Just exactly how stupid do they think I am?

The NY Times charges $15 a month (get that, $15 A MONTH) for full online digital access.  Free access is limited to 20 articles a month.  Shoot, I read 20 articles a day - and that's not an exaggeration most days.  I read the digital equivalent of cover to cover every day; its pretty much my only news source.  So for the past year or so I've been paying $15 a month for the all you can eat buffet of liberal elite media. 

Today I logged on and there was a big banner ad "Cyber Monday Sale! 50% off Digital Access for 1 Year!".  Really?!?!  WOW!  So I clicked through all the screens, filled out all the boxes, and hit enter.  It then informed me that I'm not eligible because I already have an active digital subscription. 

SERIOUSLY? 

First of all, I am precisely the customer you should reward. It pisses me off that I can't get as good of a deal as the guy off the street. 

Secondly, and perhaps should be firstly, the digital access is solely controlled via an email username/password combination.  Let's see.  I'm gonna put on my ole thinking' cap, some smokes ah gonna blow outta my ears while I do somes thinkin' and golly gee gosh, I'll just CANCEL my current subscription and sign up under another email address.  HELLO?!?!?!  What kind of idiot do they think I am???????

So I clicked through all the menus to cancel my online subscription and guess what, you can't cancel your online subscription online.  You have to CALL.  Gee, they make it so convenient.... So I duly called. "Hello, this is the NY Times Customer Service Line, please hold while we transfer you to one of our customer service agents". 

[Sidebar your honor: why do they have to transfer you?  Since I called directly in, do they really have to transfer me?  I digress.]

When I talked to someone, I told them exactly why I was canceling and exactly what I was going to do - sign up under another email address ... because (say it with me:) I'm not stupid.  So she says "If I give you 4 more weeks for 99 cents would you consider staying?  Me: uhhhhh, no.  She then says "If I give you 2 months at half price would you consider staying?".  Me: uhhhh, no, I'm going to get 12 MONTHS at half price by signing up under another email address!  She then says "Is there anything else I can help you with?"  I said "Yes, you can tell someone that it is a very bad idea to penalize your curent customers".  She said "Thank you, have a nice day" click. 

So now I'm signed up for 1 year at half price under Wheeler's email address.  Well duh.

I love to wrap presents

AND I'm good at it!

Social justice

Offspring, the other day as we were walking to the park, starting talking about social justice.  Only he didn't know it was social justice.

"If I was in charge of the world, the very first thing that I would do is totally get rid of money.  Money just messes everything up.  But when I told my dad that he said that no one would go to work then, but I think that at least EMS would volunteer.  I mean, they are nice, they save lives and stuff.  So I think that would be ok.  Then I would ban war.  If anyone disagreed, they'd have to settle it by playing rock paper scissors.  And I'd also make it so everyone had to pay the same amount of attention everywhere".

What do you mean by that? I asked.

"You know, like some neighborhoods - like ours - are really REALLY nice with trees and brushes and clean playgrounds, but other places aren't.  Like, they would all have to be the same amount of nice instead it being so unfair.  And then back to that job thing, about money, EMS would volunteer, but everyone else could barter.  Like someone might fix your car if you designed a clinical trial for them mom". 

Well, it was a good idea up to that point ...  I'm not sure I know any mechanics who need a clinical trial designed ... but with a few degrees of separation it might actually work.  He went on with all the other ways that he would change the world, and dammit I can't remember all of them because its been a few days since the conversation but it all boiled down tot essentially leveling the playing field so that everyone has an equal shot at a good life.  That everyone has the same basic slate to start from and that you aren't disadvantaged just because of who you are or where you live or your lack of money, status or immigration status.  I was proud of him - and I'm proud of me for raising a child who has come to believe in social justice.

He may be naive right now about how the world works, but maybe if more of us were a bit more idealistic in our thinking, the world might change for the better.  Just a little at a time.

The good parts of quadriplegia

Good things about being married to a totally paralyzed quad. First, the totally obvious stuff:

• Outstanding parking
• Excellent seating options at events (usually, but if not, I piss and moan until I get my way by threatening public exposure, humilitation and just my general wrath)
• You get lots of attention, nearly always polite and caring.

The not so obvious stuff:

• You never have to go through a turnstile at an event, or metal detector. His chair would sorta make the wands go dingy-dingy-dingy so they just wave us through. All of us. Hmmmmm.
• Small Boy can ride on Wheeler when he's tired of walking.
• He always has a place to sit. I never have to bring a lawn chair for Wheeler.
• His chair reclines, so Small Boy and Wheeler can lay back and study the stars together from the same vantage point.
• You have a place to hang all of your shopping bags, purse, lunch bag, backpack. Just lop it over the top of the headrest and/or hang it off the carabeeners bolted to the back of his chair.
• We have an uber cool bed that goes up, down, reclines, tilts, and changes its own sheets (just kidding about that last one).
• We have an overhead lift in our bedroom to get him in/out of his chair/bed/showerchair that lifts him 6 feet in the air and tracks 15 feet long.  Its WAY cool.  
• You get to weird people out by staring back at them when they stare rudely at Wheeler.
• We are almost always seated immediately at a restaurant, even when there is an hour wait for anyone else. It's the "gimpathy" thing I guess. Or they hope he doesn't drop dead while he's there so get him in and out asap. 
• You get to push those wheelchair door opener things! (even though I could perfectly well open the door and just hold it)
• When you roll into Starbucks, the four people sitting at the single table prominently labeled for disabled customers, all immediately BOLT away and look terribly sheepish (even though there's absolutely nothing wrong with sitting there if there's no disabled person there .... but they seem to get embarrassed anyway, happens every time)
• When something irritating happens due to his disability, I get to holler and yell, shake my finger and say "ADA thing, and ADA that, ADA shigga, ADA ragga, ADA bliggablogga, and DO WHAT I WANT RIGHT NOW". And then, miraculously they do. Ahhhh, power. Yes, it corrupts. (during these episdoes Wheeler shrinks into his chair as if he has never seen this crazy ranting woman in his entire life)
• I am in charge of the fork. If I want the first bite, I get it. 
• Wheeler has a super cool environmental control unit that turns lights and fans and all sorts of things on and off. Dude. 
• He knows absolutely everything trivial thing about everything. Ummm, ok, so that's unrelated to being a quad, it's just Wheeler being Wheeler.

On the whole though? We'd go with not paralyzed..... 

Me versus the cockroach

Can I just say that cockroaches scare the crap-ze-ola outta me. As in, huge eyes, rapid heartrate, constricted blood flow to the brain, doe in the headlights, screaming banshee SCARED of cockroaches. Maybe it's just disgusted? No, I'm outright scared of them. The mere thought of one touching me, much less crawling on me makes me twitch uncontrollably and brush my self off with my hands. And since Wheeler has that little problem called complete and total paralysis from the shoulders down, I have had to become bug killer extraordinaire. Including cockroaches. THIS WAS NOT IN MY LIFE PLAN!!!!!!!! Bugs. *shudder* 


I have managed to conquer my phobia to bees and other flying insects enough to kill them with chemical, mechanical or aquatic means.  But cockroaches are where I draw the line. I am completely phobic about them. But if I see one and I do not hunt it down like a dog and kill it, then it will be in my house forever.  And it might CRAWL ONTO ME OHMYGOD! So I have no choice but to find it and kill it myself. 


Recently, I have seen a huge cockroach in our master bedroom 2 times now. The first time it got away before I got get a large object to smash it with (there ain't no way on the face of the planet I would squish it with my hands no matter how desperate I got, that baby would get to snuggle up in bed with me before I smushed it with my hands).  But last night, when that sucker made his second appearance, I was prepared. I had shoes and books all over the bathroom ready to pick up and kill from any position at any time.  So when I spied him, I slowly picked up the nearest shoe and I whammed him with all my might. Confident that I'd be writing his (probably lengthy given his size) obituary, I put the shoe down.  


Then that little sucker started to crawl away!!!!!!!! 


I whammed him again - even harder. He STILL kept crawling, so I stood on him (shoes on of course) and ground him into the tile till he was a mushy pulp. But EVEN THEN this bug twitched an antennae when I moved my gazillions times his body mass me off of him, so I scooped him up with toilet paper and flushed him down the toilet. Then I flushed again in case he knew how to swim. Then once more to ensure his safe passage to the sewage system. And then one last time for good measure.

I proceeded to wash my hands and arms with a most vigorous effort even though I hadn't even touched him technically. It just made my skin crawl at the thought. Then I took the shoe outside and it's been sitting there ever since. Do you think incineration would be enough to get the bug juice off of it?

Shudder.

There are gads of advantages to being married to a quad, but that is one DEFINITE downside. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-yuck.

Sure signs you are the spouse of someone with a spinal cord injury

Sure signs you are an SCI caregiver wife:

• When you know quad doesn't mean the square in the middle of the campus
• When every third person you meet in public says to you in a voice of hushed reverence, with a gentle pat on your arm and an ever so small tear glinting in their eye, that "you are so special to be with him"
• When people ask of you "are you his mother"? or "are you his nurse?"
• When people speak to you instead of your perfectly articulate sci'ed mate
• When you routinely discuss the finer points of bowel movement management at dinner (often in public... without even noticing)
• When you really miss not having hubby with you because you don't have his wheelchair on which to hang your purse or shopping bags
• When your husband says "I think I need to pee", it's you that gets up
• When there is a cockroach, wasp or other horribly scary bug in the house, YOU are the one in charge of killing it.
• When you are really good at fixing wheelchairs, clogged toilets and any manner of small electrical devices
• When you visit someone who is sick in the hospital, and they ask for a drink of water, you start to hold a drink up to their mouth so they can take a sip, and check to make sure they’re properly padded in bed and their heels aren’t touching the mattress.... and then remember: oh crap, they're not paralyzed!
• When you can build a 4 foot section of a chain link fence solely out of zip ties and duct tape
• When you’re flipping the TV channels and you see the SCI-FI channel, and your first thought is that it must be some show on Spinal Cord Injury
• When you holler at your sci'ed hubby to get off his ass and hurry it up, people around you look completely aghast at your horrible treatment of the disabled
• When the phrase "the crips and the bloods" means hemorrhoids in the disabled
• When you are always on top, and related, rather than ask your husband if he's "in the mood", you have to go check
• When you are in complete and total charge of the tv flipper
• When you can diagnose a UTI with one whiff, perform extensive range of motion, percussive quad coughing, change a suprapubic catheter while half asleep and perform brain surgery because its all considered "custodial care" by your insurance company
• When your sci'ed mate is in the hospital, you are quasi-admitted yourself since you can't leave him alone there with a call button he can't operate
• When your dog leaves a dead rabbit on the doorstep, YOU are the one out digging the hole to bury it

And the number one sure sign that you're a quad caregiver wife .....

• You found this post funny

This cannot be good.

Offspring is currently, as in right this second, making something with a push pin, baking soda, water, an empty water bottle, vinegar, toilet paper and coins…. hmmmmm.  This cannot be good!


And now he just said "And now we have to fill up the tub".....  


Oh dear.  Wish me luck. 

Seceding from the family

Offspring announced tonight that he was seceding from the family.  I burst into a huge fit of laughter because, well, it was funny.  I asked him why and he said "I don't know, it just seems like a good idea".  I proceeded to tell him that meant he couldn't stay in the house, he'd have to live outside, after which he took a lawn chair, his coat, flashlight and his pack (see previous post) full of gadgets and sat outside in the dark. I came into the bedroom to tell Wheeler about this development and Wheeler promptly said "Well, he can't be on our family property if he secedes from the family" so I went outside and kicked him off our property.  And then I told him there was no trespassing in our neighborhood, so the park just behind us was out too. It was at that point, plus the enticement of dinner, that he came back in and decided not to secede after all.  Turns out they are studying when North Carolina seceded from the Union during the Civil War and he thought freedom sounded pretty darn fun.  Until he realized the full ramifications - like dinner and a bed to sleep in!

This is what three 11 year old boys at an overnight birthday party sound like.  There's no video, its just sound.  Listen and enjoy..... I triple dog dare you not to smile while listening.