Drama, My Ear, and a Little More Drama

April 22, 2009

Today, my heart goes out to cranky infants all around the world. Yesterday evening I came down with a sudden ear ache, and let me tell you, I probably would have preferred to swim through an above-ground pool of turkey poo. Honestly, from the girl who likes to run 26 miles for fun and opted out of pain meds after a c-section, it hurt that bad.

And much like the babies all across the map who deal will ear aches, I cried. And cried and cried and cried. I mean seriously, when in pain, why not up the drama factor, ya know? Jared was still at work, we didn't have a single solitary pain med in the cupboard, and oh yeah, did I mention how much it hurt?

Since James was temporarily acting as the 4-year-old man of the house, he decided to take matters into his own hands. First he crawled up next to me and pulled on my ear. It helped for about 3 seconds. Then he rubbed my ear--another 3 seconds of relief, and finally, he just pushed on my ear, which actually helped quite a bit. But not enough to get me to quit the crying--I just kept on rolling with it.

Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Very classy. Very mature.

Somewhere, in the middle of my episode, James decided to call my mother. What can I say? She's on speed dial and he's exceptionally smart. Here's what I heard on my end:

James: Gwama, der is a mergency.

My Mom: ....

James: Mom's ear spolded.

My Mom: ....

James: She's just cwyin' an cwyin' an cwyin.'

And that's just about the point when my husband walked in from work. James ran for the door, and greeted his father by saying, "Dad, my Mom needs a ear doctor. You are jus a back doctor. Go an fine a ear doctor for my mom. Go go."

And I was like, "Yeah (sob, sob, sob), go find someone who's licensed to give me big old (cry, cry, cry) shot in the ass! That's the only thing that'll help me right now (heave, heave, heave)! I need a shot in my ass..."

But Jared, bless his heart, dealt with me anyway. He looked in my ear with his thingy and was like, "Hmmmmmm....looks infected." Then he pressed on some part of my neck, muttered some nonsense about eustachian tubes, and said, "Does that hurt?" It did. "Does this hurt," he wanted to know?

"Um, YES!!!! EVERYTHING HURTS MR. CHIROPRACTOR!!!! EVERYTHING HURTS!!!!! Now give me a shot in the ass."

But he's really not licensed to do that, so he pressed some other part of my neck, gave me a heating pad, made me some soup and rubbed my hair while we watched American Idol.

And I guess that's the end of my tale.

My ear is still sore today, but I haven't cried in almost 12 hours--on account of real pain or for drama's sake. So that's some movement in the right direction--particularly in regards to my own personal growth.

And I'll leave you with the moral of the story: You should feel really bad for me and for babies and toddlers because ear aches hurt worse than c-sections and marathons put together--especially when you get the burps.

And yes, I really am sorry for wasting 4 minutes of your day with that very pointless story. What can I say? Life has been very uneventful lately. But sometimes, uneventful is good.