I am currently on my third shift of "trauma nights" as I sit typing this in the hospital library at 130am. Stuart is being a wonderfully helpful and patient husband during this experience! The next few days will be a bummer because as I leave the house at 6pm, Stuart will be arriving, and as I arrive home at 6am, Stuart will be leaving for work. But we will make it through and I'm sure appreciate each other a lot more because of it!
So what is trauma like (for a medical student at least)? Basically I sit around with my residents (or hide from them in the library) and wait for the calm-voiced lady on the overhead speaker to say "Trauma alert to the trauma room". Then I drop everything I'm doing and run downstairs to the trauma bay in the emergency department. What you might find is always a surprise. It could be something 'minor' like a goofy teenager who got shot in the head with a BB gun, or something disturbing like a man with a near amputation of his leg due to a car accident (if you want more yucky details than that, you can ask me! Of course the only details I provide are those that are HIPPA approved!) My job during these sessions is that of an 'information gatherer'. I take a trauma history and physical form ("the pink sheet") and write down all the patient's vitals and exam findings. Sounds easy enough, right? Well ... it would be, except for the fact that there are approximately 8 other people in the room all examining the patient at once. Each person is focused on a different part of the patient, and they all yell out their findings at the same time. Basically, I wind up running circles around the patient with my pink sheet in hand, and sticking my head into places I would rather it not be, saying "Wait, were those weak upper extremity pulses or normal? Did you say he had decreased breath sounds? Which bone is that sticking out of his leg?!?"
When it's not busy around here, I sometimes get to do really neat stuff that I otherwise would not get to do if it were day time and there were more qualified people around (associated pearl of knowledge for you: try not to get sick at night time). For instance, tonight I was able to help put in a subclavian central line. The resident got it started for me and I did over half the procedure by myself! And of course, if someone needs stitches then I am the one to put them in.
As an aside, last night I got to suture 5 or 6 lacerations on a drunk man who wrecked his car. He was not a happy camper and kept trying to take a swing at me while I was stitching his arm. We tried to sedate him and he did not tolerate that well, so my resident just held his arm down while I sewed. I am usually a fairly patient person, especially with my patients. Nevertheless, I thought I was gonna have to smack that man in the face.
So, personal lessons learned thus far on the trauma service:
1a. I never knew what tired really was. I thought I had been tired before now. But yesterday around 330am I fell asleep sitting up at the nurses station while writing a patient progress note.
1b. Coffee is a good thing.
2. Always keep your toenails in check. 70% of the patients I have seen the past few weeks have outrageously disgusting toenails. Yellow, cracking, thick, peeling off toenails. Perhaps fungus is more prevalent than I thought, or maybe people just don't take the effort to bend down that far. Regardless, I think I'm going to paint mine when I go home today.
3. Nothing good happens at 2am.
4. Always wear clean/cute underwear. In the unfortunate event that you are in a traumatic situation and come to the ER, you will have all your clothes stripped/cut from you and everyone will see you in your skivvys. At least until those get cut off too.
5. If your patient has a gun shot wound, you ask why, and they say, "I don't know, I wasn't doing anything", they are lying to you. If a person gets shot "while reading their Bible downtown", they also are lying to you.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
I'm narrowing down my life's calling
I may not know much about which specialty I will choose, but I can tell you this much: it's NOT surgery. I surprised myself and found that I actually like the OR. I can stomach blood, guts, and sticking my hands wrist deep into body cavities. I cant stomach the profession as a whole. The reasons are multiple; I will state only a few here.
1. I am not as cute as I can be. Waking up at 4:00am does not lend itself to makeup application or hair-fixing. I have learned that the best option is taking a night-time shower and usually falling asleep while my hair is still wet. The next morning I throw up a pony tail and bobby-pin my bangs that I paid so much money for at Aveda and now have to hide. Add to the mix a thunderstorm-gray scrub suit and a pair of Dansko clogs, and you might not even recognize me.
As an aside, Dansko clogs are the most comfortable shoe my feet have ever met. They let me be on my feet on concrete floors for 12+ hours a day and not want to cry from pain when I get home. Unfortunately, they are ugly as sin. Mine are a nice brown leather rather than the patent leather you see above. On the plus side Stuart always knows when I get home because he can hear me clumping up the stairs outside. And he, being the more fashionable one in our marriage, makes me remove them and hide them in the closet as soon as I get home =)
2. I cannot do normal person/wife activities such as cooking and cleaning. But I am pretty excited that we came up with the genius idea to cook all our meals for the week on Sunday afternoon. Weekends are good because we can sleep in, so with some extra energy last Sunday we went to Publix after church and then came on home and cooked away! We made a delish Chili Verde with honey cornbread muffins, and then a sundried tomato pesto for pasta and some rosemary grilled chicken! It was weird to cook all that and not eat it, but it has definitely paid off this week so that we can just warm stuff up!
3. I am officially lame. Bedtime is about 8:30.
4. Surgeons are ... how can I put this gently ... weird. I think there are basically two types:
1. I am not as cute as I can be. Waking up at 4:00am does not lend itself to makeup application or hair-fixing. I have learned that the best option is taking a night-time shower and usually falling asleep while my hair is still wet. The next morning I throw up a pony tail and bobby-pin my bangs that I paid so much money for at Aveda and now have to hide. Add to the mix a thunderstorm-gray scrub suit and a pair of Dansko clogs, and you might not even recognize me.
As an aside, Dansko clogs are the most comfortable shoe my feet have ever met. They let me be on my feet on concrete floors for 12+ hours a day and not want to cry from pain when I get home. Unfortunately, they are ugly as sin. Mine are a nice brown leather rather than the patent leather you see above. On the plus side Stuart always knows when I get home because he can hear me clumping up the stairs outside. And he, being the more fashionable one in our marriage, makes me remove them and hide them in the closet as soon as I get home =)
2. I cannot do normal person/wife activities such as cooking and cleaning. But I am pretty excited that we came up with the genius idea to cook all our meals for the week on Sunday afternoon. Weekends are good because we can sleep in, so with some extra energy last Sunday we went to Publix after church and then came on home and cooked away! We made a delish Chili Verde with honey cornbread muffins, and then a sundried tomato pesto for pasta and some rosemary grilled chicken! It was weird to cook all that and not eat it, but it has definitely paid off this week so that we can just warm stuff up!
3. I am officially lame. Bedtime is about 8:30.
4. Surgeons are ... how can I put this gently ... weird. I think there are basically two types:
- The mean type - this is the type who expects you to know things like "who was the father of heart surgery" or "who was the first surgeon to use cocaine intraoperatively". Sometimes they may also make patients, or medical students, cry. When patients are about to undergo life-changing and hopefully life-saving operations, they say things like, "You got a bad heart. You need an operation. You could die, but probably not. Got any questions?"
- The crazy genius type. One of my surgeons, if you met on the street, you would definitely think he was homeless. He looks disheveled at all times and wears a red beret. He prays to God in Latin, and curses his medical students in English. He can conversate on any topic you bring up, yet did not understand, after multiple explanations, that Gene Chizik was the coach at Auburn.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Halloween updates!
This post will not be too wordy, as I am post-13 hour cardiovascular surgery shift!! You can probably expect posts in the near future to be short too, being that I am in the come home, eat, go to bed mode. Bless Stuart's heart for having to deal with me! =)
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I know some folks aren't too keen on the spooky day, but any day you can dress up as something silly and give out candy to kiddos is good in my book!
Stuart and I had a super fun pumpkin carving party a week before Halloween. We decided to make a pirate pumpkin in honor of our aforementioned new friend, Mary. The pirate was a success and almost made it to Halloween before it caved in. Darn you, Mobile humidity! We ended the holiday week with a costume party/small group! Not many couples were able to come, but we still had a great time, and Stuart and I got to show off our Family Double Dare costumes!
Also, unrelated to Halloween, October 30th was our 1-year engagement anniversary!!!! It was also conveniently our 3 month wedding anniversary! Stuart surprised me by picking me up from the hospital (after I performed the incision and drainage of an abscess on my own!!!) and driving us to Meridian, MS to stay in a bed and breakfast! It was so much fun, and so very nice to sleep in and have someone wait on us!
I didn't get any pictures of Meridian, but here are the Halloween pics ...
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I know some folks aren't too keen on the spooky day, but any day you can dress up as something silly and give out candy to kiddos is good in my book!
Stuart and I had a super fun pumpkin carving party a week before Halloween. We decided to make a pirate pumpkin in honor of our aforementioned new friend, Mary. The pirate was a success and almost made it to Halloween before it caved in. Darn you, Mobile humidity! We ended the holiday week with a costume party/small group! Not many couples were able to come, but we still had a great time, and Stuart and I got to show off our Family Double Dare costumes!
Also, unrelated to Halloween, October 30th was our 1-year engagement anniversary!!!! It was also conveniently our 3 month wedding anniversary! Stuart surprised me by picking me up from the hospital (after I performed the incision and drainage of an abscess on my own!!!) and driving us to Meridian, MS to stay in a bed and breakfast! It was so much fun, and so very nice to sleep in and have someone wait on us!
I didn't get any pictures of Meridian, but here are the Halloween pics ...
 |
| concentrating on that pumpkin! |
 |
| the part of pumpkin carving that is most like my surgery rotation |
 |
| Gray's technique made me a bit nervous ... |
 |
| and now on to some sort of saw thing |
 |
| our masterpieces! our pirate is the second from the left |
 |
| Family Double Dare! We'll take the physical challenge!! |
Sunday, October 24, 2010
A couple of regular Picassos!
Since the wedding, Stuart and I have been in the process of redecorating the house. Or, he might tell you that I have been in the process of redecorating his old house =) Regardless of how you view it, a lot has changed in a few months! When we get it all organized I'll have to post pictures (or just have you over for a visit)!
One of the things I love about our condo is the open floor plan and tall ceilings. The downside to that is that you need a lot of stuff to cover the walls or else it looks kind of lonely in here. After many a conversation over how we should cover our walls (Stuart likes tradition, I'm more of an abstract gal ... yada yada) we just decided to do our art work ourselves! I wanted to do something for our dining room, and since I have (lovingly, ever so kindly, and always making sure its ok) removed every decoration from the walls, I told Stu he could paint whatever he wanted to for our bedroom and it would be A-ok with me!
As luck would have it, there's a really cool place right across the street from us called Paint 'n' Pals. It's basically a paint-by-numbers for adults and it is so much fun! We called in ahead of time the designs we wanted to do, and when we arrived at 2pm last Sunday they had it sketched out for us ready to go! Now, mind you, it was a very basic sketch and we were able to ever so timidly express ourselves through our artistic talents. And as we painted the owner would come around and instruct us on the proper brush stroke techniques. It was so much fun! Now we just have to get them framed to complete the project!
One of the things I love about our condo is the open floor plan and tall ceilings. The downside to that is that you need a lot of stuff to cover the walls or else it looks kind of lonely in here. After many a conversation over how we should cover our walls (Stuart likes tradition, I'm more of an abstract gal ... yada yada) we just decided to do our art work ourselves! I wanted to do something for our dining room, and since I have (lovingly, ever so kindly, and always making sure its ok) removed every decoration from the walls, I told Stu he could paint whatever he wanted to for our bedroom and it would be A-ok with me!
As luck would have it, there's a really cool place right across the street from us called Paint 'n' Pals. It's basically a paint-by-numbers for adults and it is so much fun! We called in ahead of time the designs we wanted to do, and when we arrived at 2pm last Sunday they had it sketched out for us ready to go! Now, mind you, it was a very basic sketch and we were able to ever so timidly express ourselves through our artistic talents. And as we painted the owner would come around and instruct us on the proper brush stroke techniques. It was so much fun! Now we just have to get them framed to complete the project!
 |
| Can't tell much from here, but I managed to get paint on my face before we got started good! |
 |
| Working on my "Impressionist Poppies". No worries, it's upside down. |
 |
| Stuart hard at work on his "Dauphin Island". He was so intense he would never hear the questions I was asking him. |
 |
| I destroyed my paint plate |
 |
| Stu's finished project! |
 |
| My finished project! |
Friday, October 15, 2010
A night with a pirate
Before Stuart and I got married, we had the opportunity to go to downtown Mobile to feed the homeless. While we were there we had the pleasure of meeting Ms Mary, also fondly known as Mary the Pirate. Mary has loved pirates and all things sea-related since her youth. She carries a jolly roger flag on some occasions, always dresses as a pirate for Halloween, and can give you more Blackbeard facts than anyone else I know.
That program downtown has since been canceled (because apparently those eating at restaurants didn't want to see the homeless walking about ... don't even get me started on that), but Mary the Pirate has still been in close association with our friends Gray and Lauren. Well, as luck would have it, Gray is the chaplain for the Fairhope High School "Pirates" football team. They recently made an addition of a pirate ship with a real working canon (that shoots blanks of course) on their football field. Mary heard about this and was dying to go to a game, and Gray was able to pull some strings to get her into a game for free and let her hang out by the pirate ship. Since Gray has to work at the game, Stuart and I volunteered to pick her up Friday night and take her.
We called her to let her know we were on our way, and she greeted Stuart via telephone with a "Hey, Boo!" and gave us the best directions to avoid downtown rush hour traffic. We told her to watch for my red Mustang in Cathedral Square, to which she screamed of her delight over getting to ride in style in my mustang! Once we got there we found her sitting on a park bench in her pirates baseball cap and a South Park Jamaica shirt. She gave us the cowabunga sign and almost knocked us down with hugs after we stopped.
The 30 minute drive to Fairhope was made up of many interesting conversations about how BP may have caused the oil spill on purpose, her high school band days, and various facts about pirates and her favorite show, Deadliest Catch. I really regret not brushing up on my pirate knowledge before the weekend, because I wasn't able to contribute much to discussion.
Once we got to the game, Ms Mary got to meet the head coach and we headed on over to the ship. Mary took a tour of the pirate ship and Stuart and I settled down on the grass to watch the game. Now, every time the pirates score, and when they run out on the field, the cannon gets shot. I was mentally prepared to be frightened constantly throughout the game, but had no idea how loud that would actually be. You could actually feel a heat wave come off the ship when the cannon would fire! I have never watched a high school football game so closely! I had to make sure I wouldn't be taken off guard by that boom!
The night was very enjoyable for us, and I think that shooting that cannon made Ms Marys month, maybe even her year! Here are some pictures from the night for you to peruse
That program downtown has since been canceled (because apparently those eating at restaurants didn't want to see the homeless walking about ... don't even get me started on that), but Mary the Pirate has still been in close association with our friends Gray and Lauren. Well, as luck would have it, Gray is the chaplain for the Fairhope High School "Pirates" football team. They recently made an addition of a pirate ship with a real working canon (that shoots blanks of course) on their football field. Mary heard about this and was dying to go to a game, and Gray was able to pull some strings to get her into a game for free and let her hang out by the pirate ship. Since Gray has to work at the game, Stuart and I volunteered to pick her up Friday night and take her.
We called her to let her know we were on our way, and she greeted Stuart via telephone with a "Hey, Boo!" and gave us the best directions to avoid downtown rush hour traffic. We told her to watch for my red Mustang in Cathedral Square, to which she screamed of her delight over getting to ride in style in my mustang! Once we got there we found her sitting on a park bench in her pirates baseball cap and a South Park Jamaica shirt. She gave us the cowabunga sign and almost knocked us down with hugs after we stopped.
The 30 minute drive to Fairhope was made up of many interesting conversations about how BP may have caused the oil spill on purpose, her high school band days, and various facts about pirates and her favorite show, Deadliest Catch. I really regret not brushing up on my pirate knowledge before the weekend, because I wasn't able to contribute much to discussion.
Once we got to the game, Ms Mary got to meet the head coach and we headed on over to the ship. Mary took a tour of the pirate ship and Stuart and I settled down on the grass to watch the game. Now, every time the pirates score, and when they run out on the field, the cannon gets shot. I was mentally prepared to be frightened constantly throughout the game, but had no idea how loud that would actually be. You could actually feel a heat wave come off the ship when the cannon would fire! I have never watched a high school football game so closely! I had to make sure I wouldn't be taken off guard by that boom!
The night was very enjoyable for us, and I think that shooting that cannon made Ms Marys month, maybe even her year! Here are some pictures from the night for you to peruse
This is how Stuart and I spent the majority of the night ... plugging our ears in fear!
Ms Mary by the cannon she got to shoot!
And finally, Ms Mary with Kyron, one of the football players that goes to our church!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Great Friends!
Stuart and I have really grown to appreciate the power of Christian community since we have gotten married! It's not that we never had it before, it's just that now we can surround ourselves with other young Christian married couples and go on our journeys together. It's such a great blessing!
We're a part of a small group of about 7 newly and nearly weds. We meet together on Sundays and discuss topics that often stump early married folks ... like how to manage your finances, or how to deal with the basic differences between guys and gals. And of course ... we eat too!
I'm pretty excited because Stuart and I got put in charge of meal themes for the group. Above was from last week where we had breakfast for dinner. Dana and Adam (end of the table) brought this breakfast casserole that had POTATO CHIPS on it. I didn't even know that could it exist. But it does, and it's delicious!
In other news, pediatrics rotation is almost over for me, and Stuart and I are taking a lady named Mary the Pirate to the Fairhope High School football game this weekend. I'm sure that a blog will follow shortly.
We're a part of a small group of about 7 newly and nearly weds. We meet together on Sundays and discuss topics that often stump early married folks ... like how to manage your finances, or how to deal with the basic differences between guys and gals. And of course ... we eat too!
I'm pretty excited because Stuart and I got put in charge of meal themes for the group. Above was from last week where we had breakfast for dinner. Dana and Adam (end of the table) brought this breakfast casserole that had POTATO CHIPS on it. I didn't even know that could it exist. But it does, and it's delicious!
In other news, pediatrics rotation is almost over for me, and Stuart and I are taking a lady named Mary the Pirate to the Fairhope High School football game this weekend. I'm sure that a blog will follow shortly.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
An oldie, but goody
Other than Stuart getting new glasses and me getting the worst allergy attack of all time, life hasn't been too exciting recently. In order to keep you all reading, I'm copying a popular story from my old medical blog about our adventures with an elliptical repair man. Hope you enjoy, and hopefully there are more exciting moments soon to come.
Stuart bought an elliptical. It is super awesome, except for the fact that it doesn’t work. After spending a few hours putting it together we spent a few more hours taking it apart to find that one teeny green wire had snapped in half. I don’t know if we did it or if it came like that, but we called the repairman nonetheless.
So, being the good fiancé that I am, I offered to study here at Stu’s house today so I could let in the repairman who was to be arriving at 8am sharp. At 9 there was a knock at the door. I answered to find a tall man in black denim jeans and a black collared shirt with rose-colored glasses on. I let him in and then he said, “Um, my wife is with me. I hope that’s ok.” As he turned to gesture towards his car I noticed the reason for the tinted glasses: two lazy eyes. I invited the wife in as I wondered how one could take apart machinery and do wiring with two lazy eyes.
A few minutes later his wife appeared at the door. She looked like she hadn’t brushed her hair in a week and introduced herself with unmistakable slurred speech. Yes friends, she was drunk. I am alone at Stu’s condo with a lazy eyed repairman and his drunken wife.
I explained the problem to the repairman and told him I was pretty sure there was a faulty wire. I even pointed out the location where the wire was to save him some time. He got to work and I came into the living room to find wifey flopped on the couch, playing with Mardi and calling her “Titty Tat”. I offered her the television or a book, which she refused. I sat away my board studying materials and we started chatting. I found out her youngest son was graduating from high school tonight. That, somehow, led to her telling me her entire life history. Sometimes it was hard to make out a few of the slurred words, and sometimes the sentences were out of order. I will abbreviate the story for you below. And no, I am not making any of this up. Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
When “Jane” was 18, she moved out of her parent’s house because she could never get along with them anyway. She moved in with two of her good friends, who just so happened to be sisters. What do you know but a few months later she was married to their father, a man who I could only imagine to be at least 20 years her elder. They were married for 12 years and “it wasn’t too bad”. They had two sons, and after a while her hubs started getting a little too friendly with a girl from work. And this wasn’t just any girl. She was ugly. And she had a glass eye too. So Jane got suspicious and drove to glass eye girl’s apartment one night to find the blinds open and her husband standing there with no shirt on and his pants unzipped. Needless to say, they got a divorce, and her ex-husband and the girl with the glass eye were married 4 days later.
Then after the divorce, Jane went out partying for a while. She had fun being single, and then married someone else for a year. That was the “worst mistake of her life”.
By this time, her two sons grew up. The oldest son, we’ll call him Jim, got a job and became friends with a “real far out girl” that he worked with. They hung out some and then one night decided to go out to a bar together. They both woke up in bed together the next morning (surprised, anyone?) and then fell in love. They bought wedding bands and called each other ‘wife and husband’ but never actually got around to getting married. Who needs papers, anyway? They had a baby soon. Jane never fully believed it was her son’s baby. Everyone knew that Jim’s wife cheated on him a lot, but strangely only with black men. The son was white but Jane was still suspicious. After the baby was born, Jim’s wife went kooky, packed up a diaper bag, and boarded a 3 day bus to Colorado with the baby. This led Jane and her new husband (lazy eyed repair man) on a wild goose chase to gain custody of their grandson. It never worked because the judge never wanted to hear their case. After a few years the wife broke off her and Jim’s fake marriage and they never heard from her again. Now Jim is married to a new lady and in the army. He and his wife have a new baby named Tobias McDonald (real name there). He is in Iraq and just got a new tattoo on his side of a naked lady. His wife drew it for him. He showed it to Jane on Skype.
Well, back to Jane now. Here’s how she wound up with husband number three (repair man). Let’s call him Jake. Jane was trying to get back on her feet after the 2nd divorce and losing her job. Jake’s mom, who she apparently knew, suggested that Jane move in with Jake. Just for a week, just to see how it worked. So she moved in. It “wasn’t too bad”, they fell in love, and 3 months later they were married and living in his trailer with their 4 dogs and 3 miniature ponies (I assume those live outside).
Now, while her husband was in the next room with our new elliptical machine, Jane proceeds to tell me about their marriage. It’s pretty good. She really wants to kill him sometimes. He makes her wash his clothes and fix his lunch. Why doesn’t he ever do anything for her? He likes her hair long, she likes it short. She doesn’t like it that he controls her life so much. Sometimes she really regrets getting married again at all. Sometimes she wants to just be free so she can move away somewhere else.
After TWO AND A HALF HOURS OF THIS (interspersed with 3 bathroom breaks, a tour of the house, comments about my tomato plant, etc), Jake comes back in the room. He has discovered that there was a faulty green wire. In the exact spot that I showed him. He’ll have to come back next Friday to fix it.
Don’t you just love learning people’s stories? =) This is why I always talk to people on planes … in the hopes that I get to hear something like this!
Stuart bought an elliptical. It is super awesome, except for the fact that it doesn’t work. After spending a few hours putting it together we spent a few more hours taking it apart to find that one teeny green wire had snapped in half. I don’t know if we did it or if it came like that, but we called the repairman nonetheless.
So, being the good fiancé that I am, I offered to study here at Stu’s house today so I could let in the repairman who was to be arriving at 8am sharp. At 9 there was a knock at the door. I answered to find a tall man in black denim jeans and a black collared shirt with rose-colored glasses on. I let him in and then he said, “Um, my wife is with me. I hope that’s ok.” As he turned to gesture towards his car I noticed the reason for the tinted glasses: two lazy eyes. I invited the wife in as I wondered how one could take apart machinery and do wiring with two lazy eyes.
A few minutes later his wife appeared at the door. She looked like she hadn’t brushed her hair in a week and introduced herself with unmistakable slurred speech. Yes friends, she was drunk. I am alone at Stu’s condo with a lazy eyed repairman and his drunken wife.
I explained the problem to the repairman and told him I was pretty sure there was a faulty wire. I even pointed out the location where the wire was to save him some time. He got to work and I came into the living room to find wifey flopped on the couch, playing with Mardi and calling her “Titty Tat”. I offered her the television or a book, which she refused. I sat away my board studying materials and we started chatting. I found out her youngest son was graduating from high school tonight. That, somehow, led to her telling me her entire life history. Sometimes it was hard to make out a few of the slurred words, and sometimes the sentences were out of order. I will abbreviate the story for you below. And no, I am not making any of this up. Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
When “Jane” was 18, she moved out of her parent’s house because she could never get along with them anyway. She moved in with two of her good friends, who just so happened to be sisters. What do you know but a few months later she was married to their father, a man who I could only imagine to be at least 20 years her elder. They were married for 12 years and “it wasn’t too bad”. They had two sons, and after a while her hubs started getting a little too friendly with a girl from work. And this wasn’t just any girl. She was ugly. And she had a glass eye too. So Jane got suspicious and drove to glass eye girl’s apartment one night to find the blinds open and her husband standing there with no shirt on and his pants unzipped. Needless to say, they got a divorce, and her ex-husband and the girl with the glass eye were married 4 days later.
Then after the divorce, Jane went out partying for a while. She had fun being single, and then married someone else for a year. That was the “worst mistake of her life”.
By this time, her two sons grew up. The oldest son, we’ll call him Jim, got a job and became friends with a “real far out girl” that he worked with. They hung out some and then one night decided to go out to a bar together. They both woke up in bed together the next morning (surprised, anyone?) and then fell in love. They bought wedding bands and called each other ‘wife and husband’ but never actually got around to getting married. Who needs papers, anyway? They had a baby soon. Jane never fully believed it was her son’s baby. Everyone knew that Jim’s wife cheated on him a lot, but strangely only with black men. The son was white but Jane was still suspicious. After the baby was born, Jim’s wife went kooky, packed up a diaper bag, and boarded a 3 day bus to Colorado with the baby. This led Jane and her new husband (lazy eyed repair man) on a wild goose chase to gain custody of their grandson. It never worked because the judge never wanted to hear their case. After a few years the wife broke off her and Jim’s fake marriage and they never heard from her again. Now Jim is married to a new lady and in the army. He and his wife have a new baby named Tobias McDonald (real name there). He is in Iraq and just got a new tattoo on his side of a naked lady. His wife drew it for him. He showed it to Jane on Skype.
Well, back to Jane now. Here’s how she wound up with husband number three (repair man). Let’s call him Jake. Jane was trying to get back on her feet after the 2nd divorce and losing her job. Jake’s mom, who she apparently knew, suggested that Jane move in with Jake. Just for a week, just to see how it worked. So she moved in. It “wasn’t too bad”, they fell in love, and 3 months later they were married and living in his trailer with their 4 dogs and 3 miniature ponies (I assume those live outside).
Now, while her husband was in the next room with our new elliptical machine, Jane proceeds to tell me about their marriage. It’s pretty good. She really wants to kill him sometimes. He makes her wash his clothes and fix his lunch. Why doesn’t he ever do anything for her? He likes her hair long, she likes it short. She doesn’t like it that he controls her life so much. Sometimes she really regrets getting married again at all. Sometimes she wants to just be free so she can move away somewhere else.
After TWO AND A HALF HOURS OF THIS (interspersed with 3 bathroom breaks, a tour of the house, comments about my tomato plant, etc), Jake comes back in the room. He has discovered that there was a faulty green wire. In the exact spot that I showed him. He’ll have to come back next Friday to fix it.
Don’t you just love learning people’s stories? =) This is why I always talk to people on planes … in the hopes that I get to hear something like this!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)