Yes, I am that good of a Whack-A-Mole player. If you've played anywhere where I've played, I'm willing to bet that the high score you see on the machine is mine. What I lack in hand-eye coordination (and that would be anything that remotely resembles coordination, in case you were curious), I more than compensate for in frustration, exhaustion, and a burning desire for a socially acceptable outlet to beat the living crap out of stuff. Surely, these characteristics point to some aggression and anger management issues, but I'm kind of past that. Until it's okay to taze/crate/wallop people and/or drink before noon, Whack-A-Mole will have to do.
The girl wanted to play Whack-A-Mole. There are two places where this wish could have been granted:
1. Option 1- The place located a mere 10 minutes down the road, which is like a Chuck E. Cheese on crack. It is a children's play place, which means it is filled with copious quantities of other people's children (oh, my favorite), day care field trips, and EVERY.DISEASE.KNOWN.TO.MAN. I usually just drive to the pediatrician immediately after departing this joyous place, because I know some undesirable plague is just brewing.
2. Option 2- Dave and Busters, located a solid 45 minutes away. While it's a playground for drunk and disorderly adults, I figured it would be a safe bet at 11 AM on a Friday morning.
As I am a self-sufficient, confident woman, I did what every other self-sufficient, confident woman would do when faced with such a choice. I conducted a highly unscientific poll of my Facebook friends.
My Facebook friends, wise as they are, resoundingly responded with a uniform reply---avoid disease and drive the 45 minutes to Dave and Busters.
But it was raining, Little M was whining "But I want to play whack-a-mole right now" in her charming howler monkey voice, and one dissenting voter indicated that I was a "paranoid, freakish germophobe"---so I made the foolish decision to spend an hour at the Disease Pit.
I've been paying for that decision ever since.
While the girl did demonstrate a remarkable prowess for Whack-A-Mole (though she did not overcome my new high score!!), the aftermath was, shall we say, costly.
It started with double-eye pink eye, which happened to arrive the morning of Little M's best friend's birthday party. I exaggerate none when I say that Little M's pink eye was much worse for me than it was for her. Yes, it was her eyes that were crusted shut, but it was my face, chest, arms, legs and torso that got kicked repeatedly (for 10 days) during the twice-daily eye-drop application fiasco. Seriously. I considered calling 911 at points and reporting parental abuse.
Apparently, the brutal abuse of eye-drop human applicators is a common phenomenon. I know this because I googled "eye drops and preschoolers" and every single article mentioned a full headlock. Wish they also mentioned protective gear.
At the end of night one of the great pink eye infestation, the girl also mentioned that both ears hurt. Not long after that, I noted that my own throat hurt just ever so slightly.
And we all went down.
What does "we all went down" mean exactly?
Well...
For Little M, that meant pink eye, a double ear infection (that recurred), a sinus infection, and a brutal cough that lingered for 3 weeks---meaning that she didn't sleep and no one else did, either. Oh yeah, and then for good measure, she was bitten by a deer tick. Again.
For me, that meant strep throat, the sinus infection from hell, a fever that lingered above 101 for 14 days, ultimately bronchitis----which resulted in a pulled chest muscle that remains.
We all went down- and that's the simplified version.
This also involved a trip to urgent care, about 4 trips to the doctors, and a daily trip to CVS for weeks because the inane laws in this state don't allow me to buy multiple types of the good decongestants on the same trip. I'm on a first name basis with the pharmacy tech, who probably does think I'm a crackhead at this point.
I must say that I'm very pleased with the creative drug cocktails I created to be able to function and go to work. My personal favorite was the double shot of dayquil with a mucinex chaser-- a breakfast of champions, if you will. It didn't do much in relieving the constant face pain and the cough that sounded like TB---but I was certainly mellow. I'm trying not to read into the comments from multiple coworkers that hinted to how out-of-character pleasant I was. Maybe that's all I need to do to become a people person - double up on decongestants and go on my merry way.
Don't even get me started on the prescription stuff. Z pack was worthless and I'm allergic to penicillin (like the stab me with an epi-pen kind of allergic), so I got to advance to the medication used to treat anthrax and TB. Good times.
This was also the month when we learned that Little M is also allergic to penicillin (though, thankfully, not as severely as I am). That was fun.
So, I'm back from the dead and I've learned a meaningful life lesson. Facebook doesn't lie. Seriously. I should have listened to Facebook. Lather, rinse and repeat.
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