Another Outbreak of Foot In Mouth Disease.

Spock the Cat jumped on my bed early Tuesday afternoon and began playfully gnawing my fingers waking me up from what at best was a fitful sleep. Spock does this when he wants attention but after rolling over to look at my alarm clock and seeing it was only 1:30pm, far too early to even consider getting up, I shooed the cat off the bed and tried to go back to sleep. As I lay there with my eyes closed, it was then I noticed the first stabs of headache pain like someone first hears the sound of a distant but oncoming thunderstorm.

Ignoring past headache experience and how they often turn me into a mound of quivering Jell-O, I rolled over and finally dozed off hoping I could sleep it away this time. When it came time to get up at 3:30pm my headache was in full synchronization with the shrill and pulsating screeching of the alarm clock forcing me out of bed and stumbling to the bathroom to try and find some medicine. I had less than thirty minutes before my daughter was suppose to be at gymnastics and I still had to drive to her school first to pick her up.

I cursed myself for not finding some sort of pain reliever when the cat woke me up earlier because I quickly remembered that my wife had engaged in her hobby of near obsessive reorganization the previous weekend. Sitting on the bathroom floor gorilla-like, I snatched open plastic storage containers throwing aside just about anything you might have in household medicine chest but not one damn thing for pain, except for a bottle of Midol which I ignored just for stupid, male chauvinist reasons.

As expected, I finally found something to take not in any of the bathroom storage containers but on the spice rack in the kitchen. Don’t ask me why the Tylenol and Excedrin bottles were stored there; I was just damn glad I found something even though I had to mix a couple of different pain relievers since the bottles had only one pill each. I know mixing medication is a big no-no but with my right eyeball feeling like it was being sucked in my skull while the left felt like it was going to pop out something had to be done. After I forced a couple of pills down I ran out of the house and somehow got my daughter to her gymnastics class on time.

Miss Wiggles’ gym is just far enough away from the house to make going back home a waste of time since I would only have about thirty minutes at the house before having to drive back to pick her up. As usual, I retreated to the car but instead of reading, I went back to sleep hoping the pain reliever would soon kick in. The pills did kick in as I hoped but that offered a whole new opportunity for me to embarrass myself

My sinus headaches are so extreme at times that I have to take some sort of maximum strength medicine to control the pain. When I run out or, like that day, simply can’t find I have to make do with what is on hand. There are usually little or no side effects but as I woke from my nap in the car, I realized I had a very nice buzz going. The world no longer hurt at all but it did have a warm fuzzy feel that made coherent thought difficult in its own way.

Back inside the building, a gaggle of mothers were still gathered around the windows of the viewing area watching their respective children and talking about homework, dinner, and the various chores they had waiting on them when they got home. Even with my buzz going and loving all humanity I knew enough to stay away from the ladies not only since being the only dad present stifles normal conversation but the instructors were going overtime with the kids throwing off well-rehearsed schedules and pushing their moods to the dark side.

When the kids were finally released both they and their now late moms quickly hauled butt to get home and back on schedule. That left one final mom and myself waiting for our children who were still with the instructor.

This attractive mom was dressed in a nice pantsuit with a tight blouse that showed off her nicely shaped breasts. This lady’s daughter and mine are friends both in school and gymnastics but I did not know her name, and in all the time Wiggles has attended gymnastics I have never spoken more than ten words to her. I could tell she was upset, I figured from the waiting, so the higher function levels of my brain were telling me that this was not the time to try and strike up small talk. The only problem was that with my buzz going my higher functioning levels were not entirely in control.

After checking her watch again, she impatiently stepped into the actual gym area momentarily before coming back out. “They are finally finishing up.” She said to me letting out a long sigh and folding her arms across her chest.

Seeing how her folded arms uplifted her breasts it was then that a thought originating from the lower functions levels of my brain went through. Unfortunately, my buzz-addled brain redirected that thought to my vocal cords.

“You have really nice boobs.” I both thought and said at the same time with my brain sending an emergency stop message about a microsecond too late. Given my past bad relations with damn near everyone I live around, I figured I had finally totally screwed the proverbial pooch.

I admit the lady froze in place and looked at me like I was insane. Worry about all sorts of repercussions leading up to me being forced to leave town flashed through my head. Not that leaving this area hasn’t gone through my head many times but it was always under happier circumstances. In the end, all I could do was stand there and wait for the shit to hit the fan.

“You know,” she said as I cringed expecting the worse, “I have had a rotten couple of weeks and that is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time.” It was then she reached out and gave me a hug, seemingly squeezing me especially hard.

After she released me, our kids came running out and we all quickly left. Frankly, I was perplexed not knowing which to be more grateful for, the hug or not getting into serious trouble. Driving home, my buzz long disintegrated, I figured it was best not to tempt fate and I decided it best to leave that question unanswered.