks are definitely a nice touch. And laying in a backhoe – well, really. Nothing says sexy like that! Also, the first hint of a smile from AKT. Almost looks like a nice guy, doesn’t he?
(click on the picture to see the full-sized version)
* * *
How can this possibly be comfortable?
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(click on the picture to see the full-sized version)