Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Nice!

I had a hell of a day yesterday.

Let me just say that the older I get, the more I hate doctors. 

I mean, I remember hating them when I was a kid.  Now I know I was right.  But when I got a little older, I was lulled into a false sense of security, because:
  1. I was young and healthy; 
  2. Everything was just fine; and
  3. Doctors were those nice people that showed up in the room at the last minute, shook your hand, and took the baby out.  Which made me feel REAL GOOD in comparison to the twelve hours previous to that.  Nurses were the bitches.  Someday I'll tell you my labor-and-delivery stories.
Suddenly, I turned 50 and all hell broke loose.  Just as suddenly, I was an unholy mess.

Who knew?

The young doctors are the worst.  The old doctors, they take your pressure, look in your ears, maybe do a little blood test, and ask you how you're doing.  If you say "ok" and the blood test agrees, the old doctors tell you everything looks fine, you should stop smoking, and see you next year.  The young doctors, on the other hand, treat you like week-old scungeel.  Like they're never going to look like that.  Why not?  Because they're doctors and the laws of physics don't apply to them, right?  They poke and prod and jiggle everything you got that jiggles.  All with a foonge.   Then they hand you a mile-long list of tests, all of which will show up with a "pre-" condition of something or another, that they're going to "watch".  Well, thank you, Doctor Whoozit.  You can now add "stress" and "depression" to my list of complaints.

Yesterday, I went to an oral surgeon.  My dentist had gone from "Gee, it would have been nice if you'd had your wisdom teeth out while you were young," to "These have got to come out, immediately!"  We'll, scoozi, Dr. Dentist, if my life isn't happening exactly on your schedule.  I finally got around to going to the periodontist two weeks ago, who assured me that my head was in imminent danger of exploding, and who sent me to an oral surgeon, who agreed.  Mind you, nothing is bothering me, so I have to take their word for it.  And my surgery (all four wisdom teeth, followed by God-knows-what else) is scheduled for next Monday, in case you want to light a candle.

What I really want to think about right now is chicken wings.

About a month ago, my cousin Vita, who never comes to my house empty-handed, showed up with a bucket of chicken wings.  From the Jewel.  She's a good woman.

The only times I've ever eaten chicken wings has been as part of a "deluxe combo" appetizer at one of those restaurants where all the entrees have cheese in them and all of the desserts are chocolate, except for the apple one.  My kids tell me that Koreans do nice things with chicken wings.  The point is that it would never occur to me in a thousand years to buy a whole bucket of chicken wings from the Jewel.

They're tasty, though, and I appreciated the gift.  Not so much, my husband Anthony.  There is a silent consensus in this house that, outside of ice cream and the occasional pizza, we don't do pre-fab food.  He bitched and moaned every time he opened the fridge, and we had to eat them every night until they were gone just to get them out of his sight.  Which was fine.  For me they were a rare treat.  For him they were an infamia.  He told me to tell Vita, "No more chicken wings from the Jewel."

My cousin has the good sense not to take my husband seriously (I should have such good sense).  So, a few days later, we were in Walgreens and Vita sees the Walgreens house brand (called "Nice!") frozen chicken wings on sale.  We're talking real bottom-of-the-barrel stuff here.  Something a large guy who flunked high-school English and wears shorts in the winter would pick up to go with his beer and chips.  "Let's get some for Anthony."

I tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted.  "It's a joke,"  she said, refusing to heed my warnings.  So we bought them and gave them to Anthony, who put them in the freezer with a foonj worse than any doctor's.  But wasting food is an even bigger infamia than buying it ready-made-from-the-Jewel, so there they stayed.

Until last night, when I was too depressed to cook.  So we had the Nice! chicken wings for dinner.  And guess what?  He loved them.

Go figure.  I know for a fact he passed English.



4 comments:

  1. First of all I sincerely wish You the best for your upcoming surgeries babe and hope You' ll heal super fast, I ' m sure all will go well!
    Couldn't help but laugh my head off with your husband's reaction to the frozen chicken wings. You are the best story- teller ever!
    Good luck with everything, sweetie.
    I'll pray for you

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  2. I absolutely hate young doctors! Good luck with the teeth. I had mine done and it was no biggie. I mean they load you up on meds and stuff so you feel no pain! I kind of like the occasional chicken wing. Just not too often.

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  3. You always make me smile, except for the dentist. I begin sweating just thinking of a dentist's chair brrrrr. Sorry, maybe I shouldn't say that before your surgery. Which will be a success because you are gonna be treated to a huge dose of anesthesia :-) I like chicken wings roasted on the barbecue. Big hugs
    Baci,
    Coco et La vie en rose - Valeria Arizzi

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  4. As always. Connie is right on. And you are so right about the young ones. Oy! There is something online called "Health Grades" which is like Yelp for doctors. And now that I am a crotchety old person, I employ it regularly even though I'm pretty certain that judging by the syntax and grammar mistakes in the Health Grades comment section, everybody else rating these doctors is probably slightly insane or they are going insane from being treated so poorly by these highly paid egotistical unempathetic math geeks that got into medical school. Good Luck at the dentist on Monday. There are a few good ones out there. I promise.

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