A Little Bit of My Day

The last few days, Anthropapa and I have been stricken with nasty sore throats, which now have the added bonus thrill of swollen, painful lymph nodes.

So this morning I decided to see if I could tell if I have strep throat. I went to the bathroom, grabbed my toothbrush, and said aaahhh, gag, ack.

Then I realized that I couldn’t see a damn thing back there, and so I went to get a flashlight from the bedroom. Then I realized I had no idea where to find one (bad emergency planning, I know) even though we probably own at least a dozen Maglites in various sizes. (Note: after reading that linked page, I must assure you that we only use our mini Maglites for lighting, not weaponry!)

Then I remembered that Anthropapa had one in his desk the other day, because we swapped out the batteries for our DVD remote (priorities set right: video entertainment over emergency preparedness!)

I found said flashlight, and opened it to see if it had any batteries after the DVD remote resuscitation efforts. As I did this, I dropped the little cap end of the battery compartment, and it rolled under Anthropapa’s desk.

This was a major problem. I bent down to check under the desk gingerly as those lymph nodes in my neck protested the change in position. After fishing out an ungodly amount of cat-hair bunnies, paper clips, old junk mail envelopes, and such (I’m probably revealing a little bit too much here about our sad lack of cleanliness. I’m too tired to edit it back out), I recovered the cap.

Then I found some old and possibly dead batteries on my desk, tried to put them into the flashlight, and somehow jammed one of them in there. I tried to get it out with tweezers, which did not succeed at all. In frustration I banged that battery even deeper into the flashlight.

Thankfully Anthropapa came home for lunch just then, got the jammed battery out with his manly strength, and found me a working flashlight.

Then I realized I would have to gag myself again. Sigh.

After shooing Anthropapa out of the bathroom (I somehow felt squeamish about having someone watch me do this) I bravely took hold of the toothbrush in one hand, and the brightly shining flashlight in the other, and did the deed.

Nothing unsightly back there that I could see, but we’ll try to see the doctor tomorrow just to be sure.

Coming soon: strep throat, mononucleosis, or...diphtheria? Stay tuned!