Spinal Manipulation

I hate being late. I religiously set my alarm earlier than necessary. Yes, I'm one of those annoyingly on-time people. For me, it's a respect issue. Time is precious. That's not to say that I don't understand the occasional act-of-God (deer) circumstance or even traffic etc. But on an unseasonably warm November morning, I was sleeping late.

Abruptly awaking from a dream about abruptly awaking late form a dream, I was blinded by the sun blazing through the window. Oh, shit, I thought.

Barrel-rolling out of bed, I did the in-a-hurry one legged skirt-pull-on. Grabbing a shirt, I scrambled to the bathroom and acrobatically shoved my toothbrush into my face whilst slathering on some foundation and clobbering my lashes with mascara. No time for coffee, running on fumes today. I checked the microwave clock, damnit, I had 15--no 13 minutes to be at work, a 30+ mile drive.

Shodding my feet with black and tan heels , I galloped to the truck (I had totaled the sedan with Bambi's teen aged mom a few weeks earlier).

Arriving to work almost an hour late, I apologized and began to organize the files for the day. My boss, a chiropractor, was ambling a bit and informed me that he had been having "severe pain between his shoulder blades and  saw stars and almost passed out yesterday." Immediately, I offered a ride to the hospital, he declined.

About an hour later, I heard a sickening thud come from his office.  I knew something was wrong, the back pain combined with the ambling. I reached his office in two dashes. There he lay on the cold linoleum floor, completely passed out, glasses broken. A few second later he came to, mumbling. I asked what he wanted me to do, he was a doctor after all, he told me not to call 911, but then he passed out again.

Heart pounding, I called 911. The phone rang too long for my liking. Eventually, someone answered. I described the situation and the operator dispatched an ambulance. Fortunately, the hospital was less than a mile away. While on the phone, the Dr. came to again and yelled at me for calling 911. I shrugged and told him, "It's not really up to you right now."

The paramedics came, asked a lot of questions, then loaded him into an ambulance. They sat in the street for what felt like forever and then drove off, no sirens. That's not good, I thought.

***

My boss (former) had had an aortic dissection, had to be airlifted to the University of Minnesota Medical Center, spent 9 hours in surgery and a week in a medically induced coma. Scary right? It gets scarier.

While the Dr. was "out," it was discovered, unbeknownst to me, that he and his practice had been committing X-ray (no functioning machine, yet charging patients for the service) and subsequently insurance fraud. He had also violated a probation on his D.C. license. His license had been on a probationary status for drinking on the job. It turns out he had been arrested for a DWI in September. Would you want a drunk cracking your spine? I don't think so.

What's more, the not-so-good- Doctor never filed taxes with the state, so I cannot receive unemployment benefits nor can I file my taxes. He also never gave me my last paycheck. In my mind, he wanted to die on the floor of his office, no blood on my hands though.

I hope he lives a long life in the hell he created.

The Best Boring Date Ideas

I am sure most of my readers are familiar with the ABC TIV series', The Bachelor and Bachlorette as well as the coinciding wacky date ideas, like the overused ,"Do you trust me? Then jump off this bridge with me. We may or may not die, or possibly vomit up all the weird Venezuelan food we just ate. But, seriously,, will you do it for me?" Bun-jee jumping is not a great test of trust in a relationship, on the contrary, it is a great  test in sanity. I would never jump off a bridge or out a freaking plane to prove anything, especially not ,"trust," in the first two weeks of a ,"relationship.," on reality TV. That is bananas.


I wrote a blog about this a while ago, but I'd like to go more in depth.

My premise is that engaging in adrenaline producing activities automatically fuses two people together and makes them more attractive to each other. Just ask a physically mismatched couple how they met, I'll bet it wasn't in the produce section feeling melons, no, it is much more likely they met at the scene of an accident or a Black Friday fiasco or a bank robbery. Maybe they were the bank robbers.

I think the real challenge for trust and a thriving relationship is to make due with what one has. So, here is my list of presumably boring dates and I would make them into great adventures.

1. The Library
Play spies. Build a fort. Pretend the ground is lava. Book surfing.. Make tiny weapons from office materials. Stalk strangers.
2. City Council Meeting
Spit wads, drinking games
3. Cleaning supply shopping.
Lemon or lime? Swifer wet jet duel.
4. Do your taxes together. on a blind date.
Trust me, you'll find out everything you need to know about each other.
5. Rake leaves.
A test in designing and maintaining infrastructure. Metropolieaf?

There are just a few idea, but I think with the right person, they could all be great dates. And, oh yeah, no one has to die.

Part Two: Morphine, Beeps & Pokes

You know in Lifetime movies, or any movies really, when a patient is just waking up from surgery? It's always blurry,  bright lights glaring while concerned masked faces loom above, often accompanied by a faint yet audible, "Dorothy? Wake up! Dorothy??" Well, it was nothing like that.

In fact, I had awoken already seated in the upright position. My first conscious moments had been spent wondering where in tarnation my underwear had gone. My hair flowed over my shoulders bereft of its surgery cap. My legs were wrapped in something akin to Spock's gravity boots from Star Trek VI. Can you tell it was my first surgery? I had also been left in my rocket ship bed in the corner of the massive recovery room, alone. Welp, I figured, I've already been gutted like a fish, if this is the beginning of the horror movie, the writing staff is a complete failure. What can you do, though, it's a rough economy.

I can't recall exactly what she said, it was probably something along the lines of, "hey, Hellen, the mystery surgery girl is awake...you made it! Thank God!" But, a kindly nurse soon appeared and wheeled my rocket to the elevator and up to my room, 260. Not much for originality, are you guys?

Over the next hour or so in my existence, I have only fuzzy memory pillows of what happened. I can remember laying in bed with tubes in almost every orifice—yeah, I discovered the catheter because I had noticed a tube taped to my leg. It had not been my first guess. My overly-creative and usually paranoid brain produced several bizarre scenarios in which I would've needed an upper thigh tube: to remove my upper thigh juices... military secrets... Russia... scuds... then, in a flash of sanity, I realized two things; first, the tube was for my urine which was NOT somehow re-directed through my leg, and; second, behold the power of Morphine.

"This is your pain button," said my new nurse, Jess, holding up a dark blue tube with a small white button at the end, "click it when you have pain. You can click it every ten minutes. Don't be afraid of it. Don't get behind on your morphine. It will suck." Oh boy, was she right. I really think the button should have had a smiley face sticker on it, would've made it much more descriptive and less threatening. With all these tubes and lights around, I felt like a Christmas Tree.

Another nurse entered 260. He had syringes. He had pokes, as I came to call them. I soon received three different shots, thankfully none were in the butt or stomach. The nursing staff exited, and I hit my happy button. I snoozed for a bit only to be awoken by a horrible beeping noise. I thought, perhaps this was the end, I had endured all of this trauma only to die in my holiday rocket bed. I pushed the red call button.

"Can I help you?" Said a friendly female voice.

"I'm beeping and I don't know why. What did I do??" I groggily dribbled over the words.

"I'll come check on it." She said.

Jess entered the room and took a look at my machine friends who pumped hydration and happiness into my blood, "Oh, looks like you bent the IV in your arm. Try to hold it straight."

The IV entrance had been obnoxiously placed in the crick of my right arm—the bendy elbow place. You try keeping that straight. Also, I am right-handed meaning that every text message I attempted resulted in beeping. (Eventually, one of my night nurses, Katie, decided we should move the IV to my left fore-arm. Thank you, Katie. I only set off the IV bendy-beep once after that).

The rest of the day was much the same; juices taken out through my nose and crotch, juices put back in through my IV. The pokes were liberally distributed, the happy button similarly employed. My parents had gone home in the late morning to sleep. Can't say I blamed them, because sleep was something I, too, had wanted to do all day. A few friends came to visit, but I was far too drugged for civil conversation. Courtney later informed me that I had regaled her with inappropriate stories while the maintenance guy was fixing the air duct. What? You thought oodles of morphine would somehow instill some shame into me? No, sir.

My family returned around dinner time, that is, dinner time for you solid food eaters. I'd been having dinner all day. My friend, Kate, returned from earlier and watched the Twins game with me and my mom. I drifted in and out of a morphine haze thankful I didn't have to get up to pee. I spent several minutes enduring pokes and volleying witticisms with the male nurse, Chris,

"I spilled a bottle of water on my macbook pro, that's why the keyboard is shoddy." I said.

"See, mom, she can't have anything nice. She's too clumsy." Said Chris.

"But, I put the computer in a bag of rice for three days and that part still works!" I shot back.

"Oh, yeah? Did you eat the rice?"

"For sure. It tasted like apples." I smiled as Chris shot an anti-biotic into my arm.

My brother joined us a little later and Kate went home. Brother-bear put the Sega game, "Aladdin," and the original Oregon Trail on my laptop for me. I felt like I could really get involved in the game; I had morphine, too. So, when little Amos broke his leg fording the river, we had a sense of solidarity; he sat in his conestoga and me in my rocket bed. I think I had the better deal. Soon mom and I began to snooze and brother-bear left. I tapped the happy button. Ah, time for a peaceful slumber, right, mom? Wrong. Let the beeps begin! Are you ready to beeeeeeep!?!

My fluid providing machine friends were very good at their jobs. One job informed the entire floor that they had run low on said fluids; be it morphine, saline or that other stuff. They also beeped if the nurse forgot to plug them back in and as a result were low on battery (thanks for that), they beeped when I would text... err move my freaking right arm. Simply put, once the sun set, a chorus of beeps cascaded from room 260.

Sometimes, though, and I'm not sure if it was the morphine induced haze, but I swear they would say things. One night, my parents had joined me and we had been swapping stories about our days—mine were the most interesting, of course—when i noticed that my morphine machine had a distinctness about his beeps.

"Dad, did you hear that? My machine just beeped his name!" I said.

"What do you mean? They all sound like beeps to me." He replied.

"No, no. They are all different. Listen..."

"Beep."

"Didn't that sound like, "chuuuck"?" I asked.

"Beep."

"Chuuuck."

"Beep."

"Chuck."

This went on for quite some time. The machines beeped other things, too, and not just names, but phrases. I digress. It probably was just the morphine coupled with my imagination.

The next morning, after a lovely evening of music and pokes, some good news arrived; my catheter could be removed. And it was. And it was awesome. I felt less like a Christmas Tree, moderately like a pin cushion and more and more like a girl. Jess and I took my machine friends for a little walk to the door and back. We set a goal to get out in the hallway by the end of the day. It happened.

In fact, after my jaunt past the doorframe, I decided to sit in my rocket bed and parse the TV channels. As I sat there, I realized that not much word had been spread at all before and during surgery. I know I had asked my family and every nurse I encountered to pray for me. Surgery went very, very well, in fact it lasted less than half the time they had predicted. But now, it was recovery time and prayer was just as important. I never asked how long I'd be staying in 260. I had heard four or five days. It didn't matter to me, I just wanted to get better. Bless my parents and friends for spreading the call to prayer.

I am amazed by the power of intercession and how far-reaching and rapidly it spreads. I should still be in the hospital as I type this.

Waldo, the surgeon, made his first visit after surgery, "Let me explain what happened: your large intestine moved and twisted itself. Then it wrapped around one of your fallopian tubes. There was some scar tissue on both forming a block, which I removed. Your intestines are fine, nothing is dead. I don't know why this even happened. It shouldn't happen again." You're absolutely right, doc, it shouldn't happen again.

 Then he told me something you'd want a surgeon to say at 10 am two days after surgery, "everything looks good... you look good! How do you feel about taking the nose-tube out today? I think we can go ahead and do it right now." So, my nose-tube was removed the day after my catheter. Progress and power of prayer.

Later in the day, my gravity boots were removed and my red socks were changed to blue socks and I was deemed by Jess to be, "no longer a fall risk." This meant I could take myself for walks. And I did.

Later that evening, Courtney returned with her husband, Dan and our good friend Marie. Marie is one of the funniest people I know. Great for parties but a little too gut-splitting after having had surgery.

"Are we still going to make Wizard toilets at Ginger and Aaron's new years party?" I asked.

"What? How do you do that again?" Asked Marie.

"You put dry ice in the toilet and shut the door, and let it fill with magical smoke!" I said, excitedly.

"Yeah! Come to think of it, I can bring you some dry ice tomorrow. You can tell the nurses that you finally pooped... all those ice chips you ate decided to become one large friend!"

As painful as the next few minutes of holding my stitches with a pillow were, I really think all of the laughter helped. It is nice to get cards, like the Hospital Fashion Show one Marie gave me, with this written inside,"get your sexy ass outa bed so we can find some hot men!"

Flowers are beautiful gifts, too (thanks, Mamma Roselle). It's even better to have visitors. Time is important to people and for my friends to have taken a little time to spend with an incapacitated me, really re-enforced the human need for community and friendship.

During their visit, I had been drinking my dinner: coffee.
* Pause now. Note how fitting that the first non-saline substance to be consumed was coffee. End Pause. *  Marie told me that coffee would do my bowls good since the morphine was just slowing them down. You see, pooping was one of the conditions of my departure. We chatted and laughed for a bit more and suddenly at about 8:35 pm, I had that feeling, that awesome tingly feeling; I had to poop.

Everyone quickly helped me out of bed and walked me and my machine friends to the bathroom.

"Do you want us to leave?" Asked Courtney.

"No, no, stay. You can applaud me when it happens and run through the halls, tell all of the nurses and grab my discharge papers!" I said anxious to get on the throne of contentment.

I'll spare you the next minute or so, but I did poop, and I did shout about it. When I flushed, my friends clapped. What I didn't realize, is that my mom had also joined the tribe. I opened the bathroom door and found 4 shinning smiling faces that beamed with pride in my digestive abilities. My friends soon left and mom and I prepared for another symphony of farts, beeps and pokes.

From there, the situation grew from improved into bloomin' miraculous. I cannot imagine how pitiful and weak I must've looked right after surgery, and I cannot explain the looks of wonder on the staff faces a mere two days later as I strolled solo down the hallway, sporting my new blue socks, sans machine friends. After having my IV removed and starting oral pain meds (percocet > morphine), I even ate a grilled cheese sandwich!

My surgeon seemed the most emphatic about my incredible recovery, "you look good. We can send you home this afternoon." It was the way he said it. There was a hint of disbelief in the usual mono-tone and his eyes twinkled behind the Waldo glasses.

At 5 a.m. Tuesday, August 21st, I was gutted like a fish in an emergency Exploratory Laparotomy. At 4 p.m. Thursday, August 23rd, I was officially discharged and walked out of the hospital.

Mr. Doctor, you diagnosed, sliced, re-arranged and stitched, for that I am unequivocally grateful. Nothing compares, however, to the good Lord's healing touch.

Part One: Do Intestines Migrate?

As I lay shaking in mind-altering-raging-ready to-blackout-pain, several nurses and doctors whizzed by the open door to ER room 26—oddly my age—, "You're shaking! You must be cold! Do you want a blanket?" Asked nurse #1. Before I could say no, she pivoted on her sneakers and changed course to grab something warm and snugly for me. I wanted morphine.

"No, I'm not cold, I'm in pain!" I wheezed, agony induced sweat dripping down the backs of my legs.

Nurse #2 entered the room, and apologized for making us wait another 35 min to consult with her,"you look so cold! Let me get a blanket!" She spun around and bolted from the room not to be seen again for another 40 min. I turned my head to the right and observed my parents amusement flash in their eyes then become forcibly held back. I turned my head to face the wall.

A few seconds later—Thank God—another nurse appeared with a syringe and a frantic look in her eyes, "I'm here to take a blood sample... wow, you're shaking, you need a blanket..." I winced with pain and mental irritation again stating that I was in nervous-system turmoil, not thermal shock. She nodded in disbelief and drew my blood. She looked even more concerned after she capped off my blood sample.

"Mom and dad, does she look pale to you?" Asked the nurse.

"Usually." Dad said.

"Do her eyes always shake?"

"For the last 26 years. It's nystagmus." My mom chimed in.

"No concussion, here." I said.

The nurse left with my DNA and I re-assumed my state of agony.

A while later, nurse #2, Becky, returned with a blanket... and drugs. I gave up the fight and let her drape the soft apparatus over my legs. Then, she doped me up with anti-nausea meds and some Laudanum. A warmth of physical relief washed over me as the drugs swam through my veins and I stopped shaking. No thanks to you, blanket.

Whoa horsey, let me back up. When we arrived at the Triage center, approximately 11:45 pm Monday, we were the only ones waiting to be seen. We waited an eternity—an hour— to get back to the ER, where all 43 rooms were occupied. Given my delirious desperate state and wild look in my eyes, the triage nurse promised me I'd get the first open room, as she handed me a cup to pee in.

Flash forward to ER room 26 where I lay moderately sedated, yet still in pain, parents looking fervently upon my motionless figure, while nurse Becky desperately scrambled to appease my woes. At least I was drugged for the game of, Wait for The ER Doctor Roulette, because it took him 90 minutes to arrive. Barely enough time for Dad to figure out just how bright the lamp above my head could be.

Eons later, and several attempts at halting Dad's creative urge to play with every other medical instrument in the room, the good doctor entered and took a seat by my bed, "Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere, my stomach, my lower back... my ora."

He poked and prodded my belly for a bit asking a few question. Then he ordered an ultra-sound and a CT scan.
Still doped on Laudanum, an RN quickly wheeled me over to radiology. The CT scan took all of 5 min. The consultation with the RN and Radiologist took longer—at which point my Laudanum began to wear off. The RN returned, "we don't need an Ultra-Sound," then wheeled me back to the ER.

Now, I know doctors have reasons for canceling other tests, and at that point, I was thinking none of them can be good. Was it my appendix? Did I have a tumor?

This was the most excruciating wait of my life: waiting for my fate. The good doctor entered room 26 once again. And then spoke some of the most terrifying words an ER doc can breathe, "we need to talk to the surgeon." He explained a few things about the CT scan results,"your intestines have twisted together and created a blockage, from what we can tell, we need to get in there and fix it NOW," and then exited the room to fetch the other MD, leaving us to play mental ping-pong with his words.

"You, uh, wanna play with the lamp again?" Asked Dad.

I groaned a half-hearted, "why not."

He flipped  on the lamp. It was bright. All over again.


* Intermission * Go grab some coffee or taffy * End Intermission

The ER doctor returned with some strange implements in hand. He explained that during surgery, I guess surgery was my only option (they didn't really discuss that with me), I needed to have a tube through my nose into my stomach to remove any liquids and junk, or I might choke and die, or something. Needless to say, the thought of said tube was horrifying.

"This is probably the best time to tell you guys that I suffer from panic attacks, and while I don't plan on freaking out while you're fishing in my stomach, it will most likely happen." I said, dryly.

"Do you want some Ativan?" Asked Becky.

"Ativan doesn't work too well on me..." I started to explain my dealings with benzodiazapines, knowing it was fruitless in nature.

"Go grab the Ativan." Said the ER doc. Thanks, man.

Becky inserted a generous amount of Lorazapam (Ativan) into my arm. I began feeling even more sedated, yet still in pain.

The Surgeon entered room 26. He was a tall, brawny man with Where's Waldo glasses and an incredibly tranquil confidence  in his voice. Perhaps too calm.

"I just wanted to talk to you about the surgery before the Ativan hits you." He began.

It's amazing what the haze of opiates and pain—and the inevitability of a giant tube from your nose into your stomach can do to you. Instincts took over very quickly as the doc explained the possible outcomes of my looming exploratory surgery. My hands kept reaching for the clipboard so I could sign my body away to science and possibly die doing so.

It's different when you're on the slicing end of the scalpel, buddy, I thought to myself, just wanting it all to be over.

Finally, I was handed the clipboard and pen. Becky, bless her sweet heart, had drawn a GIANT X by where I was supposed to sign. I etched my name as best I could—now for the tube.

Becky sat to my left and held a cup of water and a straw. The ER doc sat to my right and held the nose tube and stroked my head. My dad stood at the foot of the bed and massaged my foot. As I swallowed the water, he inserted the tube through my nose. I could feel it going down my throat and into my stomach. I forced myself not to gag. With her free hand Becky squeezed mine.

The whole process took 2 min—a really long 2 min. It was one of the most traumatizing experiences I've ever had. Nose-tube in place, they wheeled me to pre-op.

In pre-op, I met several RN's and the anesthesiologist, who I can only describe as a whimsical old man. We chatted for a few min as I put my hair under a surgical cap and willed my cells to absorb what was left of the Ativan.

"Time to go... you two can wait in the waiting room. It should be about an hour and a half." Said a nurse to my parents.

Off I went in my rocket ship hospital bed, the wheels squealed on the linoleum floor as we turned left into the OR where another bed laid, the bed of exploration. The bed of exploration, however, would not cooperate with the medical staff and was too high above my rocket ship for me to be transferred.

It took 7 people to figure out the surgical bed and bring it down to my level, which in any other circumstance, like, say had I been watching this on Lifetime, would have been amusing.

I was deposited onto the surgical bed, its erie OR green totally clashed with my complexion. I turned my head left and nodded at the jolly nurse anesthetist. He smiled with his eyes, probably with his mouth, too, but it was hidden by a surgical mask. He took my arm with one hand and held a syringe with the other. I felt a prick.

"Now you're going to feel a little ligh-h..."

Everything went black.

To Be Continued...

Infidelity

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." 

- William Congreve

PSA to My Male Peers

If ONE more guy tells me that the best song in the world is, "Like My Dog," I'm going to bitch slap him and take his man card. Here's why.

If you really want me to love you like your dog does (we'll debate whether or not sentience exists in animals later), then fine. That's just peachy with me. I never liked brushing my own hair anyways. Oh, I'll love you like your dog does, if you love ME like you love your dog.

This means you feed me everyday—preferably twice a day. You can go ahead and buy me a necklace and take care of all my medical expenses, trim my nails and clean up my shit. Oh, and don't forget about our long walks together and cuddling every night as well as regaling all of your buddies with the cute things I do. Can you say bath time? Remember to get behind my ears. And always kiss me good night.

In exchange for this treatment, I will most certainly let you do whatever the hell you want. Deal? And they say I'm a bitch... doesn't this sound like the perfect relationship?

No. It doesn't. If this is the way you think, male peers of mine, then don't cussing have relationships. Commitment takes balls—balls that ya'll dangle from the back of your virility-shattering-big-ass-red-truck. That's not where they should be, by the way.

Oldie But Goodie: What I Didn't Tell

FROM DECEMBER 2009

"In case you couldn't tell, I'm daddy's girl and I ALWAYS get what I want." Said my new roommie as she unpacked box after box of her wardrobe, what can only be described as the Abercrombie catalogue.

Admittedly, that didn't bother me a lot since I'm kind of a spoiled brat, too. And unfortunately, my curiosity for other people's mental pathology often overshadows the warning bells, resounding a shrill, "RUN AWAY!" So, maybe it was all my fault...

My ex-wife, we'll get to that alias later, also had a puppy. Not just any puppy, no, it was the BEST puppy in the whole WORLD. She had obtained it on the cusp of August, under her parents radar. Puppy turned out to be merely a cog in roommie dearest's plan not have to live in the dorms again, with the, "mean girls."

The puppy was an annoying lab that was incredibly spoiled and if someone didn't like that, well, they were blacklisted, myself included.

"She doesn't like licks, puppy... she doesn't like you..." She is very logical, you know.

Forgive me if I'd rather not indulge in the germ orgy that is a dog's mouth. So sorry, my apologies oh Queen of the Universe... and her little dog, too.

After two weeks of semi-normalcy, as much normalcy as two-English majors co-habitation with a puppy can have, things began to get weird.

"I found this thing in my ear while I was on my run!" Ex-wifey said, bounding through the door, puppy in tow. She held up what looked like a rubber stopper of some sort, far too big to be in someones ear.

"My ear hurts... and my door doesn't lock. Someone must have come into our apartment in the middle of the night and done this!"

Sure. Ok. Let's calm down and think about this.

A few days later, I awoke to find roomie gone on a walk, and the kitchen completely trashed. We were both kind of neat-freakish, so this was disconcerting.

Later that afternoon, I confronted roomie about it.

"Left in a hurry this morning, eh?"

"Why?"

"Well the kitchen was in shambles... I cleaned it up though."

"OH MY GOD! You heard all those noises last night, like someone going through all the pots and pans!!"

"Uh, sure..."

"Wait, the kitchen wasn't a mess when I left at 5:30 this morning."

No puppy is THAT cute, 5:30 am walks?

"Weird, so I got up at 7:45, and in the two some hours you've been absent, someone broke into our place, in daylight, and messed up our kitchen?"

She didn't respond, just looked really creeped out and kept touching her ear.

Were we robbed, I ribbed myself, did they take my fiber bars and the good soups!?!

Actually, I was missing one fiber bar.

Anyway, my mind went to two places; one, our place is haunted and; two, my roommate is batshit crazy.

I went with Option One for about an hour, until I began to reminisce about the three weeks I spent at the apartment prior to my ex-wifey moving in.

The apartment had been peaceful. It had been a very quiet third-floor room with an amazing mountain-view, bereft of dog smells and still lending me the freedom to invite friends over, drink some wine and play my cello.

Logically, option two was the only thing left. Not to allow myself to look too hard for signs of crazy, I remained incredibly objective about roomies behavior and her jealous-possessive baptist boyfriend, Chris.

After a few more, "someone is breaking into our apartment at night! They have cameras everywhere!" outbursts from ex-wifey, as well as ducktaping over all of the crevices that could harbor a Radio-Shack caliber mini-camera and dismissing my suspicions that the FBI wanted me for some reason, I gave in and we went to Home Depot to get a new door-knob.

After several failed attempts at self-installing the apparatus, and wifey, thinking the landlord had purposefully drilled the doorknob hole too skewed for someone to change the locks, ended up getting a chain, and screwing it DIRECTLY into the door-frame. Goodbye security deposit. Ironic?

One night, she "accidentally" locked me out, thinking I had been asleep in my room, at 9pm... on a Friday... I had really been at a coffee place studying for mid-terms. Really.

I finally wrangled one of my guy friends—actually I was his date to a wedding that night—into installing the new doorknob for us. We had just enough time between the ceremony and reception to do some minor home-improvement... and have beers.

So, now roomie and I had absolutely no doubt in our pretty blonde heads that someone could come into our apartment, eat my fiber bars and shove rubber into wifey's ears. Right? Wrong.

The omnipresent, controlling and manipulative father-boyfriend-figure Chris, decided to make a dramatic (probably romantic in his mind) move to buy wifey a rape stick. It was kind that holds the door shut from the inside. He did this instead of, you know, fixing her door lock.

Things began to escalate interpersonally when I wouldn't succumb to wifey's premature need to agree to a new living arrangement. In retro-spect I should've been a wee more decisive, but staying in another state or moving home was a big decision.

So, instead of further talking to me about the issue, we'd only had one chat, mind you, wifey took things into her own gnarled hands.

Roping a mutual friend into living with her, she decided to move out into the apartment directly below our current room, without telling me.

The Monday of finals week, I'd invited a guy friend to sleep on our couch, because he'd been locked out of his temporary residence and it was middle of December in Montana with a balmy wind-chill of 40 below.

I didn't think anything of it. We weren't drunk. He is a decent guy. But I received a knock on my door at about 2am...

I opened the door to find wifey standing there looking like she'd seen a ghost.

"Yes?"

"There's a boy in our living room!" She scream-whispered.

There was almost always a boy in our living room. Her boyfriend would stay over almost every weekend... use our toilet paper, electricity and no doubt eat my fiber bars.

"I know, " I replied smartly, "I put him there."

"Is he drunk?"

"Nooo." I said, fearing that the pink fuzzy rock she grew up under was whispering to her that she was about to be murdered and raped. In that order.

Chris showed up four hours later, coming from about 400 miles away. I discovered this on my way to the bathroom to find a tampon.

He never said a word to me, and wifey was presumably already gone to campus for finals.

My friend, Doug, sat on the couch, playing on his iBook. I facebook chatted him from my bedroom to find out what in tarnation had happened.

"Her boyfriend showed up about an hour ago... he walked up to the couch and forcibly introduced himself. It wasn't what he said, it was how he said it. She didn't say a word to me. He also told me I had to be off the couch by 2, because they are moving your roommate out."

I grabbed my bag, car keys and Doug and we galloped off to a coffee shop near campus for some java and conversation to make sense of everything.

I then spent a few more hours in the library frantically trying to finish my play about unicorns. Really.

My phone suddenly began to vibrate in my sweatshirt pocket. I looked at the caller ID, it was the boy I'd been kinda-sorta-seeing-made-out-with two days ago yet hadn't really heard from.

"Hey." I mustered, typing with my right hand about ontological questioning and unicorn etiquette.

"Hi, so I need to talk to you..."

Yep, REJECTED. He blamed his youthful horny indiscretion on adrenaline. Points for creativity!

Needing some down-time and a whisky, I listened to the message Adrenaline Boy had left before he mustered up the balls, to actually call me in person and drove back to the apartment only to discover that everything had been moved out, everything except for Chris, who only smiled at me and continued to move boxes and the little dog, too.

Fuck this, I thought and promptly drove to Doug's, where he fed me Evan Williams lower-shelf bourbon, string cheese and let me watch, "Die Hard," on the big screen.

We listened to Adrenaline Boy's voicemail about 20 times, laughed, cried and then forwarded it to everyone we'd ever met.

I soon discovered that my now ex-wife, had moved into a hotel for a few days, because she couldn't live with me until Thursday, when she had actually planned on moving out.

She still lives with our mutual friend, and guess what, they both have puppies! (The best puppies in the world!)

As I think about those two days sitting on the living room floor—she took the couch, TV, dog and half the kitchen suppluies—eating a fiber bar and drinking whisky, I find myself humming the Wicked-witch theme from,"The Wizard of Oz," da-du-da-du da-da-DA...