Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Category: Health

  • High Results, Bad News

    So I tried out a new doctor Monday and she’s alright, mostly I went for a surgery consult (more on that later) but also my high cholesterol medication ran out so I needed some more of that – it’s the only medicine that I really take.

    eeeeww, health food
    eeeeww, health food

    I have a history of high cholesterol you can see listed in these posts:

    Bad Blood

    Bad Exercise

    Moving from the walking city of Washington DC, where I didn’t have to own a car for 15 years to a city where I drive sometimes even 2 blocks away… well things are bound to not be good. Lack of exercise isn’t really a good thing for anyone they tell me.. but I rarely think other people are right. 🙂

    So the results of my blood test (that wasn’t done fasting) was pretty high in all the wrong places… but my medicine ran out over a month ago and I just bought my bicycle on Saturday. The doc doubled my dose… which i’ll pick up today on the way home… who knows how that’s going to affect me.

    I’ll see what I can do about eating some more healthy type foods… and I’m certainly going to avoid eating any Thai, ever again eeeewww

  • Poked, Probed and Processed

    I didn’t get a chance to ride my bicycle yesterday, by the time I arrived home it was dark and I think I’d like the thing to have a light or something – today I plan to ride again.

    Don't Panic
    Don’t Panic

    I left work early for a doctor appointment, new city and finally a new doctor. My high-cholesterol medicine prescription has run out and I know I’m supposed to take that stuff… so that means I need a new doctor here. The doctor I got is a woman, which is new for me, for the last 10 years or so I had the same doctor in DC and he was a great guy, got to know me pretty well… it’s like starting over. She had the lab draw blood – no fasting involved, she said it was more realistic of what my every day levels are… been saying that for years I have – I hate fasting. I also asked for a flu shot, I want to make sure the government microchip gets what it needs /tinfoilhat

    She also gave me a surgery consult for something I was diagnosed with last November with Kaiser… I’m not sure why Kaiser made me wait, but now I’m here and have a consult. That doctor will call today and I’ll schedule an appointment probably have another exam and then get to schedule surgery… fun stuff. More on that later.

    Arriving home I quickly showered, ate an headed out again to an AA “meeting” in Tempe, it’s more like a Traditions workshop… a local AA historian and a local AA long-timer shared on their knowledge and experience with the Traditions – they’ll do this all month. This week was about the history mostly, but the long-timer shared about anonymity also meaning “sacrifice” and how it might be helpful to some if they read the Twelfth tradition as follows:

    Sacrifice is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions – ever reminding us to place principles before personal desires. 

    I really kind of thought that hit the nail on the head, but I also think we tend to be over anonymous… I’ll be making two of these next meetings hopefully, one of the weeks I’ll be in Washington, DC so wont get to make it.

    Today’s goal – to ride my bike after work.

  • Weekend Musings

    It was a weekend full of AA stuff, and there wasn’t even a round up.

    ImageFriday I attended the 5:30 meeting at Prince of Peace – they have a meeting there everyday at 5:30 I guess and the format is different on each day maybe… on Tuesday I spoke there and heard the Friday was a call-up ticket meeting so I told Cliff about it and we both attended. It was a very full meeting, saw many faces I know and enjoyed the meeting. Afterwards Cliff and I had dinner at a restaurant across the way – not bad at all.

    Saturday morning I headed to AHWATUKEE for the morning Men’s stag, it’s open discussion. It’s really a birthday meeting, they let celebrants share and then pick the topic. Saturday a gentlemen picked up his 40 year chip and the topic wasn’t too bad. Afterward Cliff and I had breakfast, then I met his dog Gunner. Cliff was also kind enough to bring my new bicycle home in his truck and I went riding almost right after I arrived home. I rode about 10 miles and then was ready to go to sleep for the rest of the day, but I didn’t. 🙂

    I’ve been watching the TV show Warehouse 13 on Netflix and one of the characters is in AA and that’s been interesting to watch, in one episode he switches bodies with his partner and she’d been drinking and it kind of throws him for a loop. I like that he’s a regular guy in AA and still able to deal with the world – as weird as it may be – without being so different or a stick-in-the-mud.

    Sunday morning was another meeting, i even went to the fellowship before the meeting at Starbucks. My friend Roger picked up his 18 year chip and talked about his recent trip back to NY where he first sobered up many years ago. There was also someone who just moved to the area who picked up a 2 year chip, she moved here from Virginia Beach and her sponsor told her to find a meeting to make coffee at and she asked for help to find such a place. Over all it was a good meeting.

    After the meeting Sunday I did laundry and then took the bicycle out for a nice ride, there are nice bike paths all over here so lots to see and do.

    This morning I’m going to work, some meetings and a doctor appointment in the afternoon – more on that later.

  • A Plea For Help

    Today I’m going to talk about my friend Jana.

    I first met Jana in the virtual world of Azeroth in World of Warcraft (WoW) while both of us were in the Warsong Gulch (WSG) battleground – WSG is a capture the flag game and you have two teams of 10. Her character was Janka – then a pre 60 rogue. With her and our trusty friends Grokus, Meltiece, Kerrig, Salthair, Robauk, Noq (that’s me) and others we ruled the pre-cross server WSG … well, sometimes the Alliance would win, but come on… they’re Alliance SCUM! This was before the first expansion when the end goals were the level 60 and … hell I can’t even remember the dungeon that mattered back then. This was back in 2005 and I was new to the MMORP world – Janka was one of my early friends there and helped me feel like I belonged.

    Throughout the years, sometimes every day, we’d play WoW together. In expansion after expansion Janka would be there with me as I explored this virtual world – we did dungeons together, battlegrounds, raids… craft materials for one another and became real friends – even though we’d never met. I even met her husband Cameron playing WoW. That was true of a lot of my WoW friends.

    Through WoW and Facebook I got to know more and more about Jana and I’d see photos of her animals (she’s a dog and cat lover and has this huge heart) and stories about the crazy things they’d do. I found out about her job and what she does for a living. WoW helped me make a virtual friend a real life friend and I’m thankful to WoW for all the friends I made there. Time and again Jana would lend me virtual gold (not of any real value in the real world) for virtual items that seemed important back then… other things are more important you find out.

    Here’s the rub…

    Jana was recently diagnosed with uterine cancer, something the two of us can’t fight off in the land of Azeroth.

    Because of circumstances in her and her husband’s life they do not have health insurance and the fight for Jana is just now beginning. Here’s a quote from her husbands blog:

    “My research indicates that treatment of uterine cancer often runs about $100,000. Fortunately, MUSC offers patient assistance. We have applied for it and should hear back early next week if we are approved and to what extent. If approved, our costs could run anywhere from $4,000-$10,000. A ridiculous amount of money, but FAR better than the alternative!”

    That’s an awful lot of money to raise just to have a chance at beating this thing. I want to help but I can’t do this alone and neither can Jana. I have faith in the people who I call friends in the world – whether I’ve met them on WoW, Facebook or even – gasp – in person that we can help Jana raise this money and fight.

    I want your help and you can do this by following these steps:

    1. Go read Jana’s husbands blog about what’s been going on so far (here is the link: http://cameronscottwright.wordpress.com )

    2. Share that blog with your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit … friends (it’s called social networking for a reason)

    3. Lastly, you can donate towards her cancer fund – if you can give $5 that would help… if all of my friends gave $5 she’d have the money to do this (click here to donate: PayPal )

    When I have friends ask me to help them raise funds for dogs, running a race or their son or daughters school charity I give what I can if I can. It’s the right thing to do. Today I want to raise money to help a human (she’s really an orc) fight to stay alive… can you help me do that? Someday soon maybe people wont have to raise money to have a chance at staying alive – but at the moment we still do.

    My friend Jana (or Janka as she’ll always be known to me) needs help – I’m hoping you can help me help her.

  • Donnell and Superman

    From 2000 – 2005 I worked at Children’s National Medical Center in a few departments that focused on HIV/AIDS. I don’t do hospitals well, I’m squeamish (see this story) but working behind a computer is easy regardless of where the computer is so it wasn’t an issue as long as I didn’t have to look at tubes and blood and stuff… ewww.

    One of the nurses I worked with, Christy, had been working with one particular kid since he was born. His name was Donnell and he was born with HIV. Donnell was around 7 years old the first time I met him. He had come up to our floor with the purpose of seeing Christy and peeked his head around the corner of my cubicle shyly and then ran away, he was soon back and played with the Superman toys I had on my desk, but he was very shy. At that time I still had some hair – I know hard to believe – and I was wearing thick framed glasses in a Clark Kent style. Donnell convinced himself that I was really Superman. I think back then he honestly believed it and who was I to deny a kid a dream.

    Every time Donnell came to the hospital he would ask his nurse, Ms Campbell, if he could see Superman and I would drop whatever I was doing and spend hours with that little boy. We’d run up and down the hallways and visit strange areas and he’s always ask me when I would take him flying. I… sorry it’s hard to think about. He was always so happy to see me and he became a bright spot in my every day life.

    Donnell called me Superman and other people started to call me Superman and that’s why I decided on the Superman tattoo I had done when I turned 10 years sober in 2004. Donnell thought it was pretty cool when I showed it too him and it still is today when I look at it.

    He invited me a few years later to his graduation from elementary school (I think) and I was a little wary about going to Anacostia but I did anyway. He ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug that day and it was so cool to see him all dressed up and progressing. I was always asking him about school and trying to encourage him to study and try harder – emphasizing the importance of a good education, even if it was boring.

    I usually go to Ft Lauderdale for my birthday in December but the year I didn’t I was in the hospital when Donnell came to the emergency room. I went to spend the day with him while they tried to figure out what was wrong. Turns out he had a brain tumor the size of a small orange in his head and they had to operate. I was with him and his family up until they took him into surgery. It was so scary, I remember being a big teary mess that day too. In spite of my squeamishness I visited him in his room every day until he was released, I even came in on a Saturday.

    When I left Childrens I lost touch with Donnell, I would hear once in a while from friends that they had seen him at the hospital, but I myself hadn’t seen him since then. I often wondered how he was doing and if he had gotten into college yet.

    Today he suffered a stroke, his mom found him and they resuscitated him twice before letting him go. I hear he had been doing really well on his medications and the future looked bright.

    I’ve cried a few times tonight about this, a lot about time lost because I was too busy to stay in touch. A lot because he was such a good kid and he loved so many people with such a big heart.

    Mostly today I wish I had been able to fly and give him that one thing – maybe now he can fly. Maybe now he has wings – if you believe that type of thing, and I”m not sure I do – if there is one man who deserves to fly it’s him… I’ll miss you Donnell, thank you for loving me .

  • My Appendix

    I had my appendix taken out on Tuesday night at Washington Hospital Center, I feel much better already.

    Sunday night, January 6, 2013 as I sat on my bed to go to sleep i felt a weird twinge in my belly area – just found it weird, didn’t think about it too much and went to sleep.

    Monday my stomach/side ached most of the day. Nothing to keep me from work or anything, just annoying. It did actually start to hurt more and more as the day went by. I ate a couple times, hoping that would help, and actually didn’t have dinner wasn’t hungry. I was just over the whole achy thing and went to bed around 9:30.

    At around 12:30 I woke up to extreme pain in my right side – I went to the toilet, hoping maybe I just had gas or something, but I couldn’t go. After a few minutes of the pain not going away and the feeling of nausea a couple times I called the Kaiser advice nurse and explained what was going on – she advised me to call 911.

    I called 911 and within five minutes and ambulance arrived in our parking lot. I didn’t know if I was to go out there or if they were to come into my house so I just sat here. They came in and said ok lets go, lol. They took my vitals – I was pretty freaked out not only because of the pain but being in an ambulance really isn’t a fun idea to me and the paramedic guy kept asking me to calm down but it was hopeless. They called in to dispatch and dispatch directed them to Howard University Hospital (HUH). On the way to Howard the Paramedic told me I’d be better off going to Washington Hospital Center (WHC), but they had to go where dispatch sent them.

    At Howard I filled out a simple form and the paramedic told me I could call a taxi and go to WHC if I was waiting to long, he really wanted me to do that – I should have listened I guess. I arrived at HUH around 1:00 sat in the waiting room for 1 1/2 hours and then in a hallway for 2 more hours and had only peed in a cup and given blood. It was around 5:30 when I finally got a bed in a hallway in the ER and another hour or so before anyone came to look at me. I kept whispering “just come fix me, just come fix me” over and over again as I wanted to no longer be in pain so badly. At the shift change I think I finally started to get help a nurse gave me pain medication – I felt very loopy. They gave me an IV for the cat scan or the X-ray machine.

    The results of the cat scan said I didn’t have appendicitis but they were going to ask for a surgery consult just in case – the surgery consult guy was right behind him and came over to examine me – honestly I think it was the first doctor to touch me during this whole time and it was around 9:00 a.m. He was so super sexy, bearded, furry chest hairs peeking through his shirt collar and he was almost positive I had “early appendicitis” and said we’d be having surgery.

    Ana came to visit while I was there, that was nice. I felt like I had been there forever by that point.

    As I have Kaiser insurance they had to get approval to do the surgery there, but that didn’t happen and there were orders to send me to WHC that was around 10:30 a.m. I sat and waited until 2:00 before I was transferred via ambulance. Did you know there are speed bumps on the way to WHC ER? Isn’t that a sweet thing to do to people that are in pain already? geez!

    At WHC I was put in a temporary room for a few hours until they got my permanent room ready. We had a small problem with medications for me, I was in pain again but my SSN kept coming up as James J. Appel and they wanted to make sure I was who I said I was… I think it was 2 hours before I received pain medication at WHC and then they moved me to my permanent room. My permanent room I shared with a 80 year old man who’d never been in a hospital before that he knew of, nice quiet guy. My friend Donna came to visit from CNMC, that was very nice too.

    They started prepping me for surgery around 6 or something. Antibiotic IVs, fluids, pain meds – I should mention they wouldn’t let me eat or drink anything since I got there, I wasn’t hungry but I was very thirsty.

    They rolled me away to the surgery area around 7:30 and I met the people who put you under, they were in good spirits and seemed like nice folks. They asked me about ever having surgery before and I explained that I had lazy eye surgery as a kid and threw up after on my parents – who had tried to feed me McDonalds so really it was their own fault.

    The Operating room was really very cool to look at I loved the look of the lights and the tech they had in there. I kept trying to breathe deeply and my eyes closed when I’d start to think about what was about to happen. I thought someone was pushing my socks up but she was really attaching something that massaged my legs – that was very nice, but honestly freaked me out when it first started. I remember them putting the oxygen on my face but I don’t recall anyone asking me to count backwards or anythings.

    I woke up and needed to pee and cough and I hurt – and I said all those things and wanted to roll over on my side and they kept saying “no, it’s ok, just stay still” and the feeling that I wanted to pee was apparently the catheter. Then nothing.

    Then I was awakened by a BEEP, BEEP, BEEP and I looking around and was in a new room and someone said I was in the recovery room and I tried to go back to sleep and then BEEP, BEEP, BEEP and again and again… apparently I wasn’t getting enough oxygen and the beeping was to get me to breathe deeper – I made an audible complaint that that was pretty rude thing to do after all I’d been through all I wanted to do was sleep – she laughed at me.

    It wasn’t long before they rolled me back up to my room – 12:30 I was in my own bed. I would fall asleep and they’d come to take vitals or to change my IV or to annoy me. There is very little sleep to be had in the hospital bed – I felt sorry for my roommate.

    They had given me a urinal to pee in while I was in the bed, but nothing I could do would allow urine to flow into that thing in a bed – I tried and tried and tried and nothing. So I got them to let me walk to the bathroom and then there was joyful release! Being hooked up to the IV machine made it difficult to go to the bathroom solo – and I’d press the button for help and they’d say they’d be right there and I’d wait and wait and wait… honestly, Gary Jim and Ana were there during a few of these encounters and actually went off to find someone to help me. Pushing the button was a pointless endeavor the longer I was there the more I realized that. I was really surprised the bathroom didn’t have any grab bars.

    I spent most of the day in and out of consciousness that really coordinated with the pain meds. They wanted me to walk and pass gas so I walked as soon as I could. The passing gas didn’t happen until right before I went home but it did happen – I’ve since pooed too if you were wondering.

    I arrived home last night, Gary came to get me and went to get me medications too. Mouse was happy to see me but not sure why I didn’t pick her up for a hug or play our nightly game. Gary sent me this email while I was still in the hospital:

    “Mouser and I were talking.  I told her you were in the hospital to have surgery and she said that she was in the hospital twice for surgery but no one came to visit her.  She said that when you come home that I should put one of those hoods (he’s referring to the cone of shame) on you like you made her wear and handcuff you so you cannot touch yourself.”

    Standing up, getting up, sitting down all those things currently hurt a little bit. I can sit here and type and have basically no pain at all. Oh and coughing hurts a little too. I have three little bandages on my belly and they shave most of that area, but not all of it so it looks like half of my belly is dirty and it’s going to really itch soon I know it!

    I don’t know if it would have taken less time to just take a cab to WHC when I first got to HUH or not but I think if I ever end up in a similar situation I would go to WHC first.

    There was an outpouring of love and comments and text from friends and family that I truly appreciated – but all of you that kept wanting me to keep you updated with calls or text used up my phone battery that much sooner – thanks! lol

     

  • Meditation

    Back when I was still a stoner I used to “meditate” with my friend Ted to the Rush songs on the 2112 and Hemispheres albums. Sometimes this involved pot, sometimes alcohol and once in a while candles – lots of hand movements and singing along. Very serious business that increased the presence of the 12 gods in my life.

    When I got sober a few years later I learned about Step 11

    Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

    Through the years in meetings all over the country I’ve had the opportunity to hear about how others have meditated. Some folks talked about how they meditated in the shower,  some how they meditated on their way to work in the car or even like I used to do – listening to music that inspired them (with or without candles 😉 ).

    I was pretty dumbfounded about the whole idea and just faked it mostly. When I’d pray or have a quiet moment I would consider that to be my meditation and “enough” of an effort to improve my conscious contact. It wasn’t very satisfying and truthfully, I didn’t do it very often and I never really felt calmer or centered as a result.

    Then a  few years back I was at a workshop where the leader of the workshop guided us through a Mindfulness Meditation. I was skeptical but learned long ago to “fake it til you make it”. I followed her instructions and guidance as we placed our feet flat on the ground, had our backs straight and breathed in and breathed out, simple counting and focusing on pushing out the outside distraction and noise – sure enough I actually felt more at ease, more centered and relaxed. This was what I was looking for.

    Granted, I’m still not a daily user – I have my faults that may be difficult for some of you to come to terms with.. sorry to disappoint – but when I do use it my day, my situations, my people places and things are so much easier to deal with. I’ve even used it when I’ve not been able to sleep – due to thoughts racing around in my head or something that was bothering me, it really helps to ease all the noise.

    At first I came to scoff… 😉 Anyway, meditation, Mindfulness Meditation in particular, has become a really welcome part of my life and I can’t recommend it enough to folks. There are some links here that you can click on and read more about it and I’m sure there are places in larger cities where you can be guided through. The thing is not to quit trying – you’ll gain peace in the trying to get there.

    Five Types of Meditation: http://www.fitsugar.com/5-Types-Meditation-18949375

    Mindfulness Meditation instructions: http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=2125

    More on Meditation: http://www.spiritualnow.com/articles/20/1/The-Different-Types-of-Meditation/Page1.html

  • My Friend the Vegan

    My best friend Suzanne is a vegan, she’s been a Vegan for a little over a year now. It’s a personal choice for her, I know she thought long and hard about it but ultimately decided that if she wanted to have a clear conscious about how people treat animals then she had to become a vegan. I’m sure there was more to it, I’m almost positive there is. She’s managed to become a vegan and still teach insane amounts of exercise classes that whenever I’m in town she drags me along to. So she gets enough protein, vitamins, sustenance or what have you to be totally awesome as a Body Step, Zumba and Body Pump instructor (for the record, I hate Body Pump and my body hurts so much after)… ok, really the vegan thing has little to do with the class instructing, but she can do that even without eating meat which I think is pretty amazing, because I live on meat. She even says that she loves the tastes of all the new vegetables and tofu she’s discovered on this journey.

    She’s not pushy about being a vegan either, she doesn’t talk down to me because I eat meat, she just knows how she feels about it and lets me go on about being the person I am and she lives by example… that’s a novel idea isn’t it.  She’s a pretty amazing woman for that reason too (there is a long, long list for why she’s amazing, I’m just focusing on a little here).

    This weekend I was going to try some of her fake milk, but I forgot – someone somewhere is probably saying “It’s not fake, it’s ALMOND milk.” or “soy milk”. Whatever… the point is I really was going to try, but this morning I had the bowl of oatmeal already in the bowl when she reminded me and I don’t take milk in my oatmeal, so I didn’t get to.

    So because I didn’t get to try the fake milk (let it go people) I decided to post these really cute photos of her dog instead.

    Farley loving the cool air from the vent

  • Death and Dying #death #dying #righttochoose

    My roommates (Gary) mother passed away Friday night, she was just a few weeks short of 97 years old. She had been in hospice care for about three weeks and in the nursing home for 18 months. She had been unconscious for over a day and had quit being hungry or thirsty several days prior. Chances are she died peacefully in her sleep. I first met Gary’s mom probably 14 years ago and she was this frail little old woman with a beaming smile and a glint in her eyes. She was sweet and yet stuck in her ways. Even back then I remember her expressing her dissatisfaction with living as long as she had “no one should live this long” she would say.

    I don’t want to live that long, hell I think I can accomplish most of what I want to do in the next few years. The older you get the more problems you’re likely to have, no matter what your physical fitness level your bones will start to strain more, your teeth will start to fall out (mine are already doing a great job of falling apart) your system starts to react differently than it has the previous forty years. Nature is saying, hey – that’s enough now, we need fertilizer. Who am I to deny nature, whose idea was it to want to keep living longer and longer. Foolishness.

    I have a few friends that I’ve talked with about such things and we’ve even discussed the possibility of getting cancer or some other life threatening disease and not fighting it, I mean really why would you put all that poison into your system to maybe live another ten or twenty years – seems ridiculous to me. Friends who have had cancer say “You can’t say that, you haven’t been there.” I haven’t played ice hockey and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to do that too. OK, maybe that was a silly answer, but I’m pretty sure if the moment came I’d just let the disease have me.

    If they’d let me.

    See the fear lies in the people who think they know better, the ones that help to influence laws to say we don’t have a right to die when we’re ready. If I was faced with a painful life-threatening illness and wanted to end my life – there are laws that say “Oh No, you can’t kill yourself that’s immoral” or some crap. Remember Dr. Kevorkian? That guy helped people die, not people who were depressed or spent all the law firms money and were looking for a way out, but the ones that were actually dying or living in such pain that death was a solution. That man was sent to prison for 10 – 25 years for helping people die, for putting voluntary people out of their misery. We’re one fucked up society.

    Anyway. I’ve talked to a lot of people about dying and coming to the end of their journey. One friend expects he’ll live another ten years max as his parents both died at that age. Several friends have no desire to be hooked up to machines that help them breathe or stay alive in any fashion. More than one friend has expressed interest in denying treatment if they were diagnosed with a life threatening illness. Most of these folks are happy with life as it is but have done what they wanted to do in life. These folks have lived their lives like they wanted to live them and are happy, surprise surprise.

    I’m not generally happy, but I’m content with my choices, accomplishments and story. I’m ready.

  • Twist Tied Past

    Tonight at dinner I bit into my salad and found an unexpected treat. A twist tie from a bread bag or something had somehow ended up in my salad. I took it out and showed it to my waiter who then gave me the meal free, which was nice but not necessary, these things happen – I did continue to eat the salad, hell I love that thing. What was interesting was a memory got tugged out of the nether and put back into conscious thought of a time that had happened to me once before.

    *activate wavy screen effect to simulate a warp back through the time-stream to see the story Jamez is talking about here*

    Probably twenty years ago now I used to stop at the Kwik Trip on Main Street in Whitehall after spending countless hours at Dave’s Bar. Fortunately for me at the time not only was Kwik Trip open 24 hours a day, they cooked food… which was nice if you’re a drunk on a winter night in WI with no home of your own. On many a night I would stop there after running out of drinking money, or to pick up a cheap case of beer to take back where ever I was staying – usually just had enough for a lottery ticket or a burger.

    (A completely different story at this quick trip I had one dollar left in my wallet – was out of booze and cigarettes and I decided to purchase a lottery ticket, that’s the logical thing to do in that situation if you’re a drunk. I scratched away and got three TV’s that means I won $100 and a chance to be on the Wisconsin Lottery TV show in Milwaukee which I think netted me a little over $400 – not that that was helping me get beer or cigarettes at this point, the $100 wasn’t instant and I was more pissed off than I was excited. On another note, recently that Kwik Trip sold two 1 Million Dollar lottery tickets, that would have likely pissed me off too as it wasn’t instant booze).

    So I was pretty drunk the night I stumbled into the Kwik Trip, someone had probably pissed me off as I can remember being a little mad just getting there. Where were my friends? Hell I don’t know either passed out or still at Dave’s drinking away. I ordered my usual burger at the counter and waited at one of the tables until they brought it out to me. I was likely talking to myself, likely reeked of beer and might have smiled at the lady who brought it, but that might have taken too much effort.

    I was eating away at the burger and fries and washing them down with a Dr. Pepper most likely – you can’t drink beer in the Kwik Trip, silly rules… then it happened, I bit down into the burger and bit something hard. I pulled it out and sure enough it was a twisty like the ones used for bread packages and such… My alcoholic mind did something like this:

    Wow, I could have died. 

    I wonder if someone is trying to kill me, does that girl know me?

    Where am I? I thought I was at Dave’s? 

    I could sue, I wonder how much money I could get?

    If I sued then I’d likely not be able to buy beer here anymore, or maybe I could buy beer here but they’d probably find a different way to screw me over. 

    It’s too late to buy beer at the store, damn it I hope there is some left at the house.

    I might have a beer or two stashed in my room.

    Why is this twist tie in my hand? Oh yeah…

    What should I do now? 

    I managed to get my head straight enough to figure out I should talk to someone at the store about this and got up and went to the counter. I told them I had found this twisty tie in my burger and I think I actually said “I should be mad about this I think” and then I’m pretty sure I said “Shouldn’t I be mad about this?” and “My burger should be free or something, I could have been hurt” probably a “this is unacceptable” as I always thought things were unacceptable. I tried very hard to be very upset but a part of me realized how drunk I was and I just knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep it together long enough to get the story straight. Most of me was convinced they’d accuse me of lying and placing the twist tie in there myself for attention.

    I think I did actually get my meal paid for and I honestly forgot all about the incident until this night when I bit into the twisty tie in my salad.  Anyway, I just had to get that out of my head and on “paper” so to speak before it disappeared again.