Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Lake Shiticaca and the Mastodon Titites

This weekend Sean went out of town for a boys weekend/fishing trip on the coast of North Carolina, and I'm happy to report that everything went smoothly without him here!

I'm joking of course.  Sean's plane wasn't even off the ground before our lives began to spiral out of control.  In a way, both of the disasters that occurred were related to our plumbing.

Sean was scheduled to leave for the airport at 2:30 pm, so naturally the main plumbing line to our house became plugged at exactly two o'clock. For those of you without a background in plumbing, something I learned this weekend is that, when someone says "the main line for the house" that's code for "even the toilets."  I made this discovery when I went downstairs to switch over a load of cloth diapers, and I noticed a large and foul smelling lake had formed on our basement floor.  I called Sean, who instantly said "it sounds like it's the main," and began the process of selecting a plumber that would work with our home warranty company, on a Friday evening, without price gouging us.  Meanwhile, I began the equally important task of selecting hilarious names for our newly formed basement estuary. Sean settled on "Mr. Rooter." I settled on "Lake Shiticaca."

Did you know that plumbers will come to your house at 7:00 pm on a Friday? I didn't either, but Mike from Mr. Rooter-- wherever you are-- I want you to know that, without you, I would have had to sail across lake Shiticaca all weekend just to do my laundry. I think you are as brave and heroic as any of our nation's Naval Officers, and if I ever see you again, I will make you a plate of cookies. Thank you for the service you provided to myself, my daughter, and my mother-in-law who was visiting for the weekend.  Without you, everything would have turned out to be a complete disaster, and even though it did anyways, that wasn't your fault.

Actually it was Millie's fault.  Or mine, or my boobs-- or something like that, because the second disaster that happened this weekend was that I developed Mastitis.  This is a condition that occurs in nursing mothers when their milk ducts become blocked.   The word Mastitis comes from the root Mast or Mastadon, because it feels like a Mastadon is trampling on your titty.  At one point this weekend, the thermometer read 103.3-- which isn't a scary number when applied to--for instance--radio stations, but is pretty dangerous when applied to fevers.  This is even scarier when the person who has this fever is responsible for keeping a tiny human alive. My symptoms involved uncontrollable shivering, fatigue, and headache (in addition to the mastodon trampled ta-tas described above.)

For you breastfeeding moms out there, if you are shivering uncontrollably and you think it's because your husband is on a fishing trip and is not in bed cuddling with you, and that's why you are so cold, and in unrelated news one of your titties is now the size of a high altitude weather ballon, and it's really starting to hurt, but it's probably no big deal, and the worst that can happen is that your husband will catch a Spanish Mackerel bigger than yours, then this is for you: SLAP. Wake up idiot.  You have Mastitis and are running a dangerous fever! Get your sorry ass out of bed and take your temperature!  Then, go to the doctor and hope to god that your mother-in-law is in town to hold your screaming baby in the waiting room.

Now that Tuesday has arrived I can look back on the events of our first weekend without Sean and laugh at them, because I survived Lake Shiticaca and the Mastodon Titties.  I feel totally fine, and there is not a single turd floating around my basement floor. It's all thanks to two people. I wish there were a radio station called "103.3, The Fever," so I could express my gratitude by calling in song dedications to them. For Mike at Mr. Rooter, the song I would dedicate would be "That Smell," by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and for my Mother-in-Law Deb, I would dedicate "Jungle Fever," or perhaps "Cry Baby Cry" by the Beatles.


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