F16’s Don’t Kill People, 500 Lb. Bombs Kill People

A woman being prepped for a caesarean section is screamed at by a medical worker who thinks too many women are opting for the procedure. Yeah, that’s pretty inappropriate-but I have an even better story.

About a week before Danny was born, there was a horrible murder in Missouri where a baby was cut from the mother and kidnapped. It was everywhere in the news and being nine months along, it was a bit disturbing.

I was awake and quite alert during my c-section. I couldn’t see the doctors on the other side of the screen set up across my abdomen-but I could hear them.

"Hey, that’s a nice incision. Not like one of those Missouri sections I’ve been hearing about!"

"Yeah, I’ve been practicing."

My husband just looked at me aghast while the surgical assistant tried to shush the doctors.

Bonus from the article-the patient says she won’t go to that hospital if she fell pregnant again. I realise it is a medical condition and all, but "fell pregnant sounds a bit like contracting typhoid.

I read THIS story about dealing with State employees and it brought back memories of getting Danny’s birth certificate. Part of the problem is that states were so quick to establish websites that they didn’t work out the kinks prior to taking them live. In our case, we applied for the birth certificate by faxing our information and then never heard from them again. I drove into Lincoln (not exactly around the corner, but we live in a big, sparsely populated state) and went to the office (after parking half a mile away and dragging a newborn in a carrier through the early January ice-covered streets) only to be told that they could not process the application because the fax wasn’t readable-however, I couldn’t just start over because it was pending. Basically, they were saying I wouldn’t ever be able to get Danny’s birth certificate processed because the paperwork was in some sort of limbo. At that point, I think I cried or something and they went in back and had one of those consultations where they drag a supervisor away from watching old episodes of Marine Boy on YouTube for five seconds and find out they can actually process the application. Fun times.

So I’m thinking that would be a nice co-blog for this one because I read so much idiocy on a daily basis. Things like…THIS.

As the kids like to say, WTF?

It’s amazing really-how did people ever learn to portion meals back in the good old days? This isn’t about "educating" (lord, how I hate that term when they really mean, "re-educating" in an authoritarian way) children about nutrition. It is about lining the pockets of someone manipulating consumer tendencies. Believe me, you can teach your little ones about portion sizes and balanced meals without the sectioned plate. If anything, it seems a bit institutional. We’ve managed to institutionalise every other aspect of children’s lives, can’t we wait a few years before serving them meals on something that evokes a prison food tray (save for the happy vegetables)?

Read the language at the site and you’ll understand why I feel so intellectually assaulted. This is what we’re up against-multitudes of platitude spouting, "educating", jerks that have bought so completely into accepted thought they can’t understand why anyone would find their mindset disturbing. It’s as though a giant stupid cloud is hoverng over the US making people use language that no sane person ought to.

Thank goodness we have someone to save an entire generation of kids from standing over the sink at three AM scarfing down sticks of butter. Now, they’ll know to eat unsalted butter-on a sectioned plate.

Danny has discovered the DVD feature for "select language." I hadn’t realised this when he told me that:

"Danny prefers The Polar Express, Quebecois."

I thought he was shitting me, until he started singing the idiotic "Hot Chocolate", song and I had to agree it does sound much better. Apparently the DVD lists the option for French as Quebecois-must be something to do with North American distribution, but it was kind of weird to hear Danny say it, correctly at that. I later found out my husband had read the screen menu to him, which was a great relief. I’ve accepted that Danny can spell and recognise a number of words (a pain in the ass when we want to spell something he won’t understand and he figures it out), but I sure as hell wasn’t ready for him spelling  "Quebecois."

And in other news, I cooked a rabbit for my husband’s dinner tonight. No really, I did. Then we went and celebrated our independence from Britain (which I can totally get behind considering how utterly off their collective rockers the British have become) by watching rural rednecks blow shit up on the community ball field. No, not my community-the one a few miles down the road. My community isn’t redneck. We sat and watched all the potential Darwin awards, and teenaged mothers blowing shit up, and handing things to their still-in-diapers toddlers to blow up. I’m serious, I saw kids younger than Danny with firecrackers. Then, the official fireworks started and Danny did his best to be brave but about halfway through he couldn’t take it anymore, and ordered my husband to get in the car and drive us out of there-which he did.

I can’t wait to read tomorrow’s newspaper to see how many fingers were lost across the state. Oh wait, I just checked, here’s the first story of the holiday weekend.

Happy Independence Day.

I knew the problem wasn’t mine, as the woman all but shoved my debit card back at me muttering:

"It ain’t no good."

I said something to the effect of it was impossible,and she sneered and told me to call my bank. I dug in my purse for twenty dollars, counting out the last bit in change as she hrrrumphed and snorted because some deadbeat was holding up her line. I had to put something back. That really pissed her off. As a parting shot she informed me that she’d never been overdrawn in her life.

Actually, being half Austrian-neither have I. I know, we’re not supposed to make cultural generalisations…

So I did. I called my bank and of course, there was plenty of money in my checking account-because I’m half Austrian and do not spend money I am not certain is in the bank. We just don’t do that.

I decided to go back and give it another try and she continued to give me attitude after I said I’d called my bank and they said there were adequate funds in my account. Then, she told me I’d have to wait as she rang up a person that had joined the line-after me. At that point, I should have walked, but it was a hot day and I didn’t feel like running all over the place for what should have been a simple twenty dollar transaction.

The card of course worked perfectly. I didn’t expect an apology, and none was forthcoming. 

"Well I’ve never been overdrawn" she repeated as I left with my purchase.  

Usually, I don’t post pronouncements of the "we’re all doomed" variety, but I’m thinking perhaps we truly are. I just finished reading THIS article at the Globe and Mail (read it fast as the articles disappear after few days) and the comment thread that followed. Children with food allergies are being bullied with threats of being hit with peanuts, etc. Awful, no? More awful? The comments. Sure, a few of them surely must be trolls ("Smear them in peanut butter and leave them out in the elements to see which children live") but I do wonder about the people suggesting the kids should "get over it" and learn to cope.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I have some pretty severe allergies that even a hospital managed to screw up. I wasn’t looking to be "coddled", but I didn’t expect to be deliberately harmed either. The idea that providing a safe environment for children who could die from contact with an allergen is "coddling" them-well, I know there are idiots everywhere, though this seemed to be above and beyond the variety of idiots I’m accustomed to.

It’s true, forty years ago nut allergies were uncommon and schools did not make accommodations for children like myself. There weren’t any Eppi-pens either. There were Chloretimetron pills that had to be chewed immediately on the way to the hospital (which fortunately, was nearby). God, were those pills disgusting to chew. I can still taste them decades after the fact. I can also remember the class party where I found out Bit Of Honey contained cashews. Sure, the teacher was aware of my allergies, but come on, who expects cashews in taffy? Chomp the allergy pills; off to the doctor-unless I was fortunate enough to throw it up quickly. In the early years of my allergies that was my body’s way of getting rid of the contamination. It just grew worse with each "accidental" exposure.

Would a cashew kill me today? I have no idea. It has been years (knock wood) since I’ve been exposed to one, but it has also been years since I have traveled abroad or eaten in an "ethnic" restaurant. I almost never eat away from home anymore because I can’t expect an establishment to accommodate my allergies and I don’t care to take the risk. Most of my food is prepared at home, from scratch. I hardly think I’m asking to be "coddled." I do however expect that when I am out in public, some asshole does not try to smear me with cashew butter or threaten me with a bottle of iodine. Not unreasonable expectations.

Again and again, when I read comment threads at newspapers I try to remind myself that they are not representative of the population, but dear God, it is getting harder. Honestly, how can we expect any sort of progress as a civilisation when we’ve sunk to normalizing the torture of human beings, murdering civilians, and pelting allergic kids with peanuts? It all fits a pattern you know, and it is quite ugly.

Ugly.