Surgery, schmurgery

Anesthesia is so weird. One second you're all, "Hey doc, love the new clogs," and then next, you're like, "Where am I?" "Why am I not wearing a bra?"

And it's so nauseating to try and get conscious. Usually I'm happy to tune out of life or discussions about other people's vacations, but when you want to tune in, it can hurt. Focus. Focus. Oops, sleeping again. Talk to the nurse so she thinks you're a brave little girl. Crap, you just closed your eyes halfway through something about her son and a missing pancake.

In fact, I'm getting nauseous just remembering the experience, which I've had way too many times in my (not as) young (as it used to be) life.

But the good news is I'm OK. The even better news is I didn't really need the surgery as the problem apparently resolved itself in the two months between discovery and waking up at 5 a.m. to go to the hospital. (Am I being too vague? I had a mass in my uterus that was causing me excruciating pain, probably related to my molar pregnancy. Still confused? A uterus is where a baby grows. Ask your mom how it got in there.)

This is not the first time I've had an unnecessary procedure. There was the time on my LDS mission when I had my appendix taken out for fun. Just imagine coming out of anesthesia to have a doctor tell you in Spanish that the appendix was extraordinarily long but fine, and that he "poked" around in other areas that looked "strange," but resisted the urge to operate on them.

For the record, I never went back to that doctor and removed the stitches myself. See, I am a brave little girl.

Anyway, I still have a bad case of the cramps, but it's nothing a few hundred Advil can't cure. (That was for my mom. She thinks everyone is addicted to drugs, including vitamins. But seriously, 8-9 Advil do the trick.)

How many Advil do you take?

Forget the stuffed mushrooms

Everyone should have a party story. You know, the story you bring out, complete with embellishments, when conversation gets dry? The one that gets people away from the artichoke dip and closer to the crowd with every twist in your tale? Well, everyone should have one, though unfortunately you cannot make up a party story - it has to be an outrageous it-seriously-happened-to-me story. Luckily, the following outrageous story seriously happened to me.

(My apologies to those who have already heard me share this ditty. Back to the artichoke dip for you.)

One day while serving an LDS mission in El Salvador, my companion and I decided to take the bus to visit a family who lived up a steep hill. Now, we weren't afraid of the steep hill. If my memory serves me correctly - and it rarely does - we had to climb up and down NINE steep hills just to get back to our house from our assigned area. So while I was eating a ridiculous amount of pupusas (basically a tortilla ravioli), I had buns of steel. But that day we had several large bags of clothes we wanted to give to the family and didn't want to carry them all the way. Of course, I once saw a woman walking uphill with a large basket of tortillas on her head while NURSING so we didn't have a good excuse.

Now, I should preface this story by saying this was my one area in El Salvador where my safety wasn't in jeopardy on a daily basis. We were up in a mountain town that had a unique European vibe and general tranquility. Also, a lot of albinos and redheads. The former, according to rumors, was because of inbreeding. The latter, according to rumors, was because there had been a commune of draft-dodgers back in the day who came down on occasion to dally with the women. And, apparently, dark hair genes plus hippies genes makes red hair, but I digress. The whole point is we didn't feel totally weird being the only Americans in town, though my companion drew a lot of attention because she looked like Barbie. Or "La Barbie," as they called her.

Anyway, we went to get on this bus only to realize that there was no actual schedule for the bus, other than when the driver felt like driving. So we found ourselves sitting alone on the bus for nearly an hour. As we sat, I happened to look out the window and notice a guy with a significant amount of blood dripping down his arm. Sadly, this wasn't that troublesome as we often saw a lot of drunks stumble and cut themselves up on the ragged cobblestone roads. But as I looked closer, I saw the source of his injury: A MACHETE. Through. His. Arm.

Yes, people, the dude had a machete going straight through his bicep. This was slightly unnerving for several reasons, so I shot him a look like, "No esta bueno, hombre!" which for those who don't speak Spanish means, "You have a freaking machete in your arm, hombre!" As my companion made the same realization, the man began to stumble over in our direction. On his forehead was tattooed the number 13, which is one of the most dangerous gangs in the country ... so we didn't want to make friends with him any time soon.

Just then, Machete Man stopped, looked as his arm, and pulled out an American dollar bill to wipe up the blood. Don't know what that does for the story, but it's always good to share random details to prove the validity of the story.

Anyway, after doing that, Machete Man began to walk over to our bus. Nervous, we hollered something to get the attention of a passerby. Probably something like, "Hey, we're Americans! Would you like to marry us for a green card so you can meet Christina Aguilera?" We then asked the passerby if Machete Man was dangerous, to which he replied, "Oh yeah, he just killed a guy in that alley over there." Just after he said that, Machete Man came up to the bus, tapped on the passerby's shoulder and politely said, "Excuse me, may I get on?" And to our shock, the passerby just said, "Go ahead, sir," and began to let him on!

!!!!!!!!!!!
(Just a slight illustration of our concern.)

At that point, I felt like I needed to defuse the situation by pointing out the machete to Machete Man, who was not aware of his arm's problem or his new nickname.

"Um, you have a machete through your arm," I said.

He just stared blindly at me, looked at the machete and walked back off the bus. He stumbled a few more steps down the street before rounding a corner and promptly passing out. At the same time, a herd of policemen ran down the road and asked us if we had seen a man fitting his description.

I said, "He's around the corner. You can't miss him. He's got a machete through his arm. And he might be dead."

To which one of the policeman said, "Not again."

And that's my party story. Clearly, I need to work on the ending. Though I have always wondered, if he meant, "Not again - another bad guy dies before we can bring him to justice." Or, "Not again - another man who doesn't even know he has a machete through his arm."

I think for the sake of storytelling, I'll go with the latter.

What's your best party story? (Link where necessary.)

Jure ma far

You know how you can get sucked into the link vortex, where you hop from one blog link to the next in hopes of finding a long-lost friend? Though you usually just end up finding someone you kinda knew at college around the 12th link. You’re more likely to connect yourself to Kevin Bacon before you actually rekindle a friendship, though it does happen on occasion.

Well, I discovered this blog the other day whilst blinking. And while I have never met the author, I couldn’t help but read EVERY SINGLE post in lieu of lesser things like being productive. Mostly because it’s hilarious, but also because I can relate to living the vida loca in Central America, having done a stint in El Salvador myself. Her posts reminded me of the different traditions, customs and general hilarity of life down there.

Which made me think of how young kids would always come up to me asking for translations of English words they’d heard. Most are unprintable but involve four letters including an F. So of course I said those words meant things like, “I’m an idiot,” or, “I’m ugly,” in hopes that they would stop chanting them at me in the streets. Though all obscenities or random English words were followed by “baby,” as in, “Microwave, baby!” Or, “Bye-bye, baby.” So I guess that made it all better, even though I hate being called baby almost as much as I loathe being called “honey” by store clerks, hairdressers and anyone under 60.

However, sometimes it took some serious listening to even understand the English words they wanted me to translate. A common one was, “Jure ma far.” For weeks I didn’t know what the heck they were talking about … until I woke up to someone blasting the Backstreet Boys chanting, “You are my fire.” But somehow “Tu eres mi fuego,” just conjured up images of pyromaniac boyfriends.

Speaking of pyros, another common translation request was, “Butaf Peej Pell.” Which after some time in El Salvador, and better understanding of the Salvadoran love for both WWF and Marilyn Manson, I realized the phrase was from the latter’s “Beautiful People” tune.

But those random memories don’t compare to the time I saw a guy with a machete through his arm, or the 1,003 sketchy remedies people insisted I try for their scientifically-proven properties. Or taking my life into my hands driving a 23-passenger minivan missing a third gear.

Because I don’t have time right now to regale you with all my humorous anecdotes. I’m too busy doing really important stuff like clicking on any and all links. Oh, and simultaneously admiring and cursing Miss Dub’s new crawling ways.

Bye-bye, baby!