The Mask of a Man's Fiasco

There I was, admitting to my doctor nurse practitioner that I'd opened up my mask while in the exam room alone. Seriously! Did you expect Val to be like one of those freaks who wears a mask alone in their car while driving? No offense to any of you freaks who might be reading this, of course...

He sat down on his rolly stool, and said, "No you didn't!"

I let him believe that. So he can sleep at night. I noticed that HIS mask was like mine, only green instead of blue. What gives? Did he have a SPECIAL mask, while mine was made by 4-year-old Chinese children, and imported at a price so outrageous that my state is suing China? Before I had a chance to ask, he said

"These aren't bad. Upstairs, I have to wear the N95 mask. I had an elderly couple there yesterday who stayed longer than I expected. They had a lot of questions. I had to stop TWICE, and say, 'Give me a minute,' and [here he inhaled and exhaled loudly a couple times]. It's really hard to get a breath in those masks."

"My husband said that at his factory, nobody could wear them unless they passed a physical that their lungs were okay. And that there were limits on how many hours they could wear the N95s. From OSHA."

"Oh, they tested all of us first. Then they said 'Here. These are just as good.' And gave us these green ones!" He raised his eyebrows. "Wait. There are limits to how long you can wear them?"

"Yeah, supposedly. I don't even like these paper ones. This is the first time I've worn one."

"I don't wear one when I go shopping. I know enough that if I hear someone coughing, I'll go to the next aisle. And if something feels off, I take another route."

"I know not to touch my face. I spent 28 years teaching. It only took a few years to get that."

"Oh, yeah! And you've been exposed to everything already, too."

"Yeah."

"As long as you keep your distance, and don't touch above your shoulders, it's fine."

"I didn't really want to be here today, just for prescriptions."

"This is the safest place you can be! It's the non-infection floor. If' you'd had a temperature, they would have whisked you up to the third floor and put you in a room!"

Again. Not making me feel any more comfortable about that 'whisking' thing. But here's the worst part of the whole doctor nurse practitioner trip! He listened to my lungs, then said,

"How about we skip the bloodwork today, and wait until November for that?"

"Um. Okay. Sure."

I HAD BEEN FASTING SINCE THE NIGHT BEFORE, AND IT WAS NOW 2:00 p.m.!

Oh, well. The clinic lab is on the third floor. I guess it's just as well.

The Val in the File-On Mask

I survived! Still kickin'! Wore my mask, and kept on tickin'!

Hick dropped me off at the front door of the hospital/clinic. He condescendingly said,

"You go in that door right there."

"Thank you so much! I've been coming here 25 years, while you go to a plain old office where they give shots in the parking lot, and use a different hospital. I'm sure I know how to get inside."

"I'm just tellin' ya, because you used to go in over there."

"No. I've never gone in over there. This is the main door."

"Well, when I drop off my friend, she sometimes goes in that door over there."

"I'm not going to chemotherapy, you know."

Anyhoo...Hick left for Menards to get a spring of some kind, and I went inside. Which surprised me, thinking that I'd be met outside by a roving temperature checker. But no. They had a table set up inside the automatic door, with two masked gals, one wielding a thermometer gun that she poked squarely in the middle of my forehead.

Apparently I was not too hot to handle. She gave me a mask. "We've been asking everyone who enters to wear one of these." Indeed. I'd heard her spiel to the people ahead of me who filed along the table, keeping their floor-marked six feet behind their predecessor, each receiving a mask as they passed the checkpoint.

I complied, because as we all know, I was there seeking drugs, and this was the route to get them. My mask was blue, pleated paper, with elastic ear handles. I put it on, and mosied to the elevator, not wanting to get in with the other two people inside.

I made it to the second floor office with difficulty! I could not see anything! Just that dang mask under my eyes. Couldn't see the floor to step into the elevator, couldn't see to get my insurance card out of my shirt pocket. Couldn't see to sign the electronic permission thingy. Getting on the scale was a whole new exercise that required grabbing the side bars with both hands, and nearly bending over to see my feet step up. That mask was creepin', even though I'd pinched the little nose-formy thingy at the top, and pulled the pleats open to cover under my chin. The top edge of it kept hitting my bottom eyelashes! That seems unsanitary!

That's the good part, though, that I was put into an exam room after checking in. No waiting out front. As the nurse said, "If you come over to the door, I can put you in a room." Which sounds kind of sinister if you're a conspiracy theorist.

Anyhoo...she took my vitals. Temperature again. It was 96.something, through my ear. No fever here! We got the pulse-ox (96, probably due to me breathing in my own carbon dioxide in that mask), and pulse (71), and blood pressure (138/84, not exactly great, but not bad, considering my fit of pique at having to be there at all, not to mention wearing a mask). She asked about the prescriptions, then said my doctor nurse practitioner would be right in.

Here's where Val was a bad, bad gal! While waiting alone in the exam room, I REMOVED THE ELASTIC FROM MY LEFT EAR, AND FLAPPED MY MASK OPEN TO BREATH ROOM AIR! Every time I heard voices stop, I was wary. I waited to hear a scurrying outside the door, and then I put my ear loop back on!

Good thing, too! My doctor nurse practitioner flung open the door, shouted "HI!" and backed up to grab himself a mask. Heh, heh. Of course I had to tell on myself.

"You just did that, trying to catch me with my mask off! I confess...I DID have it off while nobody was in here with me."

The rest of the story tomorrow...

Add Drug-Seeking to Val's Public-Enemy-ing Crimes

As you read this, I am on my way to the doctor. DON'T THINK I WANT TO BE THERE! I am only going to comply with the archaic policy that my prescriptions cannot be refilled unless I have an in-person appointment with my physician nurse practitioner every 6 months.

I understand the need for monitoring a person's health. Testing them for side effects of the medicine. But let's not forget that for 7 WEEKS, those physicians nurse practitioners did not want anything to do with their regular patients! Even those like Hick, who need a weekly shot. Had to get it standing in a parking lot, IF the employees showed up. Which they did not always.

Of course my prescriptions ran out of refills the very week that Missouri relaxed the Stay-At-Home-Down. You'd think that my physician nurse practitioner could have given me a courtesy refill for one month. Then seen me with an appointment, after things settled down a bit. He's done that before, when I had other plans, and the available appointments didn't match up.

Sheesh! It's not like I take anything good! Just a generic blood pressure med, and a heart-slower, and a pill for my thyroid that was removed back in 2010. To make matters worse, he refilled the heart-slower, but not the other two! What in the NOT-HEAVEN?

Anyhoo...I read in the local online newspaper that my clinic/hospital facility, as of May 6, would be requiring every single person who enters to wear a mask! I am not looking forward to this. It will make me feel claustrophobic and breathless. Val is not mask-friendly! You'd think with her life as a public enemy, she would have at least a passing acquaintance with masks. But no. I do not like them in the store, I do not like them at the door. I do not like a mask, you see. The thought of one can suffocate me! My mindset is that I will wear a mask when they pry one on my cold dead face!

Hick says I will be better off using a cloth or paper mask they issue at the door, rather than the cup-shaped ones he has from painting, that look like something a football player would wear to protect his nether regions. Hick has seen them (the hospital/clinic masks, not the football players' nether regions) when he takes his friend for chemotherapy.

Anyhoo...I expect my blood pressure to be elevated from my fit of pique over the whole scenario. I will wear the mask, but only because I am seeking drugs! I understand that the masks are to protect other people, that they do little to protect my own self. I don't begrudge other people their lives. But I am not Covid Val, a carrier to rival Typhoid Mary!

They can't take my temp and suck my blood fast enough!

Funny how one week, chronically ill people, those needing non-emergency surgery, expectant mothers, and some needing chemo are not allowed to visit the healthcare facilities, but the next week healthy people are commanded to come in, or else must do without the maintenance meds they have taken for 15 years. It's like one minute food is on the grocery store shelf, and the next minute it's garbage in the dumpster.

Rules for Thee, But Not for Me and He

Val just can't stop public-enemying!

Last Thursday, I stopped by the bank to withdraw our weekly cash allowance. I used to get it from the ATM in the back wall of the bank, but when they put in the new machine, it would only give me part of what I wanted. So now I bypass that step, and go directly to one of the three drive-thru lanes. It's not like I can just waltz inside the lobby any more.

Anyhoo... I was excited, because two drive-thru lanes were open, with only one car at each. I got in line, my withdrawal slip ready to go. After only five minutes, it was my turn! I put in the slip requesting my cash, along with a dollar, and a note asking for two rolls of pennies. Gotta have my correct change for 44 oz Diet Cokes!

The teller took five minutes (I guess they were still waiting for a commercial during their soap opera), and then said through the speaker,

"I'm going to need to see your ID."

"Okay. Sometimes I have to send it in, sometimes I don't. I never know, or I would have included it with the withdrawal slip."

Seriously. I've banked here for 20 years. EVERY WEEK I withdraw the same amount of cash from my checking account. I'm sure it shows on screen when they bring up my account on their computer. It's not like I'm some random schemer cruising by out of the blue to scam a wad of cash. But okay. I'll dig out my driver's license and sent it in while the people behind me fume. Good to know that my bank isn't just handing out my money indiscriminately.

OR ARE THEY?

A couple weeks ago, when Hick wanted to reimburse himself with the money he spent on his new used duckbill dovetail trailer, he went to the bank drive-thru, with a withdrawal slip written up in MY penmanship, needing only his signature.

You know what happened, right? Hick sent in the slip, and the teller sent out $1500! Let the record show that Hick drops by the bank once in a blue moon. Maybe twice a year, if that. Yet he had no trouble getting cash from our account!

That's not all! When the teller returned my license and my envelope of cash, I noticed that the canister was missing my two rolls of pennies. And the dollar I'd sent in asking for them. I tried to ask. But you know how it is. Once they're done with you, they're done! I pushed the CALL button.

"Excuse me. I don't see my two rolls of pennies. It's okay if you can't sent them out. But can I at least have my dollar back?"

"Oh! I just forgot! Here. I'll send them right out!"

Well, no she couldn't, until I sent back in the canister for the third time. I'm pretty sure the driver behind me had already performed a ritual to make my future a bit more difficult.

So let's recap. I have to provide my ID to get cash from my account, although I've banked there 20 years, and stop by that branch at least once a week. Hick the stranger can score $1500 when he drops by, without identifying himself. The teller can "forget" to send out change, and keep the dollar, with nobody but the customer (ME) checking on her.

Yeah. VAL is the problem, right?

Less Pompous, Due to Circumstances

The Pony and Hick arrived home safely on Friday, around 3:45 p.m. Without my albatross carcass around Hick's neck, they made the trip in 8 hours and 15 minutes. They had left Norman at 7:30 a.m., with only a gas station donut for sustenance. Though to be fair, they had dined on steak for two nights, because that's the only kind of restaurant that was open for dining. They SAID.

Anyhoo...so much for scheduling a time to check out of his apartment. The Pony did some investigating Thursday night, and saw that the drop box had been left out. So Hick came by at 7:30 Friday morning, they loaded the bedclothes and towels in the car, dropped the key, and hit the road.

They were home in plenty of time for The Pony's virtual graduation at 7:00. The Pony decided that we would watch on HIS laptop, rather than my HIPPIE, because The Pony's was designed for gaming, and has a larger screen. He set it on the coffee table, and the three of us sat on the long couch like the Simpsons in their opening credits. The Pony was on the end by the picture window, Hick in the middle, and I on the end I called before they could choose!

For an online affair, it was efficient. A main speaker, an introduction of heads of the various colleges of study. Some student leaders. The interim president's head was angled in the direction of The Pony. "See? He's speaking right to you!" Funny how that worked out with our seating arrangement.

I had asked The Pony if he wanted to put on his cap and gown, but he did not. A slideshow, with Pomp and Circumstance playing in the background, showed assorted campus landmarks, and stills from special events. The Pony exclaimed at people he knew, and events he'd attended.

"This song always makes me think of the 18 graduations I had to sit through in a gown, listening to it."

"This song always makes me remember having to PLAY IT," said The Pony, a former tromboner.

Sadly, The Pony had opened his OU box of graduation accouterments before I came upstairs to make supper. I knew that, because he announced, as I trudged up the stairs,

"Um. I should have read the instructions. I opened this tube, and red and white ribbons shot out! I think that was supposed to be at the end of graduation! Oh, well. I'm picking them up." 

And with that, he gathered those shiny ribbons and stuffed them in the kitchen wastebasket. Not much on ceremony, that Pony.

The streamed commencement lasted about 40 minutes. Genius watched it from Pittsburgh. On his own terms. Halfway through, he texted The Pony congratulations, and said he had watched it on 2X speed. At the end, rather than going through the slideshow of all graduates, The Pony showed us his own special slide in cap and gown, taken by a friend who had not been sent home during the Stay-At-Home-Down. He also showed us the one of his Bestie. It was bittersweet, having such a momentous occasion played out on our living room couch.

At the end, the interim president of OU said that graduates might want to send in photos of their graduation moment. The three of us looked at each other. Hick in his t-shirt and jeans, The Pony in stretchy pants and t-shirt, and me in my threadbare everyday lairwear of 20-year-old purple-and-white striped shirt and striped sweatpants.

"NO! I don't think so!"

The Pony agreed.

Congratulations, Pony, on your Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering. The world is your oyster. Though at present time, it might be difficult to crack.

Due to HapPENCEstance, Val Was Forced to Artistically Render Legal Tender

Oh my gosh! This week, as she was released from Stay-At-Home-Down, free to roam about the back roads, the skies opened and rained down coins harder on Val than those rocks on Carrie White's house at the end of Carrie. The Stephen King novel, not the movie.

SATURDAY, May 2, I cast off the shackles of Stay-At-Home-Down, since it technically was due to end on Sunday, May 3...and headed to town for a 44 oz Diet Coke and scratchers. In Orb K again, I spied a PENNY! It was a face-down 2006, wedged under the edge of the counter. I fished it out with the toe of my shoe (my own this time, and not The Pony's castoff), and exposed my ample rumpus to pick it up.

It was technically last week, but after the Saturday CENTSus went to press! Of course my new used iPhone 8 was in the middle of restarting after shutting itself off, so I didn't get a photo. You'll have to make do with my artist's rendering in PAINT. I am SO OVER THIS iPHONE!
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SUNDAY, May 3, I was double-lucky! I found two coins, AND I got a later picture of them to stay on my new used iPhone 8 long enough to save it on New Delly!

It was in the Backroads Casey's. They were spread too far apart for one picture. And you KNOW I can't take two with my current phone lemon.

I DID get a picture out in T-Hoe, with them laying on the scratcher I bought inside. I wasn't triple-lucky, though. The ticket was a loser. But I had my heads-up 1999 quarter, and my face-down 2015 penny. So there's that!
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MONDAY, May 4, I scored a penny in the Backroads Casey's! Sorry for posing it on my kitchen counter.

The minute I entered, I spied this under the candy racks between the registers, just in front of the SCRATCHER display! A heads-up 1979 dirty-faced Lincoln. Sorry, social-distancers. Somebody got an ample-rumpusing! Didn't even take my new used (lemon) iPhone 8 in with me. I got a picture in T-Hoe, which did not survive the ride home.

But the one from my next stop did! While not actually capturing the next one in the wild, I DID get him in T-Hoe, in front of Orb K, where he was blending in with the tile floor. I almost missed him. Good thing I know that squinting can focus eyesight.

It was a heads-up 2011 penny, posed here on a scratcher that won me $5. Money back! To play again...
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WEDNESDAY, May 6, I dipped my toe into the Walmart waters for the first time in ages. Imagine my surprise, when putting my last bag in the cart, to see a PENNY laying there at the end of the checkout, between my cart and the checker to my right. Of course my phone chose that Kodak moment to go black. It didn't help that the guy behind me tried to ram my ample rumpus with his cart to hurry me along. Sheesh! Like people have anywhere to go in a hurry these days!

There he is, once home, and that dang phone working again. A shiny 2007, which was face-down in Walmart, but posed for you here on top of my 44 oz Diet Coke, since he's so photogenic.
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That makes SIX COINS this week, for a total of 30 CENTS! Free money!
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2020 RUNNING TOTAL

Penny       # 43, 44, 45, 46, 47.
Dime         # 10.
Nickle      still at 3.
Quarter   0

2019 TOTALS
Penny     134
Dime        20
Nickel        8
Quarter      5
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Moving The Pony Home

Just a little photo The Pony sent me on Thursday, to illustrate his horror at this move:

Translation: "Halloween Stuff." The 3 valedictorians in this family bear no ill will towards Hick. We embrace him, with all his foibles. We do not ridicule him for his spelling. [To his face.] Yet our sensibilities are offended.

This is A-Cad's rear end. Theses orange tubs are many years old. Came from the BARn. Probably stuff Hick had before we were married. The current tubs are the blue kind, in the background. The variety we have in the workshop on the other side of the wall of my basement lair, arranged on shelves built by Hick.

The Pony's Nissan Rogue is supposedly loaded with soft items like clothes, and important electronical thingies like his TV and laptop and tablet. Probably that Not-Heavenish Ouija Board as well...

If Hick didn't even have to lay down ONE of the back seats of A-Cad for this move, it speaks of the little material wealth The Pony has accumulated in four years. He's a simple creature.