Last Friday was a crazy wacky kind of day. (This just in’ after a day of walking around in my loafers sans socks, my bare feet smell like some kind of strong German beer, perhaps a sauer kraut beer tailor-made for dunking pumpernickel bread into’ mmmm. And my toes are painted sparkly blue so they look like cute girly feet but smell like nasty old plumber feet! Stealthy weapons of mass destruction! (Oooh, which reminds me’when my mom was married to my wicked stepfather, my initials were WMD. Fear THIS, bitches!)) It was my mother-in-law June’s last day of work before her early retirement (she turned 55 in June and declared three days later that she was retiring as soon as possible, which, in order to use up her ungodly number of vacation days, was July 30) and my father-in-law Ward decided to throw her a surprise party. Esteban and I, being their only progeny (and, in my case, progeny-in-law), quickly offered to help. And thence began the crazy making. So crazy that we used words like ‘thence’. And also ‘thither’. There was lots of thithering off to the costermonger and spent some ducats to procure bountiful wittles lest our heathen guests became rantipole.
I have clearly watched Shakespeare In Love one too many times.
Anyway, Ward then became freaked, as this was the first time in his Baby Boomer existence that he did not have June orchestrating in her zealous manner. Thus, he turned to the next appropriate female, which would be yours truly. Thus (thence) I was treated to twice (and sometimes THRICE) daily calls from Ward, asking me if I had made the banner yet (which would take all of fifteen minutes and take Kinko’s all of half an hour to produce), if I had talked to one of the Aunts yet, and if I had gotten the decorations yet. And then the second I got home, there would be a message ‘Hey Weetabix’ it’s Dad’ I have to tell you something about the party’ call me!’ So I’d call and he’d ask if I got the decorations yet and had I talked with the Aunts yet and did I have that banner done yet? Gah.
Finally, I was driving to the decorations place when I get a call on my mobile. It was Ward. He asked about calling the Aunts and if I had the banner done yet.
‘No, but I’m on the way to get the decorations.’
‘Oh’ you might want to talk to Nancy about that. She was going to get some,’ he said nonchalantly, as though it were all out of his hands.
Boiling. Oh the boiling.
In my mind, my tastefully decorated garden party, with fresh greens decorating the trays and bouquets of white flowers in tall vases filled with green grapes, came to a screeching halt. Nancy is a very sweet lady whom we all love very dearly, but also owns every Precious Moments figurine ever made. My tasteful soiree with the creams and the shades of green had just gone the way of little Billy’s seven-year-old birthday party. I sighed. I really didn’t care enough to play Martha Stewart.
I coordinated with Nancy, discussed the gaps in party supplies and then put my mind toward menu creation. I was thinking of canap’s, cool summer salads, rice paper spring rolls with dipping sauce, hummus, grilled pineapple and cheesecake for dessert. Esteban nixed the idea and declared that he was grilling bratwurst because he likes grilled bratwurst (oh fine, use logic). My disillusion bubble then soundly popped and I started making lists that contained directives for Ward, such as ‘Potato Chips’ some with ruffles and some without’ and ‘At least 60 brat buns!’ and ‘More Ice than you think you need and then another bag on top of that’ (the latter which they did not adhere and ended up making three ice runs before the evening had ended).
However, the party was lovely, aside from a moment of panic when June screwed up the surprise portion by demanding that she was sick of being at work and wanted to come home two and a half hours early. Which she later thought was funny and I think is an apt metaphor for my mother-in-law, but whatever.
Most of Esteban’s friends were off doing some male bondage (er, bonding. I think they call it ‘Men’s Camping Weekend’ for a reason that might involve naked drum circles and ritualistic urination, but who knows. Certainly they aren’t talking) but I was pleased to see Phil and CC make an appearance. CC and I chatted about gender bias in school and growing up hippy and about what would happen if someone were to drink the slurry of beer and butter that the brats were sitting in.
In all, it was a lovely evening, filled with many many drunken retirees and soon-to-be retirees. Finally, most of them found their way back to their Lincoln Town Cars and left us to deal with the stragglers. In this case, a friend of June and her white-haired sugar daddy named Harold, both of whom were completely marinating in Jim Beam. Esteban and I sat quietly, smiling politely at our drunken elders.
Harold and I started talking about golf, during which time he felt compelled to give me a drunken golf diatribe that involved mostly pointing at me and repeating himself loudly, telling me that he’s 74-years-old and he’s been playing for 14 years and to go slow on the upswing and bring it down hard on the downswing and if I’m lucky I can hit a 50 like he did just last week, and he’s 74-years-old! Point point point!
I smirked and made a remark that it was easy for him to say that the trick is to take your time, but as a woman, if we go slowly, immediately the men are asking to play through, even when we can only go as fast as the guys in front of us.
Harold straightened up his back, revved up his pointing finger and roared, ‘PISS ON THEM! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! PISS ON THEM, those little ASS FUCKERS! You piss on them! They are ass fuckers and you just use your putter and you show them how its done! Bullshit! Don’t give me that bullshit! PISS ON THEM!’
I cannot tell you how unnerving it is to be bellowed at by a 74-year-old man after an emotionally and physically exhausting day. I was completely flummoxed. I wasn’t exactly sure what Harold wanted me to do with my pretty pink putter. Certainly he wasn’t suggesting that I actually piss directly on marauding foursomes? Or take my putter and show them how what exactly is done? The ass fucking? What?
Luckily, they realized that they were the last ones at the party so his young (56-year-old) chippy guided him off to their waiting hired car, where his reminders of ‘Remember! Fuck them! Slow on the downswing! Stick your butt out! They are ass fuckers! PISS ON THEM! PISS ON THE ASS FUCKERS’ echoed through Ward and June’s snooty sleeping suburb, giving it a nice Bourbon Street touch. It were as though Harold was playing to my twisted subconscious. We later learned he had demolished the better portion of a bottle of Seagram’s 7, therefore any ulterior motive is highly suspect.
I spent most of the day on Saturday stiff and with a mysterious nagging headache, despite the fact that I had only had two green apple wine coolers during the entire seven hour party the night before. Then on Sunday, I woke up and realized that I couldn’t move.
Correction: I couldn’t move my head.
My miserable stress had once again taken control of my neck and upper back. I laid in bed until noon reading Al Franken’s left-wing book with a heating pad turned on High, unable to even nod my head in agreement about the liars and their lying (although in retrospect, I could have shouted, ‘Piss on them! The ass fuckers!’ without any pain whatsoever).
When the heating pad didn’t really help and the weight of my own head felt like I was balancing a bowling ball on my fragile neck of pain, I called the pharmacy to refill my muscle relaxant prescription and then sat on the big ugly recliner watching my AbFab DVDs and mainlining red sugar-free Kool-Aid until I actually had a little red Kool-Aid mustache and felt a tad bit white trash because of it. And, I am ashamed to say, watched Velvet Goldmine just to see Ewan McGregor’s penis as it danced across the stage.
Bless me father, for I have sinned. And paused, reversed, and then sinned again.
On Monday, I still couldn’t move when I woke up at 5 am, so I declared it a sick day, took another muscle relaxant and then passed out until well past noon. Showering was a new level of hell (trying to shampoo when you can’t lift your arms above your head is absolutely delightful!) and the muscle relaxants just weren’t doing much more than making me very groggy, so I bit the bullet and called a chiropractor.
I’ve never been to a chiropractor and was a little uncertain about what to expect. The only experience I had was when I was growing up, my mom’s boyfriend’s friend was living in our big old hippy house for awhile (it was almost a commune for awhile), and the girl he started to date (whom Angeline bears a striking resemblance) had been in some kind of really bad car accident and carried around a Prussian Blue curvy back pillow and had to sit in a specific one of our mismatched kitchen chairs. She went to a chiropractor all the time and acted as though she’d been bent wrung out afterwards. I think now that she was a huge hypochondriac. With my admission that maybe I should try a chiropractor, maybe it made me a hypochondriac as well, considering that I am still going to physical therapy for my messed up knee. And maybe I would also stop shaving my legs and drive a rusty old magenta Pinto which I would name ‘Joan Baez’ and start wearing Birkenstocks exclusively, even in the winter, with organic free trade wool stockings.
Anyway, with some trepidation, I carefully drove myself to see Ricci. Ricci the Chiropractor. Ricci, who seemed to be imbibing caffeine at a steady pace, took an X-ray, determined that two of my vertebrae were twisted, including one suspiciously close to my most painful spot at the base of my neck.
He then led me to a massage table-looking thing and invited me to lie down. Oooh, a massage? He was going to massage it until it felt better? Yay! Love massages! Sure, they didn’t have any Enya playing or dim lights, but I’ll take my unexpected massages where I can get them! He started rubbing my lower back vigorously, told me to take in a deep breath and then let it out slowly.
I started to exhale and then he seemingly punched his fist into my abdominal cavity. I said ‘Oh my gosh!’ and heard a big pop and crack!
He exclaimed, ‘There it is!’ and seemed quite pleased with himself.
I was a little taken aback, quite honestly. Then he instructed me to lie down on my back. Ok, apparently we were done with the shocking weird cracking of the back thing, so I trusted him. He rolled a little stool up behind my head and started pushing on my neck, pulling it, asking me if it hurt when he did this (yes) and when he did that (yes) and when he did this other thing (yes). Finally, he told me to breathe in and I thought ‘Oh fuuuuuuuuck.’ And then laid there helplessly as he wrenched my chin over to the side, in a move I’ve watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer perform hundreds of times.
Just when I started to feel my head rip off my shoulders, a resounding crack reverberated throughout the room. ‘Aha!’ he exclaimed.
I wanted to shout, ‘Did I NOT just tell you that my neck hurts? Huh? Huh?’ Except that I didn’t, because sometimes I am but a meek little sheep. Instead, I relaxed as told and then allowed him to reef on my head the other way until there was a nice high pitched pop crackle snap of excruciating pain.
He pulled me back up and said, ‘There’ how’s your headache?’ while he razored some Vivarin tablets to make for easy snorting.
But glory be, the headache, she was gone. For the first time since Friday. I tried turning my head. Amazingly enough, I could now turn my chin halfway to my shoulder. It was progress. We had made progress! I was a bit giddy. Or maybe just happy to still have a head attached, albeit a painful bowling ball of a head.
He instructed me to cease and desist with the heat and switch to ice and also take Advil instead of the muscle relaxants because he felt it was a joint issue rather than a muscular thing, so the muscle relaxants weren’t doing any good.
I made another appointment as he had suggested, went home, sacked out in front of the Tivo with my ice pack and tossed back a few Advil. And later another muscle relaxant.
Sorry Ricci, I’ll come back for the startling readjustments, and maybe the muscle relaxants weren’t doing any good, but they’re not doing any BAD either.
If loving happy drooling sleep is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
