Sister (uh) Wives
Normally, when I announce to all four cats, my children, The Daver, and/or The Guy On My Couch that “I’m taking the weekend off,” I mean this:
“I’m not actually going to work online – but I’ll be digging trenches, planting trees, mulching weeding, planting, seeding, watering, cleaning out the garage, making 47 trips to Goodwill, obsessing about painting my kitchen cabinets white, whine about my formerly white – now dingy grey – carpets, fantasize about buying attachments for my Dyson, sorting kid’s clothes, throwing away dead frogs, helping color pictures before realizing I have the artistic ability of a squirrel with five thumbs, then dropping into an exhausted heap on my couch to watch shitty television until it’s time to wake up and do it all again. But I mean I’m going to do that WITHOUT obsessively Tweeting. Or checking email.
MUCH.”
I don’t “take time off” like normal people. Or maybe that IS how normal people “take time off,” I don’t know; I write a blog on the Internet where I call myself “Aunt Becky.” I’m not the Poster Child for normal.
But, upon dragging ass outta bed Saturday morning to “not take time off,” I realized that I was kinda…reeling around. Like the drunken spins, except I haven’t had an ACTUAL drink in for-fucking-ever.
(stop gaping at me like that. You’re going to attract flies that LAND IN YOUR OPEN MOUTH AND MAKE FLY BABIES)
Be honest, Pranksters: Drinking at 31 < Drinking at 21
The spins kinda suck, just like making out with that random hot bartender, then vomiting all over the back of a cab is kinda shameful. Now. Then? It was hi-fucking-larious.
“…remember that time Becky barfed on the back of a yellow cab in downtown Chicago while that hot bartender rubbed her back, then made out with her? Bwahahahahaha!”
See? Hilarious.
(See also: why would that hot bartender want to make out with a barfy chick?)
Anyway, I had the spins. I blamed Dawn, who was passing a kidney stone that we’re sharing custody of, for sympathetic dizziness. I’ve never been dizzy, aside from being drunk, but I will note this: I walked into less walls while dizzy than while sober.
That being here nor there, Dawn decided to come over and join Ben (The Guy On My Couch) and I, who were sitting on opposite ends of the couch, playing on our respective phones.
And, because I am used to going! going! going! during weekends, I decided that I wasn’t actually dizzy – just….having issues with equilibrium – and that the only cure for a fucked-up equilibrium was not, in fact, more cowbell, but more mulch.
I pried my dizzy ass off the couch, and off we went to the hardware store. Hey, I needed my fucking mulch.
We were fine, the whole way there.
The problem started when the doors to Lowes, bless their hearts, opened. Suddenly, I felt like the world had been tipped on its side. I grabbed Ben and Dawn to steady me as we made our way to the back of the store for a non-bullshit neck massager.
(awkward segue: of COURSE I mean “neck massager.” I write a sex column. If I wanted another sex toy, I’m pretty sure SOMEONE would give me one.)
We made it all the way back to dishwashers before I began to sweat, the gorge of vom rising in my throat, as the world continued, uncannily, to spin. Ben and Dawn steered me to a set of chairs, where I sat, trying to figure out how to exit the store without:
a) Falling over
2) Alerting the store personnel that I was, in fact, in need of medical attention. The very LAST thing I wanted was to have to tell the world that I was in an ambulance because “I was dizzy.” If I had to be in an ambulance at all, I wanted to be
- delivering a baby
or
- delivering a basket of kittens I’d saved from a burning house.
Since I was “simply dizzy,” I tried to look as non-stupid as one can while flanked by two people who are steering you toward the exit while your eyes are closed.
Yeah, I could feel the stares, even WITH my eyes closed. It didn’t help that I’d chosen, in a moment of personal irony, to wear my Genetics shirt from the Museum of Science and Industry, which proudly asks, “Why Am I So Beautiful?” (the back says, GENETICS).
After what seemed like 82,747 hours, I hit the yawning doors, holding onto Dawn and The Guy On My Couch like we were the last people on the RMS Titanic (the real one, not the one with Leonardo DiCaprio), I’d figured I was done with the humiliation of it all.
That is, until Dawn screamed, “Don’t judge our love!” at some couple gaping at us. I’d have grabbed both of their asses for effect, but I’d probably have toppled over only to be run over by a frantic couple from Delaware, desperately looking for some refuse bags.
Upside? I’d get cross two items off my (non-existent) bucket list.
1) Meet someone from Delaware
B) Get hit by a car.
Downside?
I’d have probably been dead. Dying over refuse bag purchases is just…pathetic.
I had some serious Vertigo for a few months which made my shifts at work absolute fucking hell. I hope you feel better soon!
Dude, dizzy sucks. Are you still dizzy? I’ve been dizzy for 8 months, no joke. It blows. Every medical test conceivable has been done. Still dizzy and the bonus is that there is no explanation.
Enjoy.
omg, dying at “Don’t judge our love” and definitely going to use that some day.
I have been having dizziness issues also! I blame sinuses (putting pressure on my brain in a way it’s not used to), allergies and the occasional blood sugar fail. Feel better and please make all your near death experiences as public as possible for our amusement.
I had vertigo once. Of course the first question asked is always “could you be pregnant” Not effing likely thank you very much. Your vertigo seems like it’s way funnier than mine was. Of course it’s always better when you aren’t the one on the verge of vomiting.
Kudos to anyone who can have a guy to still trying to score after she’s puked her guts out.
Dude. Vertigo sucks. I always thought people were full of shit when they complained about it. “So, you’re dizzy? Big deal.” Then I tapered off one of my antidepressants too fast and had severe vertigo for two days. Holy. Shit. I couldn’t even get out of bed. And while I was IN bed I couldn’t read (the words wouldn’t stay straight) and could barely watch tv. Since at the time I was commuting via bicycle I had to take two days off. From grad school. Oy.
Also was not expecting “Don’t judge our love!” and had to stifle a guffaw in my cubicle.
Yikes1 I hope you’re feeling better. Boyfriend had vertigo at work last week. NOT FUN./
I don’t know Dawn, but I LOVE her – “Don’t Judge Our Love” is going down in the book of” Most.Epic.Responses.EVER!
Dawn is fucking awesome.
I drank last weekend before a movie…. and I realized that the last time you want to feel the spins is when you’re watching a movie where people are running and stabbing each other… i can’t believe I didn’t throw up.
I had that global positional vertigo for several weeks after painting my ceiling, I can tell you I am way way more careful with myself now… that sucked big time… I got an RX for the dizziness but the one and only time I took the pill I fell asleep on my couch and the 3 yr old was pretty well fending and watching herself… it freaked me out so much when I woke up that I never took another pill and just suffered thru it….. but it sucks!
I was once so dehydrated from the flu I passed out standing up from the toilet and came to in the bathtub. The tattered shards of my dignity have never mended.
Holy crap. Hope you are feeling better now. Also I think I love Dawn!
You’re going to love this one: my vertigo attacks are cause by too much gas in my system. The cure is lots of farts. And stop eating so much dairy! When I have one of those attacks not only must I stop moving but so must anyone else within my eyesight. I can’t see anything move or I will puke. I SO understand having someone walk you with your eyes closed. My someone is not as cool as Dawn, though.
After being set free from the hospital, after having my son. We stopped at the Walmart because I need premie sized diapers and clothes for the baby. ( turns out babies born a month before their due date are small) I had a crazy dizzy spell at the Walmart. I was standing in the diaper aisle and I abruptly sat down ( read fell on my newly post partum ass) and yelled at my mom to “Watch the baby” cause I was going down. Then the store went dark… when I came to people were just shopping around me like nothing happened. F*cking Walmart. I blame the awful Walmart lighting… but really my Bp fell really fast, as I had delivered earily because I had preeclampsia. So yeah… that sucks… Hope the dizzy stops… or has stopped.
I once passed out in a Subway Restaurant (no alcohol or drugs involved) hit my head on the, help yourself, soda machine and got rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. It was AWESOME. If you are feeling dizzy it’s probably not the best idea to go to a place with concrete floors and lots of sharp objects. But Dawn Rocks! Hope you are feeling better.
I want Dawn to be my friend too. The Dizzy sucks. It’s also one of my nick-names. Blame the new massager. Sitting in one of those things always brings on vertigo for me, but they feel so good at the time! Seriously, I have no idea why you got dizzy. Hope you figure it out so you don’t have to go through that again! Sorry if this double-posts, word press sometimes annoys me.
I had this once. Really awful. I’m a nurse too so I can look up shit on wikipedia and diagnose. Labrynth blah blah crystals blah blah etc etc. I spent millions and found the Epley Manuever the only thing that works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_paroxysmal_positional_vertigo
Do the Epley Manuever here. http://www.ehow.com/how_5225197_perform-epley-maneuver.html
OMG, i have had Labrynthitis once before. I swear the whole world was tilted sideways. I walked into walls for two day.s. What a mess.
I’m having a crap day. A crap week actually. And this story just made me laugh so hard I scared my kids while coffee went up my nose.
I hold hands or link arms with girl friends all the time. Some very conservative girl friends. When I come back to the US this summer I am SO borrowing Dawn’s line…
Bless you and your unconventional love. 🙂
That’s funny as hell. Sorta. Dizzy sucks major balls. Also, ginger helps tons with vertigo! 🙂
We love Dawn……and i hope you are feeling better soon.
You’ve sort of met someone from Delaware. You’ve spoken to my husband via email and he’s from Delaware. I thought you knew that somehow. Ha!
I pissed myself. Then I read this to my BFF while she was driving. We almost rearended a cop.
Oh no! I’m sorry you felt so terrible.
Also I agree with drinking losing its luster as you age, I’m not about to give up on it yet though!
I wish that I could summon sex toys with my thoughts. You’re like a Dildo Wizard. A Vibrator Goddess. A… um…. this is probably why I cannot summon them. Fuck.
Hate that you were so sick, and feel like a TOTAL asshole for asking but…
link to sex blog? PLEASE? I find sex funny already, so if YOU write about it, I expect to pee on myself laughing1 Thanks!
(side note: I am a typography nerd and ADORE the body copy of the comments section!)