Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Getting Back to Work
I was getting tired of the look of SunFyre. This template isn't much better, but at least it's fresh. I'm trying to get back in the mood for writing. Writing for me is usually a daily process, but I took over two weeks off. I was sick.
Things were just starting to go good for me, and I started to forget I am disabled. God needed to remind me, apparently. My kids had been coughing for two weeks, then they gave it to me.
Here's a long drawn out story.
Tuesday I ran a fever. Wednesday I felt like crap. Thursday morning I was on the road to recovery.
Then the power went out.
I thought it was typical stuff in my rural community. A car hits a telephone pole, and the power goes out for 45 minutes, then it returns. (Around here, they call electricity "power" or "lights". If you've lived here a long time, you say "The lights are auten.")
After 30 minutes, my battery backups from my computers start to fail. Around 40 minutes I am officially out of business until the "lights are back".
About 3 1/2 hours later I called the electric company to find out that it wasn't my entire neighborhood, it was just me. Apparently we were late with the electric bill, and the local electric company doesn't mess around in April. I paid the bill, $222.50, by telephone. They refused to reconnect the service for 24 hours. (By the way, during the winter my electric bill averages $600 per month.) Now I'm mad.
Partially, I am mad the electric company. Partially, I'm mad at my wife who decided in her infinite wisdom that she would only pay half the bill this month because we were expecting a large tax payment April 15.
Thursday afternoon I'm trying to get ahold of the Pennsylvania Utility Commission to file a complaint because the electric company didn't believe a shutoff notice on the premises, which is required by law.
That's when I noticed my cat was sick. Very sick.
She hides behind a little table in my office sometimes. There was a foul odor. Very foul.
I moved the little table and found my cat laying in her own urine and feces, laboring to breathe.
About that time my children arrived home, Jason with a temperature well over 100 and a cough that sounded like a coal miner who smokes too much.
Kristen came home and we rushed the cat to the vet, and my sister-in-law took Jason to the doctor.
Three hours later we are still sitting in the veterinarian's office, and I'm freezing. The air-conditioning was extremely low. My fever has returned and I'm sitting there shivering. I'm getting angry at the three fat women who worked in the vet's office. I'm sorry if it's rude to say that fat women require extra air-conditioning, but now I'm really angry, and they were really fat.
They ran about $500 worth of tests to find nothing wrong. Apparently, the cat had a fever too, and that's all they could identify. She was bad enough however that they wanted to hospitalize her. He gave her some antibiotics and I think the three fat ladies said a prayer. (Whatever they did, it worked and she's fine now.)
Now I'm sad, angry, freezing and sweating at the same time.
We picked up the kids. (They gave Jason an antibiotic and said some prayers. I'm not sure if the nurses were fat.) We took the kids home to our very dark and increasingly chilly house. I let the kids sleep in the living room because it was the only room that gets light from the street. Two 5-year-olds in zero night lights means a bedtime battle. I wasn't up for the fight, so we had a "campout". Ainsley was mad because we couldn't make s'mores. I was mad because all I had was warm tunafish. (My kids ate with their aunt.)
Friday morning we had to use a battery-powered alarm clock. I'm used to waking up with Drew's Crew on the radio. (He kind of sucks, but it's the only radio station for about 100 miles that isn't Country or Christian, or both.)
Instead, I wake up to something it sounds like a car alarm. It literally scares me so bad I inhale that disgusting phlegm that accumulates during the night in your mouth. It kind of tastes like my cat smelled yesterday.
Anyhow, that bacteria laden sputum shot directly into my left lung. I promptly coughed it out, the phlegm, not the lung. But apparently one sole bacterium decided to set up shop. Within a few hours, the electricity had returned, but I'm throwing globs of yellow gunk out with every third breath. By Saturday morning I'm on antibiotics and I'm beginning to smell.
A little history.
Now it's 2008. I started thinking that maybe this was my next bout of once-per-decade pneumonia. I'm already a year overdue. Now, unfortunately, my schedule is far too filled to arrange a funeral for myself. I can die now, I have a mortgage. Again a different kind of spiritual healing, this one driven by a mountain of debt on a guy who can't get life insurance because some doctor told my parents I should've been dead 35 years ago.
So I decided to get better. I took time off work. I coughed when I needed to cough. I drank lots of hot tea and apple juice. I took my medicine. And I slept about 16 hours a day. By the end of the week I was better and my wife was ready to kill me.
I'm back to work now, and writing more. Last night we paid our bills, and the first check I wrote... to the gas company... $1113.95. The second check was to the mortgage company... $1417.95. There is something sick about utilities that cost more than your home per month.
Well, I'm feeling better. Thanks for enduring my long story.
Things were just starting to go good for me, and I started to forget I am disabled. God needed to remind me, apparently. My kids had been coughing for two weeks, then they gave it to me.
Here's a long drawn out story.
Tuesday I ran a fever. Wednesday I felt like crap. Thursday morning I was on the road to recovery.
Then the power went out.
I thought it was typical stuff in my rural community. A car hits a telephone pole, and the power goes out for 45 minutes, then it returns. (Around here, they call electricity "power" or "lights". If you've lived here a long time, you say "The lights are auten.")
After 30 minutes, my battery backups from my computers start to fail. Around 40 minutes I am officially out of business until the "lights are back".
About 3 1/2 hours later I called the electric company to find out that it wasn't my entire neighborhood, it was just me. Apparently we were late with the electric bill, and the local electric company doesn't mess around in April. I paid the bill, $222.50, by telephone. They refused to reconnect the service for 24 hours. (By the way, during the winter my electric bill averages $600 per month.) Now I'm mad.
Partially, I am mad the electric company. Partially, I'm mad at my wife who decided in her infinite wisdom that she would only pay half the bill this month because we were expecting a large tax payment April 15.
Thursday afternoon I'm trying to get ahold of the Pennsylvania Utility Commission to file a complaint because the electric company didn't believe a shutoff notice on the premises, which is required by law.
That's when I noticed my cat was sick. Very sick.
She hides behind a little table in my office sometimes. There was a foul odor. Very foul.
I moved the little table and found my cat laying in her own urine and feces, laboring to breathe.
About that time my children arrived home, Jason with a temperature well over 100 and a cough that sounded like a coal miner who smokes too much.
Kristen came home and we rushed the cat to the vet, and my sister-in-law took Jason to the doctor.
Three hours later we are still sitting in the veterinarian's office, and I'm freezing. The air-conditioning was extremely low. My fever has returned and I'm sitting there shivering. I'm getting angry at the three fat women who worked in the vet's office. I'm sorry if it's rude to say that fat women require extra air-conditioning, but now I'm really angry, and they were really fat.
They ran about $500 worth of tests to find nothing wrong. Apparently, the cat had a fever too, and that's all they could identify. She was bad enough however that they wanted to hospitalize her. He gave her some antibiotics and I think the three fat ladies said a prayer. (Whatever they did, it worked and she's fine now.)
Now I'm sad, angry, freezing and sweating at the same time.
We picked up the kids. (They gave Jason an antibiotic and said some prayers. I'm not sure if the nurses were fat.) We took the kids home to our very dark and increasingly chilly house. I let the kids sleep in the living room because it was the only room that gets light from the street. Two 5-year-olds in zero night lights means a bedtime battle. I wasn't up for the fight, so we had a "campout". Ainsley was mad because we couldn't make s'mores. I was mad because all I had was warm tunafish. (My kids ate with their aunt.)
Friday morning we had to use a battery-powered alarm clock. I'm used to waking up with Drew's Crew on the radio. (He kind of sucks, but it's the only radio station for about 100 miles that isn't Country or Christian, or both.)
Instead, I wake up to something it sounds like a car alarm. It literally scares me so bad I inhale that disgusting phlegm that accumulates during the night in your mouth. It kind of tastes like my cat smelled yesterday.
Anyhow, that bacteria laden sputum shot directly into my left lung. I promptly coughed it out, the phlegm, not the lung. But apparently one sole bacterium decided to set up shop. Within a few hours, the electricity had returned, but I'm throwing globs of yellow gunk out with every third breath. By Saturday morning I'm on antibiotics and I'm beginning to smell.
A little history.
In 1977 I got pneumonia for the first time. Pneumonia can be life-threatening to people with my disability. I was seven years old, and my parents figured it had probably overstayed my welcome already. Originally, doctors only told my parents to expect four or five years.
In 1987, I got pneumonia for the second time. I was hospitalized, but had the will to survive. It wasn't the will placed in me by God, it was the desire to complete high school, (I graduated that year) go to college and get laid. The healing power of the vagina was drawing me ever closer.
In 1997, engaged to Kristen, I got pneumonia for the third time. I'm laying there in the hospital feeling half dead. Kristen starts to explain to me how she'd already got a fantastic dress, and I wasn't allowed to screw this up for her! Again, the healing power of the vagina. Or maybe, it was just nagging. I'm always amazed at how much we can accomplish simply by being nagged by our wives.
Now it's 2008. I started thinking that maybe this was my next bout of once-per-decade pneumonia. I'm already a year overdue. Now, unfortunately, my schedule is far too filled to arrange a funeral for myself. I can die now, I have a mortgage. Again a different kind of spiritual healing, this one driven by a mountain of debt on a guy who can't get life insurance because some doctor told my parents I should've been dead 35 years ago.
So I decided to get better. I took time off work. I coughed when I needed to cough. I drank lots of hot tea and apple juice. I took my medicine. And I slept about 16 hours a day. By the end of the week I was better and my wife was ready to kill me.
I'm back to work now, and writing more. Last night we paid our bills, and the first check I wrote... to the gas company... $1113.95. The second check was to the mortgage company... $1417.95. There is something sick about utilities that cost more than your home per month.
Well, I'm feeling better. Thanks for enduring my long story.
Labels: health, marriage, pets
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Chivalry Is Not Dead
Men, we need to prove to women of the world that chivalry is not dead. As this Russian video clearly displays, it is our duty as men to defend and protect our wives. If someone wrongs the woman that we love, it's our responsibility to right that wrong. I don't speak the language, but the video speaks the universal language of manliness. Enjoy.
Labels: Friday Funnies, marriage, videos
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
A Dream That Would Make Sigmund Freud Proud
I had a dream last night, a very weird dream. Here's the short version. Zombies were taking over the earth. A handful of us were trying to defend ourselves against the zombies. I know what you're thinking, sounds more like a bad movie than a dream that Sigmund Freud would find intriguing. Bear with me.So we have successfully defended ourselves from the zombies who could scratch or bite us, infecting our blood, ultimately leading us to join them in the realm of the undead.
That's when it happened a tiny horsefly landed on my ring finger of my left hand. It bit me and I realized that now my finger had become infected, because clearly the horsefly's last meal was on zombie flesh. That's when I got my friend, Peter Petrelli (yes, from the TV show "Heroes"), and told him he had to cut off my finger. Luckily there happen to be a brand-new Swiss Army knife handy, and I winced as he cut off my ring finger before the tainted blood could move my arm and zombify me.
I looked down at my wedding ring fell to the floor. I picked it up and realized I no longer had a finger on which to where it. I was debating on whether to wear on the other hand or on a chain around my neck when I awoke.
So how would Sigmund Freud interpret my dream? Probably something like (in a thick German accent) "SunFyre is being bothered by a spousal pest. He knows that if he allows this pest to infect him through marriage, eventually he will become a zombie."
Okay, maybe not.
Let's hear your dream interpretations. Post your comments below.
Labels: dreams, Heroes, marriage, zombies
Friday, October 26, 2007
Friday Funnies: The Pharmacist
A woman approaches the pharmacy counter and says "I'd like to buy some cyanide, please."
"Cyanide!" The pharmacist says, "why do you need cyanide, ma'am?"
"I'm going to poison my husband." she said matter-of-factly.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but I can't do that." The pharmacist explained, "poisoning your husband is illegal. I'd lose my license, and you would go to jail. I cannot give you cyanide."
He continued, "But may I ask, why is it that you want to kill your husband?"
She calmly showed the pharmacist to photograph of her husband in bed with the pharmacist's wife.
"Oh, I see. You didn't tell me you had a prescription."
Labels: Friday Funnies, marriage, murder
Friday, April 20, 2007
Friday Funnies: Men Are Just Happier People
(Submitted by my wife, Kristen... Thanks, Honey)
What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress~$5000. Tux rental~$100. People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks.
A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck.
Your belly usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair of shoes one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache. You can play with toys all your life. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.
No wonder men are happier.
What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress~$5000. Tux rental~$100. People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks.
A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck.
Your belly usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair of shoes one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache. You can play with toys all your life. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.
No wonder men are happier.
Labels: Friday Funnies, marriage, men, women
Friday, March 23, 2007
Friday Funnies: Marriage Counseling
Marriage Counseling Southern Style
Submit your Friday Funnies to funnies@sunfyre.com.
Earl and Bubba, two good ole boys from Dixie, are quietly sitting in a boat fishing, chewing, and drinking beer, when suddenly Bubba says, "I think I'm going to divorce my wife - she hasn't spoke to me in over 2 months."The Office Party
Earl spits, sips his beer and says, "You better think it over, women like that are hard to find.”
Jack wakes up with a huge hangover after attending his company's Office Party. He is not normally a drinker, but the drinks didn't taste like alcohol at all. He didn't even remember how he got home from the party. As bad as he was feeling, he wondered if he had done something wrong.
Jack had to force himself to open his eyes and the first thing he sees is a couple of aspirins next to a glass of water on the side table. Next to them, a single red rose! Jack sits up and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed. He looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean and so is the rest of the house.
He takes the aspirins, cringes when he sees a huge black eye staring back at him in the bathroom mirror.
Then he noticed a note hanging on the corner of the mirror written in red with little hearts on it and a kiss mark from his wife in lipstick: "Honey, breakfast is on the stove, I left early to get groceries to make you your favorite dinner tonight. I love you, darling! Love, Jillian"
He stumbles to the kitchen and sure enough, there is hot breakfast, steaming hot coffee and the morning newspaper. His son is also at the table, eating.
Jack asks, "Son, what happened last night?"
Well, you came home after 3 A.M., drunk and out of your mind. You fell over the coffee table and broke it and then you got sick in the hallway and got that black eye when you ran into the door.
Confused, he asked his son, "So, why is everything in such perfect order and so clean and I have a rose and breakfast is on the table waiting for me?"
His son replies, "Oh THAT! Mom dragged you to the bedroom and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed, "Leave me alone, I'm married!!"
Submit your Friday Funnies to funnies@sunfyre.com.
Labels: Friday Funnies, humor, marriage
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]