It has been raining for 3 DAYS. Constantly. Now the awesome thing about this is that, since my darling pony fell on my leg in his misguided attempt to utterly destroy me, whenever it rains my leg starts aching. Since God (apparently) has finally gotten tired of people like Paris Hilton and Bear Grylls and has decided to flood the earth again, it has not stopped raining. Luckily for you this constant throbbing pain reminds me of the time when the family doctor thought I had rheumatoid arthritis.
When I went to preschool it was in a converted bomb shed on Quantico base. There were two of these structures, a red one and a green one. They were shaped like half cylinders. I am convinced the leftover energy from the bombs is why I can only remember running around shrieking like a banshee at recess and hating nap time because it cut into my shrieking time. I learned in the red one, which was obviously better because red symbolizes aggression, just like bombs.
Side note, my mother had to convince me everyday before preschool that the buttercups that grew on the playground, as though the devil himself was setting them out to tempt me, did not taste like butter. She had to re-convince me every day that they tasted like painful death by poison. I'm surprised I made it this far too.
Anyway, one of the best features of this age (besides preschool) were my nightly growing pains. I got them every night (hence the nightly) and I would wake my parents up and they would curse the day they had children. I am sure they would fondly reminisce about when they used to be able to sleep. I never, ever, even now, sleep all the way through the night. I did finally develop the ability to not wake people up in a misguided attempt to show them the magic of 3:30 in the morning. Which I am sure many people appreciate.
Finally, in a desperate attempt to spare themselves the agony of another night spent drugging me into a pain-free state of semi-consciousness, they took me to the doctor. Who (I imagine) looked up from his dirty magazine and screeched “rheumatoid arthritis!” before retreating to the relative safety of the sea where he could frolic un-molested with entire pods of wild doctors and sun himself on the deck of a yacht.
Since they had lost the doctor, they had to take me to a hospital. Hospitals are just large doctor aquariums, places for nurses to tag and release these wildly irrational sea-beasts. Always remember to bring a net of woven mermaid hair to trap your doctor long enough to ensure an adequate period of medical care and attention. Their skin will eventually secrete enough acid to erode away the net and allow them to escape into the harbor, which is why insurance is so expensive, but your health is worth it.
I recall this hospital as being full of zombie-esque people who were billions of miles taller than me. As well as doctors who looked positively ghostly in their flowing white robes. I also remember being there for at least a month, although i am told it was just long enough to get my blood drawn for tests.
And here we come to the truly magical part of the story. You see, I did not react to this traumatic event like a normal child. I know this because I talk to the boyfriend, who, and I am not making this up, is 24 and still gets tricked into several shots by his mother EVERY YEAR. (I imagine) She tells him something like “Darling, lets go get ice cream!” and he leaps into the car with glee. Then she stops at Walgreens, which is clearly advertising flu shots, tricks/threatens him out of the car, and they vaccinate him.
The first time it happened I was squealing with delight to the point where I couldn’t breathe and nearly died of happiness once he told me. This is because he is a large and manly hockey player with a beard, all of which suggest that he could get stuck with a harpoon and not bat an eyelash. He is also really fucking smart and frequently out-logics me because I am not amazing a logic/common sense due to my preference for book smarts and unicorns. But he gets tricked into a shot at least once a year! By the same person!
Here my was my reaction to getting a needle shoved into my arm and left there at age 4:
Me: “What do you think you are doing?!”
Young And Unsuspecting Medical Intern: “I need to take some of your blood to test you for a debilitating disease. It will only hurt for a second.”
Me: “I didn’t say you could do that.”
YAUMI: “Ummm… okay… Can I take some of your blood?” At this point he has the filled vial already and is probably looking for a quick escape.
Me: “No! That is MY BLOOD and no one asked me if they could take MY BLOOD!” I screamed it loudly enough that, apparently, I became the star of the clinic.
At this point my mother apologized to the nice YAUMI and took me away while I berated her for not getting my permission before drawing my blood and ensuring I wasn't going to live a short, pain-filled and tragic life. I’m sure she was charmed. There were no tears. Also there was no arthritis and I got a band-aid folded into the shape of a bunny.
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