I never felt more like an orphan.

We had some snow last week. Not much but a foot or so, wet and heavy. The kind that forms ice underneath. Well I was looking to order a pizza and knew that the delivery man would not come up the stairs unless they were cleared.

A dilemma, since I could not find my shovel. So out I go to clear the snow with just my feet and a hammer (for the inch of ice that is under it).

The pizza was not worth it. The next morning (around 4:30am) I am awakened by the call of nature. I roll over to get out of bed and the searing pain shoots up my spine.

I can't move, it is excruciating. I start to panic. I can't get out of bed and I don't have a phone nearby. What do I do? How long can I stay here before someone even notices that they haven't heard from me in a while? Work will call if I don't show up, but I still won't be able to get to the phone.

"I have to get out of this bed!"

After about half an hour I am finally in the bathroom. I do my business and am about to inch my way back to my bed, when it hits me. "What if I can't get out of bed the next time? What if I have to call an ambulance or something? I better take a shower while I am here." The whole 'clean underwear' thing your mamma warned you about.

An hour later I am fluffed and folded and back in bed with the cordless, the cell phone and my little laptop beside me. I have no real sense that I can recover from this injury since i have no drugs and I don't even have a hot water bottle to help ease the pain.

I look over and in the doorway are my two cats, Milo and Sammy.

They are just sitting there, side-by-side in the doorway, staring at me and I imagine the conversation between them.

MILO: "How long before you think we can start eating her face?"
SAMMY: "Dunno, lets just keep an eye on her."

At that point I start to really panic, I tried to call Nurse Darling, no answer. Bunnie has no car (it bought the farm the week before) The Boy is in school and my sister is 5 hours away in New Brunswick. I am completely alone in the world.

I am about to descend into complete despair when I think of something. I drag my laptop over and frantically email the only person I could think of, Tracey.

I cried like a baby when I saw her. She came to my rescue with a hot water bottle, some drugs and a hamburger. Because, well, everyone knows a Big Mac can cure cancer.

You really do find out who your friends are.

Procrastination Queen gets a visit from Aunt Flo.

I kept putting off getting my Depo shot. Which I am supposed to be getting every three months. Somehow I managed to let it drag on to five.

And what do you suppose my reward is for maintaining the monarchy? My first visit from Aunt Flo in four years, that's what!

As long as I was getting injected with Depo, Flo could not home in on my location. That obnoxious, lowlife, miscreant, shithead, skite, wretch, pig-sucking quiff. She found me.

I had to go purchase ... tampons! Do you realize what those things cost now? Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

Mind you, as soon as I got my shot she was gone the next day. But I am still completely traumatized by the whole visit.

I vow never to let that happen again. Ever!

Drugs! Get your piping hot, free drugs here!

The reason I had gone to the doctor in the first place was to stock up on my blood pressure/cholesterol meds. With only one week left at the Undisclosed Customer Service Center™, I had to act pretty quickly. Not an easy task to get to see a doctor within a week, but I did it.

Since it would be 3 months before my benefits would kick in at the Undisclosed Internet Service Provider™, I would have to pay full price for my meds while in training. Not acceptable since the meds are $27 per month with coverage and $116 per month without. That's a fucking car payment!

So I tell her my story, hoping she will write me a prescription for 90 pills instead of 30 when she comes out with, "So, you are looking for some samples?"

"Uh, okay."

She leaves and comes back with this:



Holy shit! Ten weeks of meds. That's $290 worth if you're counting.

"Will that do?"

Fuck ya....got any Vicodin back there? Being as how you're offering.

I just don't have the bone structure for it anymore.

When you get old, there are some things you just have to come to terms with. Gone are the days when you could drink all night and wake up in a chair, grab the nearest beer and start all over. Sooner or later, pot ceases to send you flying and just kicks you in the ass, rendering you unconscious within minutes.

I went to a friends staggette Satruday night. I was not planning on drinking. Mainly because I hate leaving my car anywhere and going through all the bullshit of getting it back the next morning. Anyway, the bride's mother convinced me to have a few. At first I said no but she presented me with a Chocolate Russian. Ok, I was committed.

As long as we were at the house, shootin' the shit on the back deck, it was fun. I had made my decision and I was prepared to get shit-faced. I did not, however, manage to get shit-faced before they decided to take the party on the road and visit the local 'Pick-a-Pig'.

I don't do crowds very well and a crowd of drunken 20-somethings is not something I look forward to.

I made it to just outside the pub. I am sitting in the car watching the patrons pour out of the pub. A group crosses the street, one girl yells back some obscenity to the bouncer and falls flat on her ass. There she was, in all her glory with her skirt jacked up around her waste revealing a very unfortunate choice in undergarments.

At that moment my decision was made. Reality slapped me in the face. "I am definately not drunk enough to go in there."

Guess I will just quietly rage against the dying of the light. Ok, maybe not rage, more like whimper pitifully.

Who's your friend?

I picked up the boy from his friends house the other week.It was 10:30pm and he had been there all day.

He got in the car and I almost choked. I could taste the cloud of body spray that surrounded him.

I start hacking and spitting, very dramatically. Opened the window and tried to hang out. He is looking at me very sheepishly.

"Dude, don't ever do this to me again."

"What?"

I roll my eyes. "Do I have moron tattooed to my forehead?"

Silence.

"You know that shit makes me sick...and I can still smell the pot."

I don't know why he thinks he can or has to hide it from me. We have had the discussion. I know he smokes pot. We talked at length about pot vs pills. I drilled it though his head that I will not tolerate pills of any kind. We talked about the fact that you just don't know what people are putting into the pills these days.

Back in my day, we knew exactly what was in everything. One of my friends brothers was in pharmacy school when we were in high school. He would make the shit for us. We never had to worry about what they were cutting it with. (I swear our actual conversation was more profound, but I am paraphrasing for time here)

Anyway, cut to today. I go to pick the boy up at the bus stop and he is not there. Not a big deal, sometimes he decides to go to a fiends after school, and he can't really call me. He usually messages me at work to tell me where he is.

Tonight I had no word. Great. I work myself into a migraine and leave work early. I walk in and the place is dark.

I open his door and he is lying in bed. He is awake, no tv, no computer. He is just lying there. I start to talk to him and he sounds like I woke him. I turn on the light. His eyes are completely bloodshot. I ask him how he got home, he says he walked.

"Why would you walk, your father lives in Who-ville. Why didn't you call him?" It's 15 below zero outside.

He says, "I had a dollar."

"What? Who the hell cares if you had a dollar."

"He does." With that he points to something behind me. I start looking around, maybe he thinks his friend is here with him. There is nothing. It was like talking to someone who was still asleep.

Then he looks at me as if it is the first time he has seen me tonight and says, "What?"

Great, can't wait to find out, what the hell he was on.