I have decided to move. My blog that is. This pea soup decor has worn on my nerves so please visit my NEW BLOG at http://www.marshmellowfluffstuff.comHope to see you there!
Saturday, April 4, 2009
It's Time!!!
I have decided to move. My blog that is. This pea soup decor has worn on my nerves so please visit my NEW BLOG at http://www.marshmellowfluffstuff.com
Friday, April 3, 2009
Warts but With No Frogs to Show For It
The fact that I wore huge bifocals as a kid wasn't enough for "God" to gift me with. He apparently was feeling generous on the day of my creation and decided that one deficiency wasn't enough for me to overcome. So, to add further injury to my optically challenged insult, I was also stricken with mountain sized warts.
My first one was the size of an eraser head and, since it resided in the palm of my left hand, was hide able. I reasoned that it began one day when a rose thorn pricked me in the exact spot that was now adorned with a scalloped wart. Upon it's discovery I contemplated moving away to an island for rejects, but I found my life could continue as per usual. I quickly adapted and learned how to hide my wart. When washing my hands in public I was careful not to tilt my hand so that someone could spot it. And, given my huge bifocals, I surely wasn't going to be holding a boy's hand anytime soon so I didn't have to bother worrying about being discovered that way either. It wasn't long before my mom took me to the doctor and with his Frankenstein-like contraption he burned my wart off with a beam of electricity. The smell of victory was sweet and similar to the smell of burning flesh.
And then, in a matter of a few months they spread. Little by little the cauliflower offenders began to sprout up like a canvas over the top of my left hand. One wart was manageable, but now, every morning I awoke to find another cluster. They would start out as little unoffensive bumps that quickly grew in size. They reminded me of the sponge capsules you would put into a dish with water that would expand into a huge sponge creature where the little pill once was. I would stare at my hands every night before bedtime trying to commit their size to memory. Every morning I awoke to find the clusters were growing larger. I had dreams of them overtaking my entire body until I was one huge wart monster terrorizing the town folk.
As they grew they inevitably became harder to hide. When I was in class writing at my desk I would cover my left hand with my right hand as I wrote, successfully masking all 8 warts that covered the top of my left hand, but looking autistic and strange as I did so. Being left handed called enough attention to me, now I was the strange lefty who held the pencil with both hands. I was able to do this for one grade level and then, over the summer, they began sprouting up all over my right hand.
By the end of summer I looked at my plagued hands and cried. It was the end of my 5th grade year and I had hoped, in vain, for a new beginning in junior high. Unlike most other girls who would wish on stars to kiss a boy or get a pony, my wishes were for pretty hands and 20/20 vision.
I had tried everything to get rid of them. Given, this was many years before the invention of the Internet, I was reliant upon simple here say about how to eradicate warts. Since it was a topic that I would only talk about to my family, my main source was my grandfather. His advice - wait for a night when there is a full moon and on that night cut a tomato in half and stand naked in the backyard smashing the tomato onto all of my warts. Spin around in a circle and scream as loud as I could, "warts be gone, warts be gone". Thankfully, had it not been for my fear of public nudity, I may have attempted this ritual.
The thought of returning from summer as an even uglier 6th grader had reduced me to tears. Soon I was crying so hard, the kind of crying that you make that funny stuttered breathing sound, that I hadn't noticed my dad had walked into the room. If you knew my dad, you would understand that his ability to deal with an adolescent girl was right up there with his ability to swallow fire. There was nothing more out of his comfort zone than trying to deal with emotions, let alone mine.
Given that modern day health care escaped my father and that his idea of first aid was sewing his own finger back on with a needle and fishing line, it was no surprise that I found myself driving with him in his van to his "doctor friend's" office with a Thermos in my lap. I didn't question where we were going, all I knew was my dad was determined to get me to stop crying and that was enough for me. So I followed him, like a trusting and hopeful puppy into the waiting area as he gave the receptionist his name and muttered something about being a friend of the doctors and that, "he would know what it was regarding". Within minutes the doctor asked for us to come back and we were ushered into one of the patient rooms. He came in behind us and asked me for the Thermos. I hoped he wasn't asking for it because he was thirsty and cursed myself for not thinking to fill it with something before we left the house. Quickly my Thermos and the doctor left the room. I sat there in silence wondering what sort of exchange my father had worked out with this strange doctor and why the doctor was more interested in my Thermos than he was with seeing my warts. Soon he came back in the room and handed me the Thermos which was cold to the touch. "Be careful not to spill it on yourself" he said to me with a chuckle which was a cause for concern on my part. He and my dad exchanged awkward pleasantries and my dad and I left.
On the way home I held the Thermos tightly wondering what magical liquid the good doctor had filled it with. Was I supposed to drink it? Maybe it was a syrup I would drink and would kill all the warts. I imagined with great satisfaction the warts drying up and falling away from my hands leaving silky skin in their place. When we got home my dad positioned a chair over the sink in the kitchen and then dropped a handful of Q-tips on a paper towel next to the Thermos. "Just dip them in the dry ice and then press them on your warts. I'm going to watch TV, call me if you need anything." And with that my dad left his 10 year old daughter with a Thermos of dry ice and shaky hands.
I dipped the Q-tip cautiously into the bubbling frosting liquid and then stared at it for a moment before lightly touching it to the surface of the largest wart. It didn't hurt as much as I had imagined so I pushed the tip down with more force and it made a sizzling sound. I grit my teeth tightly together as electric jolts of pain radiated in my wart and up through my arm. At first, the pain caught me off guard but then, the hatred and anger towards them and all they plagued me with took over and I began finding joy in the possibility. I imagined myself wart-free for the first time in years. I imagined writing papers at my desk with ease, with nothing to hide from anyone. First, I focused on the warts on my right hand since I was naturally a lefty and could hold the Q-tip with more precision. After 40 minutes, I held my shaky right hand up and admired the beauty. The white cauliflower masses were now purple and blue suffocated masses encircled by red inflamed rings. Then my shaky and battered right hand enthusiastically grabbed a Q-tip and retaliated with brutal force. By the time I was done my hands looked more tragic than ever but I knew it was a sign of greater things to come.
I went to bed that night with throbbing hands. Stronger than my desire to cry from the pain, was my satisfaction. That night I dreamt of the town folk raging up against the wart monster that had plagued them for many moons. Tired of being the victim of his torment they carried flaming torches into the night. They tracked down the wart monster and backed him into a dark alley. The wart monster screamed as they burned him with their torches and then the screams began to fade...the wart monster was dead.
And they all lived happily ever after...
My first one was the size of an eraser head and, since it resided in the palm of my left hand, was hide able. I reasoned that it began one day when a rose thorn pricked me in the exact spot that was now adorned with a scalloped wart. Upon it's discovery I contemplated moving away to an island for rejects, but I found my life could continue as per usual. I quickly adapted and learned how to hide my wart. When washing my hands in public I was careful not to tilt my hand so that someone could spot it. And, given my huge bifocals, I surely wasn't going to be holding a boy's hand anytime soon so I didn't have to bother worrying about being discovered that way either. It wasn't long before my mom took me to the doctor and with his Frankenstein-like contraption he burned my wart off with a beam of electricity. The smell of victory was sweet and similar to the smell of burning flesh.
And then, in a matter of a few months they spread. Little by little the cauliflower offenders began to sprout up like a canvas over the top of my left hand. One wart was manageable, but now, every morning I awoke to find another cluster. They would start out as little unoffensive bumps that quickly grew in size. They reminded me of the sponge capsules you would put into a dish with water that would expand into a huge sponge creature where the little pill once was. I would stare at my hands every night before bedtime trying to commit their size to memory. Every morning I awoke to find the clusters were growing larger. I had dreams of them overtaking my entire body until I was one huge wart monster terrorizing the town folk.
As they grew they inevitably became harder to hide. When I was in class writing at my desk I would cover my left hand with my right hand as I wrote, successfully masking all 8 warts that covered the top of my left hand, but looking autistic and strange as I did so. Being left handed called enough attention to me, now I was the strange lefty who held the pencil with both hands. I was able to do this for one grade level and then, over the summer, they began sprouting up all over my right hand.
By the end of summer I looked at my plagued hands and cried. It was the end of my 5th grade year and I had hoped, in vain, for a new beginning in junior high. Unlike most other girls who would wish on stars to kiss a boy or get a pony, my wishes were for pretty hands and 20/20 vision.
I had tried everything to get rid of them. Given, this was many years before the invention of the Internet, I was reliant upon simple here say about how to eradicate warts. Since it was a topic that I would only talk about to my family, my main source was my grandfather. His advice - wait for a night when there is a full moon and on that night cut a tomato in half and stand naked in the backyard smashing the tomato onto all of my warts. Spin around in a circle and scream as loud as I could, "warts be gone, warts be gone". Thankfully, had it not been for my fear of public nudity, I may have attempted this ritual.
The thought of returning from summer as an even uglier 6th grader had reduced me to tears. Soon I was crying so hard, the kind of crying that you make that funny stuttered breathing sound, that I hadn't noticed my dad had walked into the room. If you knew my dad, you would understand that his ability to deal with an adolescent girl was right up there with his ability to swallow fire. There was nothing more out of his comfort zone than trying to deal with emotions, let alone mine.
Given that modern day health care escaped my father and that his idea of first aid was sewing his own finger back on with a needle and fishing line, it was no surprise that I found myself driving with him in his van to his "doctor friend's" office with a Thermos in my lap. I didn't question where we were going, all I knew was my dad was determined to get me to stop crying and that was enough for me. So I followed him, like a trusting and hopeful puppy into the waiting area as he gave the receptionist his name and muttered something about being a friend of the doctors and that, "he would know what it was regarding". Within minutes the doctor asked for us to come back and we were ushered into one of the patient rooms. He came in behind us and asked me for the Thermos. I hoped he wasn't asking for it because he was thirsty and cursed myself for not thinking to fill it with something before we left the house. Quickly my Thermos and the doctor left the room. I sat there in silence wondering what sort of exchange my father had worked out with this strange doctor and why the doctor was more interested in my Thermos than he was with seeing my warts. Soon he came back in the room and handed me the Thermos which was cold to the touch. "Be careful not to spill it on yourself" he said to me with a chuckle which was a cause for concern on my part. He and my dad exchanged awkward pleasantries and my dad and I left.
On the way home I held the Thermos tightly wondering what magical liquid the good doctor had filled it with. Was I supposed to drink it? Maybe it was a syrup I would drink and would kill all the warts. I imagined with great satisfaction the warts drying up and falling away from my hands leaving silky skin in their place. When we got home my dad positioned a chair over the sink in the kitchen and then dropped a handful of Q-tips on a paper towel next to the Thermos. "Just dip them in the dry ice and then press them on your warts. I'm going to watch TV, call me if you need anything." And with that my dad left his 10 year old daughter with a Thermos of dry ice and shaky hands.
I dipped the Q-tip cautiously into the bubbling frosting liquid and then stared at it for a moment before lightly touching it to the surface of the largest wart. It didn't hurt as much as I had imagined so I pushed the tip down with more force and it made a sizzling sound. I grit my teeth tightly together as electric jolts of pain radiated in my wart and up through my arm. At first, the pain caught me off guard but then, the hatred and anger towards them and all they plagued me with took over and I began finding joy in the possibility. I imagined myself wart-free for the first time in years. I imagined writing papers at my desk with ease, with nothing to hide from anyone. First, I focused on the warts on my right hand since I was naturally a lefty and could hold the Q-tip with more precision. After 40 minutes, I held my shaky right hand up and admired the beauty. The white cauliflower masses were now purple and blue suffocated masses encircled by red inflamed rings. Then my shaky and battered right hand enthusiastically grabbed a Q-tip and retaliated with brutal force. By the time I was done my hands looked more tragic than ever but I knew it was a sign of greater things to come.
I went to bed that night with throbbing hands. Stronger than my desire to cry from the pain, was my satisfaction. That night I dreamt of the town folk raging up against the wart monster that had plagued them for many moons. Tired of being the victim of his torment they carried flaming torches into the night. They tracked down the wart monster and backed him into a dark alley. The wart monster screamed as they burned him with their torches and then the screams began to fade...the wart monster was dead.
And they all lived happily ever after...
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