The Idiot's Guide to Swallowing a Tooth

What to do if your swallow your porcelain crown:

First, PANIC. Using lots of curse words during this stage is good. I like ones that start with the letters S and F.

Then, run to the nearest mirror to confirm that you are, in fact, the world’s biggest idiot since that AIG guy.

Now, let your very weak stomach run amok – at least three times, before you text, call, IM and send smoke signals to every friend you have to tell them you are the idiot who swallows her own fake tooth.

Immediately after, dash to the nearest WalGreens to find ipecac and call Poison Control from your car to tell them you have a belly full of enamel. Have a mild heart attack when they tell you vomiting was the EXACT WRONG THING TO DO, and then speed drive yourself to the ER in case you aspirated the tooth into your lungs.

Feel like an idiot during the x-ray, drive home, crawl in bed and imagine what your family and friends will say once they discover your cold, dead body the next day.

You’ll spend a sleepless night and go to work grumpy the next day, but you won’t die – and it’s no more than you deserve for accidently eating your own tooth.

FOUR...

...The number of times I burned myself curling my hair this morning. That includes one direct burn straight to my brow bone. The universe is speaking to me.

Happier Nappier

I may have made a mistake. 

This morning as I was waiting on my curling irons to heat up, I realized my straight, permed hair isn't doing it for me like I thought it would. All those months of whining over the growing-out process, only to perm it and realize that I was happier nappier.

What am I going to do now? I can't start from scratch. That just takes too long. Should I just try to let it revert back to natural from its current length? Will I be able to manage it in the summer heat? Should I try braids again? And where the hell were my friends when I decided to put perm back in my hair?! I blame them.

I gotta figure this thing out before I go for my next application of sodium hydroxide to the scalp. In the meantime, here's to remembering nappier days.

Tiny little things

Some days it doesn't take much to make me happy. 

Yesterday, it was the 15.00 Starbucks gift card left at my desk by a secret admirer. 

Last night, it was the free drink from a potbellied not-so-secret admirer. 

And this morning, it was the sight of my Dogwood tree in bloom. 

I'm feeling good.

Weekend Adventures, Part I: Drowning the Scorpion King

I killed the Scorpion King, and I don’t feel bad about it. It’s no less than the sucker deserved for making itself at home in my bathtub…in my bathroom…in my house where I live…alone.

I spent this past weekend clearing off my flower beds. By late Sunday, I had seven full compost bags, and dirt, grime and sweat to show for my efforts.  I also had a brand new, poison-tail intruder just lounging around in my tub when I went in to bathe.

I was scared, then I was horrified, then I was terrified, then I suffered a moderate cardiac incident. How did it get in there? Did it crawl through some unseen, unknown hole in my walls? Or did I ---- OH MY EFFING GAWD --- bring it in on my  clothes?!  

And by the way, did I mention it was a SCORPION?!

I stripped naked, imagining other creepies clinging to me, all the while keeping an eye on the Scorpion King to make sure he didn’t crawl out of the bath tub. And then I thought, "Wait, I'm  butt naked in a scorpion pit," so I hid in the laundry to get dressed. On my way out, I grabbed the spray starch, as a weapon.

Starch didn’t work. Neither did lemon Lysol. Neither did Fabuloso. Or Listerine. All that did was give the damn thing a fresh-breathed, lavender-lemon scent.

I finally just filled the tub and drowned the little bastard Hurricane Katrina-style.  Got ‘er done, then, yes I did.

Coop the Exterminator responded to my Scorpion 911 call, and even the professional couldn’t figure how it got inside. Great.

So now I’m terrified. I'm just gonna walk around with a can of Faultless until I can figure out how to get away with burning down the house to get the hell away from Scorpion King Lane. Any ideas?