It Beats Arson...

Never Give Root Beer to a Dutch Person

2010-09-10T20:18:00.001-07:00

My best guy friend, Nibby, lives in The Netherlands. Nibby is a great fellow; not only nice, but also very handy with languages, computers, pasta dishes, and hair care products. Because I live in a bicultural (Norwegian and American) family, I knew that when he came to visit, he would fit in. It would be perfect! I had a mind to show him all around the lovely state of Virginia, teach him our ways, and then perhaps have a coming-of-age ceremony at the end of it all, during which I would paint his face with river mud and christen him Man-Who-Grooms-Frequently.

I met him at the airport, and to be honest, I was rather nervous that I might not recognize him, which is ridiculous--because as it turns out, it's not hard to spot a Dutch person in an airport.

Little did I know, it would not be I who did the teaching when he arrived. Instead, I learned quite a lot about the ways of the people of the Clog, things I believe to be uncommon knowledge. We were sitting at a Subway, having lunch and chatting when suddenly, his eyes lit up.

"Root beer!" He said. "We don't have that in the Netherlands."

"Don't you?" I asked incredulously.

"No, we are depraved. We are depraved of root beer in the Netherlands," he answered ruefully, taking another bite of his sandwich.

Now, bear in mind that this young man speaks, reads, or understands something around the ballpark of 5 languages. No one, not even savants, can be perfect all the time. But before I could gently correct him, I shocked the restaurant with a scream of laughter because my brain decided to just run with it, and as much as I try and try, it just won't take to the idea of a leash. I clearly need to call the Brain-Whisperer or something.

This is why they do not have root beer in the Netherlands. Because it makes them depraved, raving lunatics. I kid you not. The following is a true story.

Discovery of root beer in the Netherlands is sort of like discovery of Wesley Sneijder's freshly-worn and be-sweated World Cup jersey. If you find one, it's best to get it indoors as quickly as you can.

Poor Aalbertje here was just a bit too slow.

However, even being stampeded into Holland's very, very flat ground won't throw a Dutch(wo)man off the hunt. She's tasted the root beer, now. Observe.

Eelke has the root beer, and, assured of his victory, allows the vapors of the open bottle to relax his guard. It's the sassafras. Gets them every time.

Aalbertje proceeds to beat her adversary with an Iron Nine, which Nibby tells me is a device which serves as both weapon and a popular golfing instrument. Say what you will about the Dutch. They are masters of practicality.

In the end, Nibby got his root beer (safely, in an enclosed space, without bright lights or sudden noises), I learned a valuable lesson, and we all lived happily ever after.

...Except that I slipped a six-pack of it into his suitcase. I'll let you know how that turned out...if he ever calls me back....

Stove Monster

2010-08-04T17:26:00.000-07:00

This is a small piece the voice mail left on my dad's phone by our next-door renter, a psychology-degree-holding grade school teacher. She was very angry because apparently her stove was coming on and off, supposedly "sparking," and quite possibly on the verge of either causing a house fire or mauling her firstborn. She also claimed that there was a house spider infestation and that she had been bitten on two occasions, which somehow caused her to decide she needed to go to the doctor.

...

Who the heck goes to the doctor for a house spider bite?!

As you can imagine, with all the insults she was hurling at my stepmother--whom she claimed had been screaming and yelling at her--and the very sensitive fact that she seemed to consider a spider bite a mortal wound while I am freaking out about how to keep my health insurance while my seizure activity at night has actually caused me to wet the bed, and prevent me from driving until I get an okay from the doctor--which will be difficult to get if I lose the insurance--I threw my dish towel down and told my parents I was going to go over there right then and there to show this woman, who is 24 or 25, that a 21-year-old can understand basic electricity.

I was surprisingly polite when I knocked on her door, mostly because I'm good at being angry on paper, but I kind of suck at it in real life. It returned to the surface when she gave me a funny look as I told her I was there to examine the stove, rather than letting me in. I waited a few moments, then said, "I'm an assistant electrical tech, okay?" Then she was all smiles. In fact, she was all smiles and crazy-eyes--seriously, this lady has CRAZY-EYES--the whole time as she said she was sort of sorry for insulting my family but that they actually deserved it.

I did my best to ignore her while I leaned down to look at the plug for the stove, which she refused to touch because she thought it would electrocute her. She went on again about how she had a career, as though she disapproved of my menial work as much as I disapproved of her being unable to plug in a stove. I took the plug out--it was slightly out already, which was the problem, and then put it back in. There was a short buzzer sound--which is perfectly normal--and she jumped back and cried out, "SPARK!"

Aha. So that's what she thought sparks were. How many 4th of Julys had she missed? It occurred to me that perhaps her evil nature was the result of sparkler-deprivation as a child. All children should be allowed to play with sparklers, and this is why.

I calmly explained to her about the noise, checked that the stove was working perfectly, and felt pretty confident about a really stupid job well-done. Then I saw that she was looking at the stove as though it would attack at any moment. I sighed and unplugged the stove again, shut off the breaker, and came back to tell her that my dad would look it over tomorrow just in case. She continued to stare, frozen by fear at the stove. I did my best to explain the basics of electrical appliances to her.

It did not work very well. The next day, dad went to check it out, but she told him to come back later because she wanted a nap. He did as she asked, and did several tests. I was right. It simply hadn't been plugged in all the way.

She is still a very angry, evil woman, sparkler-deprivation or not. But that's what my spider army is for.

Sleep Study

2010-07-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

It seems hard to believe that a modern medical test could be both 8 hours long AND mind-bendingly uncomfortable. But that’s what a sleep study with a full EEG is like.

I don’t even know how to start this one. This is probably because my brain is broken. I’ve been having complex absence seizures since childhood, and over the years they’ve just gotten worse and worse. Generally, I get a really bad migraine, hallucinate something crazy, and then it’s over. It's made me incredibly jumpy; if I run into (or near) somebody unexpectedly, I often scream, thinking it is another hallucination. This was my life before medication.

Now, in the happier days of Lamictal and Klonopin, I’ve been doing much better. Until, of course, I started doing worse. The migraines have started to blind me, my memory is MUCH worse than usual (which, believe me, is saying something), and I’ve been doing some very weird things without really knowing I’m doing them. Like sending emails full of typos to all of my stepmother’s customers, including the ones who didn’t want to receive anything from us.

That’s a story in itself, called How I Got Fired. This is how it goes.

It’s also the beginning of the story, How I Get to Handle Power Tools Now Instead.

My parents have definitely noticed the troubles with my brain lately, and they sent me to the neurologist, who said that I was very definitely having increased seizure activity. The question, she asked, was why?

Well! Apparently there are ways of finding out, and one of them is called the Sleep Study. And it is not nearly as much fun as drilling holes in things.

You get your own room, with a nice shower and half a million colorful wires and everything.

They don’t put them in there until you get there, possibly because people steal them. I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’d do with half a million colorful wires, except maybe run them over and over with a dump truck, after what I experienced. But I’m not allowed to drive for a while because I might have a seizure and crash. Oh well.

I went in at 7:30 p.m. I met with a very nice lady-technician, who walked me through the process in a way that made it sound just awesome.

I don’t think she was trying to trick me. It’s just that my expectations were far too high. Nevertheless, I can be a patient person when I’m in public places, and so there I sat, smiling and making conversation in the time it took her to wire 30 or 40 electrodes to my head, face, legs, and chest, put 2 breathing-measurement bands around my ribcage and stomach, and tape I don’t know what to the underside of my chin.

After nearly an hour of this, I thought that was it. But I was wrong.

WHY? To see if I snore. Is this important for measuring seizure activity? Or…are there three other techs in the office sitting there with popcorn, laughing maniacally at me because their job hours are awful and wages are too low? Am I to be a casualty of the system? Because there is definitely a camera and mic over there….

After the nose-probe, there was blood pressure to be taken, and a blood-oxygen measurement device was taped to my finger. Naturally, I asked the most obvious and deeply pertinent question.

She replied that they would simply unhook my machine and I could carry it around my neck. Which I did at least 4 times. It made me feel like a cyborg, which is awesome. I bet cyborgs don’t have seizures. Or, if they do, you can just tighten a screw or something. And they definitely don't use the bathroom.

Sleeping was even more uncomfortable than you might imagine. I finally fell asleep around 11, but was woken up at 2:30 or so because my electrodes were falling off and technician had to come stick them back onto my head. After that, I couldn’t sleep at all, and basically rolled around and around (technician had to come back several times. I wonder if it was passive-aggressive revenge on my part…), becoming angrier and angrier until at 5:30 a.m., when she came in and said, “Okay, we’re done!”

5:30? This was not a time discussed beforehand! But, fortunately, just as I was about to combust inside, technician offered me some tea and a hot shower.

And all was…slightly less than well. Except that I had to wake up Stepmother to have her pick me up. That was well beyond less than well.

Blog > Setting Things on Fire > Face-Punching

2010-07-23T19:33:00.000-07:00

Most of you know what it’s like to get an obnoxious song stuck in your head. No matter what you do, whether it’s humming the tune, looking up the song online, swearing heartily, complaining to someone, swearing even more, or drinking poison, it’s really hard to make it GO AWAY.

For me, that happens with thoughts. Bad, bad thoughts.

I had a way of dealing with it, but in hindsight, it really wasn’t that great. Or smart.

Not only did it hurt like…a punch to the face, it was really difficult to explain the bruising, and lying is really just not my strong suit.

Clearly, it was time to change.

So then, I had a new idea! Whenever I had a thought in my head that wouldn’t go away, I would write the thoughts down on a piece of paper, tear it up, put it into a copper bowl, and set it on fire. So much better than face-punching! This really seemed to do the trick, but there were several problems with my miracle method.

First of all…I am very, very afraid of fire.

Buuuut, because I am above-average-clever, I bought a long grill lighter to keep myself as far away from the flame as possible.

That works just great, except for on windy days, during a thunderstorm, or when you knock the bowl over because you’re clumsy and scared of getting burned.

It also just looks…well, a little weird to the neighbors. And your family. So, all in all, it’s still a completely unsatisfactory way of dumping my thoughts. I was distraught. What could I possibly do now that I had exhausted virtually every logical* method?

*read: stupid

But then, one fateful day (yesterday, in fact)…genius struck.

Blogging is so much better than accidental arson. And face-punching.

P.S. Go see Allie at www.hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com. She is woah-mazing.