Worth it to the bottom of the bag.

In my last semester of college, I developed a Chex Mix addiction. I’d add dark chocolate chips into the mix, and every sweet and salty bite seemed like a taste of heaven.

That last semester, I’d also broken a finger playing flag football. My intent was to intercept the ball entirely, but instead, I just tipped it, with my pinky. It snapped backwards, or sideways, or some direction that, it too, never intended on, and it hurt like hell.

It was one of the first plays of the [playoff] game, though –I had to keep going, but by the end of our loss, my itty bitty pinky was the size of an aroused man.

I went back to my sorority house (where I’d lived the past three years) and showed it to our chef, Martha (who’d become my mother away from mothers). She’s a super sassy ball of whippersnapper fire, a touch over 5 feet, and her spiked gray [sometimes bleached blonde] hair matched her take-no-bullshit, give-no-bullshit attitude.

“Honey, what the hell happened, that thing looks like an erection”
“I know, I know… I need ice, or tape, or one of those metal splint things”
“No, ya idiot, you need to go to the doctor, you’ll go first thing in the morning.”

I didn’t want to go, but I knew I wouldn’t get dinner if I didn’t.
Sure enough I’d shattered a this, or torn a that, and I’d needed to have surgery to fix the finger.

“Really, all this trouble for a pinky? I can’t remember the last time I even used the darn thing. And I have a second one. No, thanks.”

“We’ll just give you some anesthesia, stick a few of pins in, and you’ll be on your way.”

“You gotta put me out for this? Cheese and rice, doc.” (Cheese and Rice = Jesus Christ, tell me most of you have heard that?)

Anyways, the surgery was scheduled for the next morning, and Martha, of course, came at me with “I told you so” when I came into the kitchen to update her.

I said, yeah, yeah, Martha, and scooped a handful of chocolate chips to accompany my daily 8 or 9 servings of Chex Mix.

I’ll spare the surgery details; I barely (thank you grape-flavored anesthesia) remember them anyways. Afterward, my roommate picked my drowsy-self up, filled my painkiller (oxy-cotton) prescription, popped one in me and tucked me in my sorority house bed to sleep the rest of the anesthesia off.

I woke up still feeling loopy, and I vaguely remember updating my Facebook status with something crazy and calling my best friend to sing her a rap song (I think?). I wondered why the drowsiness hadn’t worn off, so I looked at my painkiller prescription label. MAY CAUSE EXTREME DROWSINESS. I patted my Sherlock Holmes self on the back and decided I didn’t need them anyways, it was just a pinky.

Still loopy, but hungry as ever, I went downstairs for dinner.

“Oh honey, how are you? How’d the surgery go? Is your finger all better?”

“Martha. I’m too incoherent for all of that. They gave me painkillers if that answers any of all of your questions.”

“Oh good, that’ll make you feel lots better.”

“No, screw ‘em, they’re making me dizzy and loopy and it’s just my pinky, I don’t need them. Here take them.”

“Honey, I can’t take these. You need them.”

“Chuck ‘em Martha, don’t want them. Or you take them. That could be fun.”

“Actually, honey, I could use these. My back sometimes, you know…being old isn’t easy.”

“They’re yours, now feed me, please.”

….pause for loopy reflection…

“Actually, Martha, wait. I think people usually make a good deal of money off those.”

“Do they, honey?”

“Ya, they do. So I’ll need some sort of remuneration.”

Maybe I didn’t exactly say remuneration- sounds like an awfully clever word for a loopy girl- but I used something of the synonymous sort.
Martha just looked at me with her take-no-bullshit look.

“How ‘bout that bag o’ Chex Mix?” I suggested. “That HUGE one you got back there in the kitchen.”

“You’re gonna sell me your entire prescription of painkillers for a bag of Chex Mix?”

“The BIG bag, Martha, that BIG industrial, family size bag. Not the snack pack.”

I might remember her chuckling as she said OK and brought me my end of the drug deal. At the time, I thought Martha was for sure getting the short stick in the trade, and I almost felt bad for her as I walked away with my king size bag of Chex Mix.

The next morning, after I’d entirely slept off my anesthesia, painkillers and loopiness (all of what isn’t natural, at least), I replayed the day before. I wondered if the rap I sang to my best friend had hit top 40 yet or if anyone had commented on my silly Facebook status. Then I wondered why I was cuddling the world’s largest bag of Chex Mix.

Of course, it dawned on me a half second later, and I looked at myself in the mirror saying, “Who are you, drug dealer, and what’d you do with Stacy?”

Anyways, I bring up this story because my second day being out here, I got a terrible sore throat and even worse feeling body aches. I was nervous it might be strep so I hopped on the local bus and took myself to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor without my mommy, but I went anyways. It turned out that it wasn’t strep, which I thought it was a good thing. The doctor said, however, that strep would have been better because it’s curable. Instead, I had some adenoid infection slash virus slash who knows what that would last 7-10 days and couldn’t be treated with medicine.

“What the stink, Doc? So my throat and body with just hurt like this (hell) for 7-10 days and there’s nothing I can take to ease it?”
“Well, I can give you a prescription for painkillers…”

So those of you asking for an update: Homegirl is just swell, this prescription doesn’t make me drowsy whatsoever and there are no Chex Mix in Colorado.

Less-druggy update on Colorado soon.