Everyday is like MONDAY

"Did you read that shit?" my mom's text read.
"It sounded like ya'll watch out 'cuz I'll get your ass smited".
I love my mom.  I have decided that she is the only person on the planet that could possibly create that sentence.  Such a lovely mix of biblical SAT words and modern swearing and slang.

I laid sleeping in the hot bedroom, the hottest room of the entire house.  From far away, I heard the alarm.  Why the fuck was my alarm going off at 7:30 in the morning?  I don't even think the sun is up by then.  Oh God, that's right.  Hijo de la gran puta.  I had rescheduled Spider Pig for 8:00am.  Obviously not by choice, I was already weeks behind on my remove pins, follow up appointment and that was the only time I could get in before March.  I could barely open my eyes.  Lola was unconscious in her own warm sleep lethargy.  I turned the alarm off.  There was no way it was going to happen.

My step father is very ill.  It is frightening.  And it is taxing the hell out of my mom.  I don't like it.

I applied for forbearance on my student loans.  I have never had to do that before.  It is embarrassing to talk finances, but mine are bad.   I have a pile of medical bills that I shove under the microwave.  I am constantly floating and skimming to pay all the other shit.  It appears that my teaching position will go full time next year and a second full time position is opening up.  No one has told me if I will officially be in either position.  It makes me nervous. 

I was hugging Lola.  Maybe I shouldn't bother going to the appointment.  All they were going to do was X-ray the bone again.  It had to be healing, so what was the point?  But, what if, what if, what if?  I walked Lola, put some dirty clothes on and went into my 8:00 appointment at 9:15.

"Your name?" the receptionist asked.
"Hilary Wagner.  I'm late for my nine o'clock appointment".
She typed for a minute.
"You were supposed to be here at eight".
"Really?  I thought I was only fifteen minutes late" I answered.  Then I just stood there.  I wait hours for Spider Pig no matter if I am on time or not.  It's like the DMV in there. 
"We'll work you in".

I read my phone and some People magazines.  A nurse called me back quickly.
"I need a urine sample" she said strictly.
"Why?"
"Painkillers, you're on painkillers"
"I had surgery two months ago.  I never even took the painkillers".
"Oh, okay" she answered me, eying me warily.
I read some more People. 

"Oh my God, Lola destroyed her crate, there is poo everywhere.  Dogs do NOT do that unless they are sick!"  Hadley's text read.  I was worried. I had been worried.  I called the vet in between classes.
"Sorry you guys, it's an emergency," I called to the class as they walked in.

I raced to the vet in Alec's car.  Mine is still broken.  Lola's bros at the vet held her tightly while they stuck a stick up her butt.  She tolerated it well, but the SECOND stick up her butt tested her patience.  It was all good, no worms or anything else.  Just a week long diet of chicken and rice and antibiotics.  And almost two hundred dollars.  I wrote the check, knowing that the one I wrote for the window she broke would bounce.

She and I walked around the corner after a good, pre-work walk.  I saw someone coming and paused.  Lola likes to jump up and kiss people she doesn't know, rubbing her muddy paws on their clothes and nearly knocking them down.  I was surprised that it was my neighbor.   And her new rescue German Shepard that does nothing but bark at Lola every time she is outside.  Or inside for that matter.  Against my better instincts, I let Lola approach the dog, and the dog approach her.  Lola lowered her head while the German Shepard sniffed her face and ears.  Lola smelled its butt.  Then she growled in a way that I knew was trouble.  I pulled her back.  Both dogs started barking loudly.
"I have to turn her around.  She's funny about other dogs" I called.
My neighbor continued talking casually as if nothing was wrong.  I wrestled with Lola.
"I really need to go" I called.
"We need to just leave them alone together.   They'll work things out!".
I turned and left.  Where, in the small confined space that you call a yard that is also your dog's territory?  Surrounded by a three foot fence that Lola could jump over in her sleep?  Yeah, let's leave a Pit Bull and a German Shepard that are showing aggression alone together.  Sounds great. 

"The bone is healing as it should, but you need a new brace for your hand.  Your finger won't stop bending".  Spider Pig informed me.
"Come back in a month.  You don't have full mobility".
I went over to physical therapy.
"What'd he say?" the physical therapist asked when I walked in.

I watched a few people in the office slowly doing their exercises.  A hip man that looked like Spike Lee pushed a towel up and down the wall.  My eye fell on a second man that was moving slowly.  He looked broken.  I didn't know if it was his shoulder, his back, what it was.  He could walk, but things were at strange angles.  He wore a dark stocking cap that was nearly the same color of his skin.  It went down below his eyebrows.  He reminded me of that character in 'Fat Albert' that had a stocking cap for eyes.  Except he was old.

"I have to keep seeing him.  He told me to do the same things that you make me do.  And I have to come back in a month".
"I've been pushing on it!" he said, exasperated.
"I know.  It hurts". I responded.
"I don't know why I have to keep going to him".

And then... all hell broke loose

I punched the gas pedal and ran through my second red light.  My phone said 1:55.  That meant the bell would ring for my class in three minutes.  I wasn't even in the building. I was on the road.

I guess I should rewind.

Alec and I were watching TV.  Lola peacefully stared out of the window in the Conservatory, the most beautiful room in our house.  She sits on a chair in the Victorian bay window for hours, watching the world go by.  I heard a loud noise.  I knew what had happened and started running, screaming her name.  The window was broken like a spider web, a large dagger shaped piece, missing.  I saw the window and grabbed Lola. 

I wanted to see her feet.  The fucking window was already broken. 

Lola watches the world in the Conservatory, but from time to time, a rabbit or cat will run through the yard.  She bangs on the window with her hands.  On that old, hundred year old glass.  I stop her, but have been fearing the moment that the glass might break.  I had a nightmare that she jumped straight through the window and broke it, running free into the world. 

Her foot was bleeding.  Alec and I put her in the tub and rinsed it off.  We poured peroxide on it and I applied Neosporin.  The bleeding was not too bad, but she had a long gash along her toe.  Lola was agitated, pacing.  Wound up.  I was too.  We sat in the TV room half of the night.  I petted her and got her to lay down and got drunk.

My alarm went off.  I had to go to physical therapy for my finger and to Spider Pig to get it X-rayed again.  Lola pulled closer to me, pushing her back against my chest and stretching her neck up to my neck.  I hugged her.  It was gray and raining.  I put plastic over the broken window and called the doctors to tell them I wasn't coming.  And then, I laid down and hugged my dog. 

I got up at 12:30.  I needed to leave by 1:25.  Lola laid on the bed, licking her wounded foot.  I got ready.  Yeah, I had blown off the doctors but was going to be early for work.  I took Lola for a pee and let her settle into her crate.  I set the alarm, grabbed my coffee, and went out to my car.

As I stood in the driveway, I heard an alarm going off.  Was it...my house?  I walked closer and realized it was and ran inside and turned it off.  The alarm company would call in a minute.  MOTHERFUCKER.   I stood there and waited, watching the clock, knowing I would be late.  Finally, I grabbed the phone.  The battery was dead.  I couldn't have heard a ring even if they called.  I dug through the drawers, trying to find the number of the alarm company.  Lola was howling and whimpering, terrified.  I locked the door and left, phone in my hand and calling everyone I knew to come to my house.  My dog was afraid and I left her alone.  If the police came, they would see that broken window and think something had happened.  They could kick the door in. 

I had called my sister.  She had a migraine and wasn't answering her phone.
"Mom!"  I screamed into the phone, tearing right out of the Krog tunnel. 
"I need help!".

I ran down the hallway as the bell rang.  The kids were in the room.  I was surprised.  They were sitting calmly and the woman that had taught the previous class had remained with them. 
"Oh my God, thank you" I said to her.
"Hey guys, thanks for your patience.  Here's your warm-up, I'll be back in two minutes, I have to get your test off of my desk downstairs and then I'll tell you everything".
My phone started ringing.
"Get a late pass!"  the students called, "and turn your phone in!"
Holly had warded off the cops and taken care of Lola.  I was almost hyperventilating.  The kids did their test and gave me no problem.  I went home and set up a bunch of make-up doctor's appointments and called my good bro to fix the window.

I walked out this morning to go to work, determined that things would go better.  My car wouldn't start.  I was parked BEHIND Alec's car.  He and I pushed my fucker car into the street and I rolled it into the grass and took his car.  I was speeding again.

I had ten minutes to make copies of the test, drop my shit off at my desk and run up three flights of stairs.  I made it with time to spare.

My finger was pulsing, veins bulging and red.  The physical therapist held it, crunching it into a fist.  My feet were tapping and I was sitting up straight.  It fucking hurt. 
"Five more seconds" he told me. 
He released it.

"I think in two more weeks you'll be able to push it into a fist" he informed me.
"But the knuckle, it still has some fluid in it, it might not get much smaller, it might get smaller, but it will take a while, a long while".
It is bigger than my thumb.  It looks like my big toe.
"How do you say 'does your back hurt' in Spanish?" he asked the family member of another lady who he was working on.

"Le duele la espalda" I answered, and kept doing my stretches.

And Many More

I unwrapped the mummy hand.  Holly looked at it carefully.  I had had it with these stupid doctors and was ready to use my hand again.  We pulled the wires out.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  My finger looked a bit weird and swollen and crooked, but it was okay.

I drove to the west side of Atlanta, way out by the Holmes MARTA station.  Anything with 'Holmes' in the title tends to be a bit sketchy.  I spotted the Department of Labor in the run-down parking lot and pulled in.  I felt sheepish. 
"Hey!" a brisk walking man called.
"You unemployed too?!"
It oddly put me at ease.
"Well, underemployed and THAT is NOT enough!" I called back.
"I'm telling you!" he agreed.
"But we are going to be alright.  The jobs will come back and we will be fine".
"Thank you for saying so".
"It's Jehovah's word" he answered, still smiling and walking briskly. 

The doctor unwrapped the mummy hand.  Thick hunks of skin were peeling off of the splinted fingers.  Flaky orange skin covered the rest of my hand.  It was disgusting.  After my X-ray, the nurse guided me into a suspicious looking room and laid out some gloves and iodine.  The doctor walked in, carrying a pair of pliers. 
"Um, looks like the wires are coming out?"  I asked Spider Pig. 
"Yup they are," he answered, "one, two, three".
I could hear and feel the wire scraping against the bone.  I didn't realize it was imbedded inside, I thought it was just like, well, a guide.  It hurt as it exited.  The wire was about two inches long. 
"One, two, three" he continued.  I didn't say anything. 
The second wire was like getting your second ear pierced.  You're scared now and you know it's going to hurt.  The hand really did look just like in my dream, weird and swollen and crooked.  The wires hurt more in reality than when Holly pulled them out.  And, my finger was about as thick as my big toe and would not move an inch.  Actually, not even a quarter of an inch.  It is a claw.  A toe shaped claw.  

"Don't worry, Ms. Wagner, I got you," a big, silly student boy professed as I walked in the classroom.  He was standing by the door.  The bell rang. 
"Happy birthday to you!!!"  the kids shrieked.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU !!!!"
My big silly boy student blinked the lights on and off, in lieu of a light show.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MS. WAGNER, happy birthday to you.....".
 

de puta madre

I sat in the medical center's parking lot, looking at the little machine that might open the gate if I put money in it.  Not credit cards.  Real money, the green stuff, something that I haven't held in my hands for quite a while now.  I backed up, waving some a-hole in a giant SUV to go ahead of me.  I had to think.

I raced home.  Lola's dog walker had an issue and I knew she had been in her crate a really long time.  I pushed the petal down on my hooptie, frantic.

I don't really want to give you real numbers about my personal finances.  It's just kind of embarrassing and seems inappropriate.  Let's just say when my insurance went up eight dollars per paycheck at the beginning of the year, I felt it.  Today, when I saw sixteen dollars more per paycheck gone, because of the 2% payroll tax increase, I sort of freaked out.  That's almost fifty dollars a month.  That is really a lot for me right now.

I entered the house and ran back to our room.  Lola's bed was torn to pieces and she was sitting in pee.  I was horrified.  Lola has never pissed her bed.  She couldn't hold it, and then destroyed the area.  She smelled like pee.  Everything smelled like pee.  She would need a new bed.  Motherfuckers.  My poor dog.  

I could go inside and look for an ATM.  But even if there was one, I knew I didn't have twenty dollars in my account and that I would overdraw it, costing me more money.  I drove around the parking lot.  I had thought that I had seen a gate that looked totally moveable near one end.  I drove toward it, clandestinely.  The gate had a big chain around it.  FUCK.  Hijo de la pinche gran puta. 

I walked from one class to the next, in these odd shoes that I thought might help my formerly sore and broken foot.  I felt the sole slip off and start flapping, loose.  MOTHERFUCKER.

The next day, I received a text from Lola's dog walker that she was ill.  Everyone is.  She wanted to know if she should get someone else to walk Lola.  YES, I texted back.  I knew I couldn't get back, I was at work.  I tried to check in later.  My phone battery was dead. I entered the house, hopeful.  It smelled like dog shit.  Alec walked up from outside with Lola.
"She was sitting in her crate all day with shit!  No one came!"
My poor dog, sitting in a cage next to SHIT all day.  A la fucking chingada. MOTHERFUCKER!

I looked at the low curb of the parking lot.  My '97 Mazda has driven from Atlanta to Tijuana, both ways.  It has been from Tijuana to Los Cabos, both ways.  It has done insanely secret, off road things in the Arizona desert.  It dodged every sinkhole in Tijuana, or muscled right through it.  I drove over the curb, through the grass and between the trees, turned my signal on and carefully pulled into traffic. It was liberating.

Suck your four dollars that I didn't have anyway. 

More Fun in the New Year

"Spider Pig!  Spider Pig!  Does whatever a Spider Pig does....".
The doctor abruptly stopped looking at my gnarled finger and answered his cell phone, bringing his interesting ringtone to a halt.

I looked at my hand.  They had unwrapped and un-splinted it, allowing me to see the effects of the surgery in their full glory.  It looked like a shriveled mummy hand, dry and orange-ish with marks all over its skin from the cast.  My pinky finger was covered with black bruises and the big star, my broken ring finger, still shifted unnaturally to the right.  It was hugely swollen and two large wires stuck out of it right below the knuckle.  I couldn't move either finger.

Alec's mom and sister came to visit us for a few days.  On their last evening here, they treated us to an expensive dinner in Buckhead, Atlanta's version of uptown.  As we were being seated, I heard a really loud burp from the table next to ours.  I was kind of shocked, this wasn't just any burp, it was like a frat boy challenge. I felt like I was about to start laughing and tried to keep my eyes from the source:  an older man that was sitting with a female companion.  Both seemed completely nonplussed.

The doctor returned, without explanation. 
"Hmm, it has rotated," he said, refering to the odd angle of my finger.  The 'Peanuts" theme music started roaring from his phone this time.
"Is that your ringtone?!" I asked, loudly.  He looked at me without smiling and walked out of the room, while answering his phone again.
I examined my hand some more and thought of the five hundred dollar bill the doctor had submitted to my insurance company for my first office visit.  I began to wonder if this little man could answer his phone on his own time.
He returned again, without explanation.
"Well, what I'm going to do," he said, grabbing my broken finger, wires and all,
"is push it this way," he continued, shoving my finger into a straighter position,
"and tape it to this!" he finished, splinting and taping my broken finger to my pinky.
Electric waves of pain shot through my hand and arm while he completed his project.
"You have a low pain threshold" he stated critically, while re-wrapping my mummy hand.
"You have an ugly phone and a stupid ringtone" I thought back.
"You are very anxious about this hand" he stated in the same disparaging tone, after informing me that I was losing mobility in all of the fingers on my left hand and would need to do exercises in order to avoid having a permanent claw for a hand.  

The food was delicious.  As I took the second bite of my salad, I heard another cacophonous burp. Alec's sister and I locked eyes.  Who the fuck does that?  He let out another, mini-burp that would be extraordinary for a normal person.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"Oh my God," Alec's sister said lowly, "if he doesn't stop, I don't know, I might have to say something to the waiter!". 

I raced back to school to teach my next class.  My hand was throbbing.  I didn't know it then, but it was only going to get worse.

"I hate to say it, Ms. Wagner, but I think you're going to end up with a mangled hand" Deandre stated solemnly, shaking her head back and forth, after her class asked me about my afternoon's events. 
"That man's crazy". 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

"They never did nothin'," the man muttered over and over again, "the children, those poor children".
I looked up at him as he wheeled me on a gurney through the hospital to the operating room.
He stared off for a minute while he rolled me into the elevator.  I thought maybe he wouldn't talk anymore, or talk about something else.
"Those children, how?  How?" he began again.
"Yeah..." I said tepidly.  It was unspeakable, but I had no idea how to convey that and every attempt I made sounded inadequate, or almost fake.  It was like when you find out from your boss that another employee was caught stealing and you feel like everything you say is a lie, even though you know you didn't do anything.  

The I.V. in my hand was throbbing, swelling and bruised.  It had been there for hours and was more uncomfortable than the hand they were about to operate on.   My ass was sticking out of the back of the gown and nakedly sitting on the gurney sheets, not matter how many times I tried to arrange things.  I still don't know why hand surgery required underwear, off.

"You know, there are those 47%ers that live off the rest of us, on ENTITLEMENTS" the nurse stated, shortly after telling me that she had herpes.  I was guessing that she didn't even know what 'entitlement' meant.  I smiled weakly.  I wasn't getting into this with her.  I just wished she would realize that it was inappropriate.  Actually, more inappropriate than talking about downstairs herpes, as far as I was concerned.  She brought it up a few more times throughout my six hour wait for surgery.  I continued to smile weakly and think of all the 'entitlements' she was probably taking advantage of: Old Pell grants that she used to get her R.N., mortgage interest write offs, tuition deductions for kids, health care costs.  As well as the real freebies:  SOCIAL SECURITY and impending MEDICARE!  I actually liked her though.  She was a stone cold cracker that kept offering me Valium, just to 'take the edge off'.  I said "no thank you" politely, anticipating anesthesia and pain killers.

"Hey!" a number of jovial people asked me,  wearing colorful headgear.
"What's your name?  Your birthday?  What's getting operated on!?"
I impressed them with my fascinatingly correct answers until the doctor finally came and wrote 'yes' on the finger that he was going to operate on. 
"Bring her my cocktail!" chief crazy headgear wearing anesthesiologist announced.
"So, is this like a pain killer or the stuff that will put me under?" I asked, as one of the crew injected a syringe into one of the outlets on my I.V.
"You are going to laugh like crazy for a second and then you'll be out" he answered.
I felt fucked up for a minute. 'Mother's Milk' I thought, thinking of the term the cracker nurse used to describe the 'cocktail' that they would be using on me. 

I woke up in the same place that I had fallen asleep in.  An ill fitting oxygen mask hovered over my face.  A large cast and wrap covered my left hand.  My I.V. had been moved and was pierced into the outside of my forearm.  I realized I was sporting a very off the shoulder look with my gown, the neck had been spread out and wires were attached to sticky things.  Someone pulled them off and helped me not be so, er, naked, and rolled me back to the cracker nurse. 

My mom was waiting for me, having sat with me all day without biting her tongue off, trying not to go at Romney nurse.  I found out that an hour and a half had passed.  It was dark outside.  The nurse reminded us that we could leave when we wanted.  I could hardly stand and stumbled into my clothes.  I was actually relieved when they brought a wheel chair to take me outside. 

I sat in the bathtub the next morning, trying to get ready for work.  Hideous bruises lined my I.V. arm, dark, black and yellow ones.  My surgery arm was bathed in a strange orange substance that wouldn't wash off.  Skin was missing where some sort of tape had been removed.  I splashed water on myself. Under my surgery arm, some weird electroprobe thing remained.  I ripped it off and threw it on the floor.  Along with the tape and cotton that covered yet another black I.V. bruise. 

Then, I went to work. 

The Grady's

"When are you going to get your cast off?" one of my students asked.
"It seems like its been on forever".
You're telling me.  Large, clunky, difficult to maneuver.  Beautiful weather wasted by mandatory sitting on ass for seven weeks.  Watching my dog whimper and stare through the window.  I whimper too sometimes.  But just a little.

"She can tell mommy's off her game!" the dog trainer said enthusiastically, pointing at my cast.
"Why are her eyes turning so red?" I asked, trying to calm Lola.
"She's just wound up, she's choking herself!"
I looked at Lola, tethered by her leash in a corner while the other dogs went through their training.  I started crying. 
We slept close that night and many nights after, Lola's neck stretched across mine while I hugged her in my sleep.

"Can you explain the difference between preparing an ordinary, American new teacher as opposed to an international teacher to understand your school?"  I asked again.
"Well, we have New Teacher Orientation" the interviewee responded.
Click.  That was all I could think.  Click.  Your Fulbright adventure has now come to an end.

My doctor grabbed the outside of my purse, dramatically.  
"Is my phone vibrating?" I asked, alarmed.
"Where's your other shoe?" he asked, smiling.
"Are you kidding?" I asked, incredulous.
I was thrilled.

He wasn't kidding.  I went home and put on my other hiking boot, the mandated stiff bottom foot wear.  I was really excited.  Until I realized I can still barely walk and that my left knee is hurting from carrying my right leg along.  And my broken foot again turned purple and bruised.

I had a great, short walk with Lola and fun training and playing with her while she was tethered in the yard.  Her eyes were NOT turning red. After,  I took a couple of days off from walking because of the pain in my foot.

I decided today that I was being a lazy fuck and that I needed to quit making Alec walk my love dog.  The walk wasn't going as great as the other that I had bragged about.  She was pulling hard and not responding to any of the stuff we had been working on in our training.  I was juggling her treat bag and transferred her leash onto a few of my left hand fingers while I tried to rearrange the bag on my shoulder.  Suddenly, Lola jumped a couple of feet in the air and ran toward a rampaging squirrel.  I held tight and pulled, even though I had heard a snap.  I got her onto the sidewalk.  I knew something was wrong and I looked at my awkwardly positioned ring finger that wouldn't move and was hanging at about eleven o'clock to the left.

I got Lola home, actually trying to act natural when kids and parents commented on my cute dog.  I put her directly in the crate and drove to my sister's.  I had broken out in a cold sweat and was crying and trying not to vomit.  They took me to Grady.

Grady is a very large hospital about two miles from my house in downtown Atlanta.  It is the only place indigent people can go here.  I've visited only a few people there and have always been scared of it.   But, I was more afraid of my dangling finger.

We had to pass through a metal detector and an airport manual wand to get in. They handed me something to put on my shirt that I stuck on.  Only later did I realize the date was written on the sticky.  I guess if they found me in some corner a few days later they would know that I was ripe. 

I got X-rayed.  I was surprised everything was happening so fast.  Every time that I have ever been to the emergency room I sat there for hours.  All of the doctors looked younger than I am, which was weird.   They put me in a plush ass room with a TV and started telling me what they were going to do. It was broken, below the knuckle.  They were going to manually re-align the bones, basically grab my finger and push the broken bones back where they should be. I started sweating again.  They told me they wouldn't hurt me and started talking about an IV painkiller drip. 

Then, timed stalled.  I saw people wheeled into the trauma unit.  They had neck braces on.  I heard them screaming from the rooms.  I waited a while.  Hours.  I understood.  But I was getting more afraid.

A young intern put shots in my hand and joked about how sweaty it was.

And then, I turned my head away and squeezed my eyes shut as he moved and shoved the bones of my finger back into place.