Rat Attack

Dear Ryan,

 Unfortunately, Ashley and Andrew will not be joining us tonight. I’m going to attend a class entitled “Cardio Interval” at the Lake Norman YMCA at 5:30 this evening. It should last approximately 45 minutes to one hour. After this, I will shower and then depart for our uptown living quarters and arrive around 7:45. I will leave it to you to decide on our activities for the evening. I’d be fine with any dining arrangements – or none at all. I will bring your set of FNL discs, and I would like to suggest that we watch United States of Tara. Please let me know what you would like to do, as I would appreciate being able to dress appropriately for the occasion – as in business, casual, or loungewear. However, if you suggest business attire, I will not be joining you this evening.

I hope your stressful day is just part of a small spell – hopefully things will ease up soon.

Warm regards,

Your Small Tiger (YST)

That is how my evening started. Ryan really likes when I send him old-school professional e-mails, and I really like writing them. I also really like going to visit him at his place uptown, and I really like eating, or not eating, with him. We did eat – Pei Wei (pronounced Pay Way, not Pee Wee, like I kept saying) – and it was yummy. Our fortune cookies and ice-cream were tasty too. We watched a good episode of US of T, and I declared that I shall now refer to my left and right as “liger” and “raptor”. This was totally unrelated to US of T, and Ryan said “okay”. Then I got the major giggles-turned-belly-laughs because I made a chicken noise on accident. And then I got whiney because I was tired, but I really wanted to stay up to finish watching Criminal Minds. We really love Criminal Minds – do you? Can you tell that we had a really nice, relaxing, and silly evening together? We did.

And then I woke up. Half asleep, I exited the building into the parking garage. I took a step, and maybe another step, and here, at 6:33 am, began my no-good-very-bad-day. Have you ever had a no-good-very-bad-day? They really stink. Once my little flip-flopped feet hit the concrete of the parking garage, I felt something scurrying about. Scurry-scurrying claws were suddenly scurry-scurrying ON me. Yikes. I froze. I screamed. I ran. I calmed down and squealed a little more and danced around a bit, trying to get any rat germs shaken from my feet. GROSS! And then I looked down and saw blood starting to puddle up in my shoe. Double gross! So I did what any reasonable 24 year old female would do: I stood in the middle of the parking garage on one foot and called my boyfriend. And I called and called, and I called again. He didn’t answer, so I decided I should be a big girl and go to CVS to get some hydrogen peroxide for my rat bite. It was closed. Boo. So I did what any reasonable 24 year old female who can’t get in touch with her sleeping boyfriend would do: I called my sister. Lots of phone calls were made, and the conclusion (which I knew already) was that I needed to seek medical attention. Relatively quickly.

I stopped at a 24 hour CVS and poured hydrogen peroxide all over my pinky toe in the parking lot. The sizzles of a clean wound momentarily pleased me. At 7:30 am, I located the nearest Urgent Care and was promptly sent to the ER to begin my series of rabies vaccines. Ugh. Really? Really, yes, I was sent there, yes, I was admitted, yes, I wasted 4 hours of my life and probably a couple hundred dollars, and yes, I was extremely irritable (near tears) by the time I left. But no, I didn’t need the rabies vaccine. So basically, I got a really expensive tetanus shot … and they didn’t even give me a band-aid. Of course I am incredibly grateful to hear that there are no reported cases of rabies in US rodents, but can you see why this was a no-good-very-bad-day? Why didn’t the Urgent Care people know this? Is this privileged information that only ER doctors can google?

So now my giant shaving injury has a new friend. Giant Shaving Injury, meet Tiny Little Rat Wound. TLRW, this is GSI. I hope you guys go away. Really soon.

Do you like my new nail polish?  Circle yes or no.  Did you read about my mom’s snake bite? I bet you didn’t think that you needed to wear protective rubber boots in parking garages. You certainly should start. And did you read this sweet letter that Alekzander wrote me?  Thanks for making my no-good-very-bad-day be actually not so bad.