I had a nasty migraine starting last night, but I managed to push it away with a ton of salt, a bit of exercise and a massive dose of Advil.  It reminded me…  

     It’s been on my file forever.  “Allergic to Acetominophen.”  Whether it’s Tylenol or Generic.  It gives me migraines.

     As the sufferer of some of the most horrible migraines imaginable for over thirty years — the sort that hurt intensely, and actually cause paralysis if I don’t do something about them ASAP — I’ve had reason to get plenty of pain medication prescribed to me.  I’ve kept my consumption down, too, and never become “addicted” to any sort of pills.  As a matter of fact, I hate taking them, which has resulted in my ending up in the emergency room more than a few times.

     Which brings me to my first reason for distrusting the medical professional intensely…

     These migraines rise up the back of my neck, and eventually consume the entire top of my head and roll down to my cheekbones.  My forehead thickens and swells, as does the back of my neck.  It’s a pain reaction — histamines get produced to fight off something that’s not even there.
     The pain itself is astounding.  According to my aunt who gets the same sorts that I get, “Oh, I’ve had one child.  Even delivery wasn’t anywhere near that painful!”
     If you’ve ever had metal touch your raw bone, or chewed aluminium foil with your teeth, you know that familiar feeling — like an electric shock.  Now imagine that it’s constant.  Imagine that someone has taken a buzz saw, and is actively chopping sections of your cranium.  Now imagine that someone else is taking a high-speed electric drill and drilling sideways through those raw sections of bone.
     Eventually, the neurons of your brain flood with so much pain information that voluntary motor skills begin to cease.  You’re left with a body that knows absolutely nothing but intense pain, and your legs simply won’t work.  And then your hands… 
     Of course, at some point, you have no choice but to get someone to take you to the emergency room.  If you don’t someone will end up taking you when you’re lying in the floor, unable to move…
     The “healthcare professionals” refuse to help you until you fill out paperwork, with hands that won’t work, and you’re trying to remember and relay things to whoever’s taken you there… which is really difficult when you’re hurting so badly you’d seriously consider taking a bullet to the head to make the pain stop.
     Eventually, after all of that time, they see you, and immediately do absolutely nothing for you.  They treat you like a criminal, like you’re a dirty drug addict looking for a fix.  Your frustration begins to show through… Twice I’ve ended up in restraints when I was paralyzed — because they act like I’ll be able to miraculously get up, walk over and cause them physical harm…. RIGHT!
     And eventually, you end up with a $1500 medical bill and went through some three hours of torturous pain, when you could’ve just popped two or three hydrocodones and saved $1500 and two hours of Hell.

     It’s unforgivable.

     The second problem I have is the fact that immediately after they finally get off their lazy asses to actually do something helpful in these situations, I’m not in my right mind.
     This is why they make mothers rest immediately after delivery, and why torture goes hand-in-hand with brainwashing: when you’re under the influence of the worst possible pain imaginable, and it suddenly stops, you are euphoric and emotional.  You are subject to suggestions that you wouldn’t otherwise agree to in a million years.
     Yet, they always usher me towards the billing department… Greed.

     That is unforgivable.

     My third and last reason for mistrust…

      The hydrocodone they give me is nasty.  It works, mind you, when I absolutely need it.  But one of the reasons I only use it as a last resort is because of the massive hangover it gives me.  Once it wears off, I feel like I’ve been on a week-long drinking binge and I may hurt for days, although, the it’s nothing compared to the pain of these migraines.  But it certainly affects my mood and attitude for a few days.

     A couple weeks ago, I was talking to a few people who happen to be part of the medical profession, and relating some of this.
     “What kind of hydrocodone?”
     “Well, the last time they gave me these massive Vicodin which gave me the spins so bad I couldn’t even lie down and sleep,” I told them.  “I prefer the Lorcet Plus.”
      “Uhhh, you shouldn’t take those,” I was warned.
      “Why not?  They’re hydrocodone and ibuprofen.  Every doctor and pharmacist I’ve ever spoken to has told me that I need the pain relief and the anti-inflammatory.”
     “Uhhh, hydrocodone doesn’t have ibuprofen.  APAP is acetominophen.”
     “I’m allergic to acetominophen… it gives me migraines…”
     “Exactly…”

     So basically, they — forty some doctors and pharmacists — have voluntarily lied to me while exacerbating the situation, put me through years of unnecessary Hell, and I’m damn lucky not to have ended up dead from an anurism.
     Thanks, assholes!  Fuck you very much!

     Absolutely unforgivable.

     So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.  That is why I have no intention of paying my medical bills.  They owe me.  They’ve destroyed my quality of life for all these years.

     And the bad part?  Our healthcare is still better than anyone elses…

You know, for the past decade, I kept thinking to myself “Damn. Christmas seems to come earlier and earlier every year. I thought it was only in my head because I am simply annoyed by how commercial Christmas has become.

I took note, back in August no less, that as soon as Wal-Mart took out the swimming pools and other summer items… in came the Christmas stuff. IN AUGUST! Before even halloween had time to come and go.

Pisses me off, the money-grubbing devil stores peddle as much as they can for as long as they can. And what really slays me is the fact that, everytime I’d pass through lawn & garden, even back in late summer, there were people buying that shit up. It wasn’t on sale, it was just out on display and for sale at regular prices.

Now I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want my house decorated with little elves and the like that early in the year. I’m the type that as soon as Christmas is over, I’m ready to jerk the ornaments down and sling the tree in the yard.

What I think should happen is, since the the stores have all the Christmas crap out that early, the Salvation Army should round up sexy bell ringers and have them out there in the heat of summer in a Santa-like underwear  made of red velvet with white trim and an excellent and yummy tan.  Then maybe I could swallow Christmas that early in the damn year.

Bah!  Friggin Humbug!

I am sad to say that my addiction to Chinese Food was abruptly halted as a result of the ongoing battle with the Fortune Cookie Nazi.  He won, I lost; no MSG, salt loaded, sugary goodness for Diva.  Dammit.

So, I come home from a business trip and OG tells me that while I was gone, she had went to said establishment to partake of take-out as her man had taken ill.

She went to the self serve bar, I remember so well.  She filled her to-go boxes with treats of all kinds…

She went to the front to pay our friend the Fortune Cookie Nazi…

“You need-a any sauces today?”  He asked.

“No.  I don’t think so,”  she politely replied.

“Well, you must-a take the fortune cookie,” he tells her.

A light bulb went off over her head.  She knows first hand that I’m not kidding when I say he just won’t give me a fortune cookie.  That he has an inner drive within his deep dark soul, which keeps him from simply dipping in and giving me my friggin’ cookie. 

What’s wrong with a brother when he won’t even share a 5 cent cookie?  He would give me a truck load of sauces, chop stix, but no damn cookie.   All I want is my cookie!!  Why can’t you just give me my cookie!!!

I’m going to go rock back and forth in the corner now.

I just hate craving that damned chinese food from that damned yummy place over here by the office. 

I mean, I get a craving for it and I decided that, despite the fact I know that evil ass munch won’t give me the fortune cookie without a square off in the middle of the parking lot, I was going to go have me some tastey morsels of saucy goodness.

So, as usual, I go in, get my little styrofoam container, proceed to the buffet of happiness, load up my choices and go to the register to pay.  I set my container on the scale, as they charge for buffet to go by the pound.  This is where it the ugly gets on.

So, everything seems to be going smooth.  I’m mentally preparing for the fight for the fortune cookie.  I intend to win this time. 

“You need sauce or fork?” he asks me all smug like.

“Nope. But I want a Diet Pepsi,”  I tell him.

“Diet Pesi!” he calls out to the chick at the waitress station.

She totes it over and sets it on the counter as he rings me up. 

“That be $4.62,” he tells me.

UH OH!  Houston we have a problem.  Diva don’t carry cash.  Just something I don’t do.  It’s way too easy to use my debit card to have to fool around with dollars.

This ass munch “only takey the credit cawd fo ova fi dolla.”  Hasn’t he seen that VISA commercial that shows the world is officially going plastic???

Still yet, I try to slip it by him.  I pull out my debit card with VISA logo and push it toward him.

“We only take cawd fo purchase ova fi dolla,” he reminds me.

“Look guy, I don’t have any cash.  Well I have a handful of change in the bottom of my purse, but not enough,” I tell him as show him my empty wallet.

“You always can get another drink take wif you,” he tells me.

“Uh, no. You can run my card or I’ll have to leave it,” I tell him, now pissed.

“Well, I not running cawd.  You get cash, come back,” he tells me.

“OK, fine!”  So, I walk out the door.  No lunch, no friggin fortune cookie, and definitely no balls to tell him what he could do with his no useless carton of to-go.

God Bless Taco Bell.  They’ll takey my debit card for an eighty-nine cent bean burrito.

There is a tasty little Chinese Food place here in Oak Ridge that does take out from the buffet.  It’s very good; it’s always fresh, and super-dooper tasty! (Not to mention they always score well when the pesky healthy inspector happens to drop in unannounced).

Now our office has been in Oak Ridge for a many moons and my boss and I have traveled many miles, many times to partake of this sweet and sour plethora of tastiness.

They have garlic beef w/broccoli, sweet n sour chicken, general tsao chicken, and my personal favorite - mixed spicy vegetable. 

I go so often that when I walk in the door, the little dude says, “Ahh.  To go, right?”, and hands me my little environment-killing-Styrofoam container with which I am set free into the pasture of goodness.

I’ll graze for a few minutes, making my choices wisely.  I wander over to the sauces and get a nice ladle full of that hot-ass mustard (yah, that stuff that when you get it in your mouth it makes your eyes water and your nose run… that stuff that makes you beg Jesus for forgiveness for eating something so friggin hot).

All sounds like a beautiful lunchtime excursion in the making, yah?  Well, no.  I love the food at this place.  It’s marvy, but the folks that run the place and work there make me more nervous than a cat in a room full of rockin chairs…

So, my selections are made, my mouth starting to water. I close up my little lunch box that still has steam pouring out the sides.  I carry it to the front, so as to pay for it.   Let the uncomfortable state of affairs begin. 

FLASHBACK…

Now I don’t know if I’m just traumatized from being married to a man who’s mother and all of her friends are Korean and you know they talk about you in their language while you’re standing there… All the while they are looking at you, nodding their heads, laughing and smiling as the chatter on…   Bring on the cold sweat… I know those bitches were talking smack and plotting my untimely demise by way of extra spicy food.

Anyway… I am going towards the front to obtain my chopsticks, Diet Pepsi to go and to pay.  When I notice the gaggle of them standing there… looking my way…. giggling like school girls…    The skank at the cash register keeps covering her mouth and saying “sorry, sorry.”

Now the next phase of pissing me off at the tastiest place in Oak Ridge is as follows:

Don’t you expect to get a friggin fortune cookie when you have Chinese food?  I mean, you eat in, they bring you the bill with a fortune cookie.  You call for take-out, you go pick up and pay, in the bag you get your fortune cookie.

Well, not here. I think it’s just this guy’s way to annoy me.  A kind of battle of the wits.  He ain’t giving me no fortune cookie unless I ask for the fortune cookie.  And even then, it’s iffy if the fucker puts it in the bag. 

I’d start screaming to give me my fortune cookie or I’m going across the street to Wok ‘n’ Roll.  But those guys suck big balls and I hate their food, generally greasy as hell and cold…. but they give Diva her fortune cookie without her having to beg.

It’s funny to me when someone who you thought of as a friend will put money in front of friendship. Personally, I think that this leads you down the road to a very crappy worldview. But it is somewhat interesting to see how people will act over the essence of probable money. It can turn pseudo-friend into worse that foe; former lovers into insult slinging buffoons or business partners into vicious tax collectors. Unfortunately for me this is an overly large let down. For love of God, you would think that the loss of a loved or the end of ties one would cause all parties involved to want to remember the happy memories of the passed. Never would it drive a wedge between friends or even those you considered almost like family.

Why the reason for the sudden cutting of ties? Simply because one person received something from a loved one that was not a member of his or her biological family. This very seldom thing occurs when debt that should have vanished and be non-existent or sheer greed takes over the body. Now a person in this situation must deal with the repercussions of their own poor decision in order to fulfill a desperate need for attention. It is as if they never got enough time, money, or caring sentiments from anyone. (Which a majority of the other people involved know to be false.)

Second example, the insult slinging buffoon, however is also very similar in behavior to the scum sucking relative. He or she will differ in that during the separation process, he or she will sling names at your friends, family, and your own person. I for instance have become a “vindictive, selfish, unloving, unmotivated, immoral, c*#$sucking a$$hole.”

If I had not realized that this was coming from an insensitive, psychopathic, and lying cesspool of a person I would be taken aback.  I hate when a lover-ship sours like a nice white wine. At some point you never get what you invested. Nor do you come anywhere near close to where you started and it sucks the big one. By that point, the only thing unknown about the relationship is how long with the other party keep pestering you?

The worst candidate for pestering you is the business partner when that relationship goes sour. They are slightly more annoying since more of your personal finances tend to be tied into your business. In the same token there is fortunately more distance sometime since it is a legal partnership and can be broken with the assistance of a fabulous mediator. (Wonderful counselor, the prince of peace… well okay, maybe it’s not quite such a divine intervention, it just seems that way sometimes.)

Generally, the repercussions with any of these can (with my involved will,) end on a positive note. In the end the people who irritate or criticize me with no ground to stand on usually go away and leave me be. They quit calling, don’t e-mail, or write letters. Those who choose to drag it out, cause a scene, and raise a ruckus should seek professional help. Why not? Lord knows I will if I fall victim to dealing with any of these unpleasantries.

That is where we live. No, our politicians are not dictators, but the companies we work for are. They hold our lives in their hands and make decisions on a whim that can destroy us. And we have little recourse. In the state of Tennessee you can be fired for basicaly no reason.

I bring this up for one reason. It is a critique of the notion that if we give more money to the upper crust, it will mean that the rest of the population does better.

If we lived in a country of benevolent dictators this would be true. Unfortunately, as people get lots of wealth and power, they simply want more wealth and power and are less likely to share. They don’t spread it around, they hoard it.

How many companies or bosses have you worked for that pushed you to work more for less and tried to see how far they could go before they made you quit? They didn’t value your ability to make the company better by sharing the wealth you were making for them. They simply used you to make more for them and when you became too squeaky a wheel, they dumped you for someone they could pay less.

This is how most companies are run. The people who do the work that make the money are undervalued, while the people at the top keep getting bigger heads and thinking the only thing that matters to the company is their brilliant leadership which means they deserve more money. They can keep replacing workers. They can keep treating them poorly. They can keep taking more and giving less.

It’s a matter of the human psyche and how money and power corrupts the mind into false flattery. It leads to a nation of distinct and distant strata.

In an ideal world, it would mean that as the companies got bigger and more profitable, everyone would make more money and be better off. Instead, the top layer gets more and more and the bottom layers stay the same and slide back. And the bigger the company, the more extreme the concentration at the top, and the more large the chasm below.

The Republicans have been in control for a good 12 years. The stock market is soaring to new records. But, most of the people I know are making less money and are more worried about their future. Crime is rising, in particular, robbery and burglary, which is a sign of hard times. 12 years and this is where we are. How do you feel about your future?

     Ya know, I got a little depressed earlier this year.  Inevitable divorce, family issues, the realization that I’ve done every damn thing that I’ve ever wanted to do EXCEPT be an Astronaut and hike to Macchu Picchu…

     Then I got over that.

     Still plenty of time. 

     Then I read EM’s blog… Whatta buncha bastards.

     I mean, damn!  I could get my tickets for $498 through BWIA.  Surely that’s not a costly sum when there’s a death in the “family.”

     Kinda reminds me of when Carter got up to bash Bush at Coretta King’s funeral (thanks, Sam!).