Uncontrollable Shitting

So I'm in this frat. It's an inter-sexual organization called Beta Alpha Nu Delta. It's a little bit ridiculous. We even have our own memes. One of them is unfortunately "uncontrollable shitting".

This unfortunate phrase was brought about by an email from our Head Manager. In it, he bitched us out for backing out of frat trips at the last second because it causes all sorts of terrible logistic things to happen. The  exact phrase he used is kind of fuzzy at this point, but it went something like this:

"You should not back out of frat trips unless you are really sick. Things that you can back out of trips for: you are broken, excessive vomiting, and uncontrollable shitting."

 It became this huge joke. It's the Excuse of all Excuses and funny to boot if you actually need to use it.

Except it's only funny when you've never experienced uncontrollable shitting.

I worked at an overnight summer camp here at Prestigious University for a month last summer. I was desperate (having been turned down for a lot of internships) and the pay was $1500 for 4 weeks, which is pretty damn good. Beggars can't be choosers and I have to pay Penelope's car payment. The job itself is an entire other story but here's what happened before I even started.

I was supposed to start my job on Sunday. The kids (ages 13-16) were arriving on Sunday around 2pm. Saturday afternoon I started feeling sick. Having had a fish patty for brunch at the dining hall earlier that morning, I immediately assumed it was food poisoning. My day off ended up being spent curled up on my bed in the fetal position feeling nauseated as hell with a raging headache. Vomit occurred that night. I didn't have a thermometer at my disposal (I was living in a dorm) but my chills were so bad I figured I probably had a fever.

Sunday I felt a bit better and managed to make our Staff Meeting. Ten minutes in I turned a bit green and hurriedly excused myself. Thankfully I made it back to my room before I barfed again. Thats also when the diarrhea started. It was a terrible two days. The worst part was calling my boss at the time, Babs, and explaining the situation to her. She just told me to take it easy and avoid the kids. It was super awkward.

I stopped eating because I was just throwing it all up and/or shitting it out. Nothing I took helped: Immodium, Pepto Bismol, Advil, etc. I called home and asked my Mom, who was a pharmacist for 10 years, for more advice. Her advice was to just drink Gatorade.

On Monday I went to the Clinic. I really didn't have much choice. I was dehydrated, miserable, running to the toilet every half hour, and not really able to do much of anything. Now, as a sidenote, the Clinic has screwed me over several times. I've gone in insisting that I have a sinus infection, and they've sent me home with directions to take Advil and drink liquids. And then I end up back there a week later with not only a sinus infection, but double pink eye (the sinus infection just spreads to my eyes) and bronchitus. The second time this happened I ended up with pneumonia. So really, I don't have much confidence in the abilities of said Clinic.

So thus began my four-hour trail in the Clinic. I went in, and immediately the front desk lady makes me put on the face mask. Ok now, I understand the mask is to prevent the spread of sickness to others. But really, I'm not sneezing, spitting, coughing, or exploding bodily fluids out my face. It is all coming out the other goddamn end. I don't think they make ass masks and if they do they don't hand them out at the Clinic. I'm pretty sure that's what a diaper is anyway.

So I go upstairs and wait. There were obnoxious little wrestlers in training everywhere from the Prestigious University sports camps. Pretty much all of them had staph and were pissed off little grelims because they couldn't wrestle for several weeks. Finally, I get called back, recount the horrors my body has been putting me through, and look quite pathetic in general. The 'nurse practitioner' schedules me some tests.

I hate peeing in cups. If I had proper peeing-in-cups equipment (ahem, penis) it wouldn't be so bad. Vaginas were never meant to pee in cups. Of course, I accidentally pee all over my hand. EW. Following my date with a toilet, I had to get blood taken.

Generally my veins are practically busting out my arms, but I was so dehydrated from sending it all out the tailpipe that Nurse Bloodtaker couldn't find a vein. I had I had to chug 3 bottles of water and run up and down the hallway because I was so cold. Even still, she attempted to suck my blood out of both arms before she gave up and used a pediatric needle.

They told me they would send the results to me the next day. I walked back to the dorm feeling like shit (no pun intended) and looking like some sort of heroin addict.

All of the tests they did came back normal. And even though I had gotten rid of the chills, nausea, and headache, my personal basement continued to flood. Also, my stomach kept cramping up in its own terrible all-encompassing version of mega-peristalsis. I called Babs, who is getting a little crazy on me. She even went so far as to strongly suggest that I go home and then come back to work when I was better. Really Babs? I live six freaking hours away and you want me to go home?? Penelope wasn't with me, so that would have meant that one of parentals would have had to drive up and back 12 hours to get me, and then repeat the process several days later. Yeah, because they would be so thrilled at that prospect. It took some clever bullshit to fend her off, but I made up a bunch of excuses and faked feeling better enough so she eventually dropped the topic.

Clinic had told me that I wasn't contagious and that I could go back to work when I felt better. I started on Wednesday. The remainder of the week consisted of frequent and repeated trips to the water closet, intense stomach cramps, as well as a diet of applesauce, Gatorade, and bagels. Week 1 (of my job) was a miserable miserable time. I lost over 10 pounds. It got to the point where I started to forget what a solid poop felt like, because it was all liquid. Ick.

Following Sunday: feeling OK but still frequenting the bathroom. I decided to break out the big guns: I take the bus to the Super Clinic hosted by the hospital. My spiel delivered, they decide (like the brainiacs they are) to take a stool sample. Duh. I mean, that was the basis of my problem on the first hospital visit. I have no idea why Clinic ordered every test but that when it was one of my major symptoms. Sometimes people are stupid. Peeing in a cup is bad, but defecating in a glorified training potty is just demoralizing. So is having to pour it yourself into several different vials. Probably one of the grossest things I've done.

Even after all those tests, they never really figured out what was wrong. Super Clinic doctor just told me it was probably just a stomach bug that needed to work itself out.

But anyway, it was gross. The only thing that even rivals it was the Slurpee Incident of summer '09. But that's another story. Anyway, my point is that now I can actually say that I've Uncontrollably Shitted and it is muy bueno. Definitely a worthy excuse for missing a frat trip.

Footie Pajamas Rule

So my house has this thing with Footie Pajamas. I'm not sure how this happened, but all three girls in the house (3/5 people) are now in possession of pajamas with feet* in them.

Giraffes (another housemate) owns two pairs of footie pajamas. The craze is actually her fault. Her first pair are the monkey themed ones from Target. They're perky blue with the feet parts made to look like sock monkey slippers. The second pair is giraffe print. The amount of time she spends in them is a little disconcerting. She'll come home from class and put them on. Or spend an entire Saturday at the table doing homework in them. But that's not the weirdest part. She usually goes commando inside them yet insists upon wearing a bra. I mean, it's fleece. You are not going to nipple through fleece. It's fleece. But she insists. She'll also wear them for weeks without washing them. One time she wore them to Wegman's. But anyway, it's her fault because she raved about how much she loved her footie pajamas for a really long time and the rest of us got a little jealous.

Metalhead got her glow-in-the-dark spaceship footie pajamas from me. Aren't I a good housemate? Anyway, the story behind that is I bought them for me (not so good housemate). I got them from a giant yard sale and I was uuber excited because I mean, they're flipping adult footie pajamas and they glow in the goddamn dark! They even have spaceships on them! Who wouldn't get excited about that? So imagine my disappointment when I get them back to my dorm room and #1) I'm too tall and #2) a little too wide to fit into them. Sad face. I took them home for my 14 year old brother to wear because I thought he'd like them. Apparently he's 'too cool' (read: angsty with Bieber hair) for spaceship footie pajamas so he refused to wear them. Figuring they could at least be loved by someone, I bestowed them upon Metalhead who has a fondness for flying aircraft anyway. It was comparable to the time she bought herself power tools at Lowe's because she beamed a lot and squealed a little bit. She then wore them for an extended period of time.

Not to be upstaged, I got footie pajamas for Christmas this year. Except I didn't ask for them and I'm not really sure how Mom knew. This still kinda weirds me out a bit.

*My footie pajamas are....special, to say the least. They are extremely redneck footless footie pajamas. They are akin to something you would see in an old Dukes of Hazzard episode. Imagine a grandpa creaking in a rocking chair on the front porch in the twilight, complete with shotgun slung across his lap (and possibly a banjo). Now picture him wearing what amounts to a red adult-sized button-down onesie and you've got my footie pajamas.

This is not to say that I don't love them, because I do. They are just something that I would never, ever wear in public. This is significant because I've worn some pretty ridiculous things in public, like the red leopard print skinny jeans, the purple tutu, and the tentacle skirt. It's just that they look too ridiculous. And not cool ridiculous, but just kind of pathetic and crazy Appalachian ridiculous.

Reason #1 why public viewing is No Bueno: the crotch bulge. These things are made by Red Head, which is a company that manufactures hunting gear. So they were definitely made for a man. I don't have much in the sausage department (it's tacos all the way) so I just have all this extra room in the frontal pelvic area. Way awkward.

Reason #2: they have a butt flap. Now generally I would be OK with a butt flap. I don't think I would ever use it, but it's not like it's causing me harm or anything. I would just be way too paranoid of getting poop on myself...and also that means I would have to not wear underwear with them. How would you pull down underwear without taking off the pajamas if the whole point is to just open the butt flap and have at it? Achieving this feat would involve a lot of inter-clothes maneuvering that I probably couldn't pull off without falling into the toilet. Nope. I don't think that's happening. The weird part is that the flap on these particular pajamas isn't square, it's vertical and held closed by a single button. Who was the brains behind this one? A vertical butt flap? Yeah, buttcracks are vertical, but having a vertical buttflap leaves so much room for...error? Messes? STIs? Not really sure. It just seems counter-intuitive for me. The square flap was so much better. Just move everything out of the way, do your thing, re-button. Done-zo.

So for now I wear my redneck footless footie pajamas underneath a tshirt. They're great for warmth but no so great for fashion shows or toilet practicality.

The weirdest part about this is that I hated footie pajamas as a kid. They were cool to wear but I used to get so damn hot in them that I would zip them all the way down to the ankle and just walk around like that. I was a Proper Young Lady at all ages, let me tell you. Now I'm experiencing a life reversal as an adult. I just wish they made The Little Mermaid footie pajamas in my size.

Name Change.

In other news, "Hair" has decided she wants to be called "Metalhead" instead. This stems from her love of viking metal (and other kinds of metal too). She is currently sitting next to me in her glow-in-the-dark spaceship footie pajamas, northface fleece, and rainboots. We are inside and not on a sleepover, in case you were wondering.

Work Week from Hell

Along with being a full time student and consuming my life with other activities, I have a job. I work at a Lab doing research on birds. Sometimes I get paid to stuff envelopes and stare at a computer screen, but one or two days a week I get paid to do fieldwork. This is the fun part. I lug a 10-gallon jug of sunflower seed, four 12-volt batteries, and a small laptop through a field and small forest so that I can fill up, change, and download the bird feeders my boss uses for research.

Now, normally this is the best job ever. Money is deposited into my checking account every time I scamper about in the woods. But occasionally my job sucks. Like this week, for example. Last Friday I went out to change feeders with my coworker Sarah (who often gets to experience and/or hear my stories firsthand). The high up here in the Northeast was ~15 degrees F. In the two minutes it took us to drive from the lab to where we park it started white-out blizzarding. Neither one of us generally wears goggles (though I wore my chem goggles once) so trying to drag 30 pounds of stuff through this blizzard on top of the knee-high snow that was already on the ground, while not really being able to see much was terrible. Just terrible.

By the time I make it to the first feeder I'm ready to kill something. But the icing on the cake comes when I actually open up the feeder to get at its guts. The wind is blowing so hard that all the snow on the tree limbs is blowing everywhere. Add this to the blizzard already happening and it's like being in a snowglobe. Have you ever tried to keep a small laptop and circuit board from being destroyed in a snowglobe? It's literally impossible. At this point, I'm ready to call Sarah and get the hell outta there. But then I think about how my boss would tease us about not being able to handle it and I steel myself for another three rounds of this mayhem.

Feeder 2. I clear some of the snow away from beneath the feeder so have somewhere to sit. Not all the snow mind you, just enough so I can see the tips of dead grass underneath. I kneel down in my snowpants and spend the next 10 minutes doing my thing. As I hang the feeder back on its hook my brain says "Wait a minute...there's never been grass under this feeder before." Being the inquisitive science major that I am, I kick the "dead grass" with my boot. I KNELT ON A FROZEN FUCKING POSSUM FOR 10 MINUTES. The following minutes consist of me freaking out by myself in the middle of a forest. There were lots of expletives and a fair amounts of "EWWWW!!"s. For a second there, in the swirling snow, I thought I saw the thing breathing. Jesus, I've fucking kneeled on and killed a possum. I'm a terrible human being. Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod. But no, upon closer examination it's definitely dead. I know enough about Didelphimorphs to know that if they get knelt on they will probably bite you. I don't think possums can play dead that well. Ya dig?

Eventually I calm down enough to kick the poor possum (frozen into the shape and consistency of a frisbee) over to the side. My brain is still in shock. I get the hell out of there.

When I tell Sarah this story, she collapses in laughter. "Wait 'till we tell Boss." Yeah, because I'm totally looking forward to that.

Part II
So that was last Friday. Yesterday (Tuesday) I was supposed to go and change feeders by myself. Now generally, Sarah and I drive together and park at a smaller lab and walk out to change feeders. But I only had to do one forest yesterday and there's a dirt road that goes out to it. Now, I drive a Honda Civic (her name is Penelope). Honda Civics do not have four-wheel drive. I know this. But I decide that I will drive by the dirt road and check it out. If it looks too snowy for Penelope, I'll drive to the other lab and walk the extra half mile. If it looks OK, I'm golden.

I drive by and the dirt road looks OK. There's still some snow but it looks as if several other people have driven there previously and done just fine. So I give Penelope a quick pep talk and turn onto the road. About 40 feet in Penelope gets stuck. Well shit. Being from the great old state of Maryland, the emergency stash in my car includes jumper cables, an emergency survival kit, and an ice scraper. I go for option C and decide that I can dig myself out with a moderately sized ice scraper enough so that I can at least back out and park at the other lab. Another incentive for this crazy plan is so I can tell my boss that I MacGyver-ed my way out of this particular mess. He uses "MacGyver-ed" all the time. And though I've never seen an episode of that show ever, I understand that it means something like using stuffs you have on you for nowhere near their original purposes. Usually blowing shit up. MacGyvering myself out of this mess might redeem me a little for getting myself into it to begin with. I decide I will MacGyver myself out of this jam. It's only 2:15pm. Plenty of time.

2:20 - I start digging out the wheels
2:40 - Still digging. Why did there have to be a snowbank on Penelope's left flank?
3:10 - attempt 1 to back Penelope out fails. Return to digging
3:30 - attempt 2 also fails. MOAR DIGGING.
4:00 - attempt 3. Attempt to put dry grass under wheels for more friction. Nope. I've moved the car 6 feet towards the road. Time to call for backup.*

*Sidenote: I just want to say that I was extremely close to the road. Like 30-40 feet. My car is blue, I'm next to a snow-covered field, my hat is green with a giant pom-pom on top. I'm dressed in black snowpants with a pink tye-dye shit. I'm not blending in here. I've been on my knees attempting to dig out my car with a goddamn ice scraper for two hours next to a fairly busy road. I am obviously a damsel in distress. I have no idea how many cars passed me. At least a hundred. Some had snow plows on them. Not a single one of them stopped to see if I was OK or if I needed help. What the HELL is wrong with humanity? People suck. 

After calling Sarah and explaining to her my dilemma (and suffering her laughter) she gives me the number to the Lab. I call for backup. Mary, the awesome front desk receptionist who occasionally drops F-bombs and gives me cookies, attempts to save me. She sends out an emergency email to the Lab asking if anyone is wiling to come save me. Apparently the answer is a big fat No. Mary calls back and tells me the shuttle driver will pick me up and we'll deal with my car when I get back to the lab. I get rescued and am back at the lab just before 5. I then have to call a towtruck service. I think the icing on the cake was that the lady at the towing service laughed at me when I told her that I "overestimated my car's ability to drive through snow". I mean yeah, it's funny, but I was in a terrible mood at this point. She tells me the guy will be there in 10 minutes to pick me up. I think I can handle 10 minutes outside so I go sit in the cold.

Nearly 40 minutes later, Towtruck Guy arrives. Everything between my knees and bellybutton is numb from sitting on a rock outside the Lab door. Ten minutes my ass. Towtruck Guy is extremely large and looks to have the brains of a squirrel. He drives me to my car. It takes nearly 30 minutes for TtG to clamp a chain onto Penelope and drag her out of that tundra pit. The entire time I was sitting in the cab of the towtruck being miserable. The alert lights are alight on top of the truck and it feels a bit like sitting in a police car. The people driving by (and now they notice me, of course) are totally judging me. I can tell.

Following Penelope's rescue, TtG gets back in the cab and grabs his paperwork. He slowly prattles on about "[some number] feet of chain" and other things that fly completely over my head. Except he says it in a way that sounds like I should totally comprehend what he's trying to tell me. Whatever. I'm too wiped from the stress to care. I do snap out of it a bit when I see the bill. Goddamn that was an expensive mistake. $135!! Jesus towtrucks are goddamn expensive. I use my credit card and leave.

When I got home I walked in yelling. I'm pretty sure I yelled some F bombs for no apparent reason other than to get all the stress out. My housemates, kind of freaked at seeing me go nuts (I don't normally yell), ask me what happened. I recount the story. Hair (her not real life name) made me go take a shower. Did I mention that I was covered in mud and smelled faintly of manure? I slipped getting into the shower and just hollered more expletives about how much I hated everything. In the shower. Then I got out and ate an entire box of pierogies. Then Chef (not his real life name either) made me some hot chocolate. I spiked it when his back was turned. That pretty much sums up my day.

P.S. Boss gets back from Florida tomorrow. He was absent for both the possum and the towtruck incident. Also, just seconds ago got a text from Sarah (who went in to the Lab today). It says "you are going to have so much fun the next time you come in. AM (our supervisor) started laughing the moment she saw me and apparently she and Boss have already "conversed"." I can't contain my excitement.