You Can't Take Me Anywhere

I've been flying back-and-forth to Warroad MN to visit my parents on the Marvin Windows corporate propeller plane since May. It's fun and I feel fancy every time and I love getting there in an hour and 15 minutes vs driving 6.5 hours.

Last month and for the first time I got to ride their jet. No propellers. Leather buttery seats. Fancy fancy. Oh man it goes fast! The same exact trip takes 45 minutes. But let me tell you the take off is terrifying. I have never felt such speed in my entire life and I have ridden the fastest train on earth (Shanghai Maglev China). Anyway it goes one million miles an hour and you go straight up. STRAIGHT up. Seriously. When we got up to cruising altitude I turned to the woman next to me and asked her "are we in space?". I was seated across from her children (this jet had a four-seat-face-each-other-thing) and they giggled the entire time and that was the only reason I didn't bawl my eyes out from sheer terror.

But that's not the point of my story. The point of my story is that when I first got in the jet I noticed that same woman in the very very back of the plane with one of her kids. She looked like she was confused and didn't know if she wanted to sit way back there with him and I am nosey and so I already knew from eavesdropping that she was traveling with her husband, two little boys and giant pregnant belly (which was filled with twins as I was to find out later). So I stuck my nose in even further and offered to take the way back so she could sit in the four seat thing with her whole family. I smugly went to take my hero's position all the way in the back. (Seat change explained below). I am SUCH a good person. Ask anyone. I couldn't find the seat belt though? I searched and searched.

Then a man came and sat right across from me and we were sitting so close to each other that our knees were intertwined. Face-to-face. I was like, "oh man I hope I like this guy because this is AWK.WARD." He had a book which was a good sign just in case. But his seat for sure had a seat belt. I stood to look better for my seat belt, which meant he had to stand too to let me look and turn around and stuff. Finally it dawned on me that the seat was probably flipped down and I needed to flip it up to find the seat belt.

NOPE. TOILET.

Mortal Wounds

Every time I curl my hair I get a new pretty red mark on my arms or hands. 

My 15 Hours in Kenya

On the way from Seychelles to Mozambique, I had an overnight layover in Nairobi, Kenya. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to leave the airport because of visa requirements. Sarah's friend from Nairobi was traveling and so she couldn't host me, and so I sent out a couchsurfing request just in case. The woman who responded told me that I could just pay $25 for a "transit visa" and leave the airport no problem.

However, she couldn't host me either because although she lived close to the airport, traffic is so bad that it would have taken me two hours to get to her place and two hours to get back to the airport and there goes my good nights' sleep. 

SO -- I had no plan except plan B: Sleep in the airport. I have done this. It is no fun. 

On the little bus that takes you from the airplane to the airport I met Jackie, the nicest person in the whole world. She told me that I absolutely had to get to the game park and then physically walked me through customs, (VIP line - she's a diplomat), and then waited for me to go to the bathroom which included brushing my teeth and washing my face, brought me out of the airport, arranged for a taxi service to take me to the game park, then to a famous restaurant called "Carnivore" (think Fogo de Chao) and then back to a hotel near the airport and THEN in the morning from the hotel to the airport. I keep forgetting to email her a thank you note. This reminds me I GOTTA DO THAT.

Everything went pretty swell, except traffic IS really bad and so we got to the game park 10 minutes too late and they wouldn't let me in, no matter how hard I told them that I was from Minnesota and we don't have elephants there and I only had one night and all I got was a mean mean lady saying "it is impossible."

So my poor driver just took me to an animal orphanage instead, and that was really really fun because there were lots of cute kids there and we played and played.

And my driver taught me how to speak Swahili...the important parts anyways:

Jambo - hello

Mishkuru kutana nawewe - nice to meet you

Asante - thank you

Tuko salama - we are ok

Kwaheri - goodbye

Tafhadali - excuse me

Sina pesa - I don't have any money

I am in this picture -- can you find me?

Check this out. The older boy was running back and forth and the lions were copying him! I about died at how cute and awesome it was and then his little brother and I got involved and the driver took a video. Pretty cool.

 KENYA!!!

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Vol. 9

So I lay in the hospital, in and out of sleep for a day-and-a-half while nurses took care of my every need. Summer brought movies and I slept through them and there was a TV but I could barely hear it plus I was so SLEEPY.

I got to have broth (and fell asleep while eating it) and then they gave me a menu and I could pick whatever I wanted! I wanted macaroni and cheese. I mean there were so many options, it felt very luxurious. In retrospect I'm sure that macaroni and cheese was probably $475 but it was free at the time and that was pretty cool.

They kept telling me to WALK WALK WALK because you gotta get your poop churning so you can leave the hospital. I mentioned earlier that they pumped me up with CO2 and that's really uncomfortable plus my guts had just been all cut up and so I was working really hard on farting-slash-pooping. The more gas I could get out of there, the less pain and more relief I would feel. It became my "job" to fart. So they taught me how to roll to my side and then get out of bed without using any stomach muscles and a nice MA called Pemba or Phema was assigned to take me for a walk but I was scared and so I held his hand and we chooched* all around the corridors of the hospital and it was SO romantic to be holding hands with a man, even though he was quite elderly. It's so rare for me to get to hold hands and I loved it! I was highly embarrassed though when Pemba or Phema put me back into bed and I think he saw my naked butt.

I saw this one jerk and he was choochin' so fast all by himself and I was like, "you think you're SO COOL without your helper and your IV stand" and he was like, "don't worry, you'll get there" (which was a pretty nice thing for him to say, I gotta admit) and he was right! Eventually, I didn't need my helper and then I didn't need my IV stand and then it was me choochin' so fast all by myself.

So. Farting.

One time, the nurse was in my room and I farted really loudly for like 17 seconds. We held eye contact the entire time, me embarrassed but excited, and she a cheerleader looking at me like "keep going! you're amazing!" and I did keep going and then I felt like I had to go number 2 RIGHT NOW and so I scooched to the the edge of the bed and rolled onto one side and slowly got up. I started to walk to the bathroom and looked back to make sure my tubes were all in order and I saw that I had pooped a streak from the center to the edge of the bed.

I wanted to DIE. 

The nurse was still in my room! "I pooped the bed", I told her from behind the bathroom door, humiliated.

"IT'S ALREADY GONE. DON'T BE EMBARRASSED."

"OK. thanks. I'm also going to need a new gown."

And that is why nurses are just the nicest people in the entire world. 

Miyo, who REFUSED to get in bed with me even though I begged and begged. She preferred to sleep on the RADIATOR than cuddle with me. Little turd.

These two, I did not beg.

*chooch is a Shash-term, which means walk, basically. Go for a chooch. Just choochin', etc.

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 7

...And then they wheeled me in to surgery and all of the sudden I got very scared because SURGERY but it was too late and then I woke up. I remember feeling like I had just had a very vivid dream about work. And then I was glad I wasn't at work, and "oh yeah. surgery." So I was like "oh man you guys I was dreaming about work" but then I got back on my game, and as per usual I took it upon myself to brighten the days of the post-op staff with a little hilarity and, of course, as is so common with me, the oh-so-typical resultant accolades taking the form of laughter.

"WHERE IS MY SON!? I DEMAND TO SEE MY SON! WHERE. IS. MY. SON?!?!!" I screamed, in as dramatic a movie voice as I could muster.

Nobody laughed. You know I think now, after all this, that Doctors and Nurses and Anesthesiologists are more concerned about things like "white cell counts" and "oxygen levels" and "blood pressure" and "are you alive?" and "how do you feel?" than they are about having a good laugh. I guess that's why they studied the sciences and we all studied the arts. I heard my post-op nurse say to somebody walking by, "this one's a jokester", as if to explain why her patient was embarrassing her.

Oh man this guy next to me would NOT SHUT UP. He was talking about all kinds of stuff. And he was all like mad and being mean to the post-op people. It was so clear to me what he was talking about and it was SO ANNOYING. I couldn't WAIT to tell everybody all of the details of absolutely everything he was complaining about. Here's me later, telling that story (in my favorite Summer-Grimes-filmed-appendectomy-video that never fails to make me LOL):

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 4

I know this appendectomy story has gotten quite long, but I'm not even sorry. Because. So, where were we?

Yah. Surgery. 

The Wisconsin nurses asked me if I had ever had surgery before, and I said, under heavy doses of narcotics, "I think I'm fully intact other than my wisdom teeth."

After the results of the CT scan were clear, and it was obvious that I needed to have an appendectomy, I met with Dr. Birkenstocks again (while he literally sat on the floor of my hospital room. I have video, but that would be mean) to express my concerns about being in the "middle of nowhere" and asked my questions about this scary surgery. The following is our conversation, loosely based on the facts, as remembered by someone who was on morphine at the time. 

"I'm on a road trip. Can I still go on the road trip?"

No.

"OH, so is there any way that I could go back to Minneapolis and have the surgery at Abbott Northwestern Hospital? It's like a mile from my house."

No. Look, whatever happened to you in the last 24 hours to cause this attack, well it worked fast and the next thing to happen is your appendix is gonna burst. We need to get it out of there. It's really a miracle that it hasn't burst already. 

"OH. OK. So, how long is the surgery?"

45 minutes.

"How long will the recovery be?"

You'll be released probably tomorrow, and you'll need to rest, but you'll be back to normal activities in about two weeks.

"How big will the scar be?"

It will be tiny. They'll go in with a small camera to do an exploratory review of the situation. If everything is as we expect, they will then remove the appendix. 

"OH. OK. So my friends won't need to get a hotel room then...in this town, right? We can all stay here tonight and we'll most likely be on our way tomorrow?"

Yes. If things go well you'll be out of here tomorrow. 

"Can they sort of do the scar, like, below my bikini line? I mean, I don't want to be a Princess, but, you know, I like to whip out my chubby stomach at parties to be like funny and it's kind of my thing...it's this thing I do...I mean I don't really want a scar ruining my schtick."

Yes. There will be three small holes and whatever we can get under the bikini line, we'll get under the bikini line. Look, the surgeon will be here soon. You can ask him all of these questions when he gets here. We'll get a printout of the CT scan and he will review it with you, and show you exactly what's going on, and where the incisions will be and, I'll warn you: He'll probably be a little grumpy from having to wake up at 2:00 in the morning, but he's the best one to answer all of your surgery questions. 

And then Summer and Beata and I all fell asleep and waited for the surgeon and his staff to get to the hospital. Or, should I say, Beata and I fell asleep:

And then the surgeon and his team got there and it was time for surgery! I could see five or six people standing outside my room all in blue and "scrubbed up" and I started getting nervous. The Nurse Anesthetist came in and asked me a few questions and I asked him a few questions and then I signed something. Then my surgeon and his PA came in the room and asked if I had any questions for him. I was a good participator and asked him, gosh, you know I just remembered that I have a ridiculous [Dad: you might want to sit down for this part] ladybug tattoo that I got 15 years ago [It's true. I have a tattoo. I've successfully hidden it from you since 1999 when I got in in San Francisco when I was stupid and 22-years-old. Don't be mad. I love you. And you didn't come to any of my student-teacher conferences or marathons or my surgery] and the ladybug would look really dumb if they sliced it open, could they maybe avoid it during surgery? He asked me to show it to him and looked very confused when he saw that it is sort of near my hip bone. He said his incision would be nowhere near it. And then I got confused. More conversation:

"So, where exactly where will you put the three small incisions? I was told you could try to get most of them below the bikini line?"

Who told you that? I don't do laparoscopic surgeries. I do open surgeries.

"WHAT?! HUH? Everybody since I got here told me it was laparoscopic. Don't they always do appendectomies laparoscopically? Um...OK...well then can you make the incision below my bikini line at least?"

*laughs, condescendingly* Your appendix isn't below your bikini line.

"Well then where will the scar be?"

*laughs* It will be about 5 inches long, from here to here *draws imaginary 10-inch diagonal line from just under my rib to well below my belly button*. How does this feel? *jabs my appendix HARD several times* 

"OW! It hurts really bad! Oh man, that's terrible news -- I really don't want a big scar like that...can you show me the CT scan now please? I'm so curious about exactly what's going on here and I need a second to think about this scar."

*laughs, incredulously* I don't read CT scans. The radiologist reads CT scans. 

"I was told you were going to review it with me before my surgery."

*laughs, then huffs* Who told you that?!?

"The ER Doctor! Look, I'm getting the impression that you feel like I'm asking you a bunch of stupid questions, and I can see that we got off on the wrong foot here, but please understand I'm just repeating to you what was told to me. I was told that it was a 45-minute laparoscopic surgery, that I would probably be released tomorrow, if all goes well, and that I will recover pretty quickly but just be unable to do any physical activity for about two weeks." 

*now he's really mad* The surgery is three hours. You will be in this hospital for no less than three days. You can't do any physical activity for six weeks.

"Whoa. OK. My friends would have to get a hotel room here. Everything you're saying is so different from everything I was told. Wait, I can't ride my bike for six weeks?! I'm starting to feel really uncomfortable. I'm so sorry -- I'm just feeling like I would much rather go back to Minneapolis to have this surgery. There's a hospital about a mile from my house. Is there ANY way that I can safely get back to Minneapolis to have this surgery?"

*to his credit, he softened here* Kady, I want you to be comfortable. You don't seem comfortable. If you want to go back to Minneapolis, you should go back to Minneapolis.

"So are you sure my appendix won't burst in the three hours it takes to get back to Abbott? They started me on one bag of an antibiotic to prep for surgery. They said there were two bags. Maybe we could finish the second bag, and then you could give me another shot of morphine right before we leave to last me the car ride and are you sure my appendix won't burst?"

Of course there are no guarantees, but the way I see it, your biggest risk on the drive home would be a speeding ticket. And don't hit a deer.

OK. Can you give my friends and me just a minute to deliberate?

And then he left. Summer and Beata looked at me and I think by now I had tears in my eyes. I said, "will you guys please take me to Abbott? I don't want you to be scared, and I know I'm putting you in a terrible position, because I know you don't want my appendix to burst in your car, but I just think I really wanna go to Abbott" and they were like YES, OBVIOUSLY WE GO TO ABBOTT (I love them). And then it was basically just like in that scene at the end of the movie Big Fish (the first 1 minute and 35 seconds from the clip below), and they got me outta that place!! (Not before asking the nice people to call ahead to Abbott and explain the situation and tell them that we were on our way. And then the Wisconsin hospital people asked us how to spell "Abbott").

And then Dr. Birkenstocks came back in the room, and apologized profusely for the misunderstanding. I said, "listen man, NO HARD FEELINGS. I am so happy with my treatment here. Everybody has been really great. But I'm vain and I don't want a scar, and I wand the shorter recovery of a laparoscopic surgery and would feel so much better to do that recovery closer to home. We don't even know the NAME of this town! Where are we? And these two, they can sleep in their own beds. And please tell those ten people out there I AM SO SORRY that they had to get out of bed and drive all the way here and now I'm not having my surgery here."

And then they packed up their smorgasbord picnic and helped me escape!

First 1:35 of this clip = Summer and Beata busting me out of middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin hospital:

Appendectomy Aside...

Maybe you did and maybe you didn't notice the weird sink in a previous post about my Appendectomy...

This weird sink:

I am SO proud of myself for figuring out how to get those arrows on there.

We found it very strange and "middle-of-nowhere-Wisconsin"(?) that there was this extra weird sink and so we tried to figure out its' purpose. Upon closer inspection, we found out there was totally a poop-streak in it.

Now...how?...I mean, it's not a place you can sit down for a nice poop, and so the obvious conclusion is that this is the sink where the nurse empties the bedpan, right? So it's like a vicarious toilet. Doesn't that seem like the only logical explanation? And so, then logically, wouldn't it make sense, also, that the SAME NURSE would have absolutely noticed the poop streak and given it an extra flush? 

Is it just me? Or is that what should have happened? 

Exhibit A

This was an obvious photo to stage. Beata was so scared. HA!

"Beata! Relax. You're not going to get poop on you! Now don't laugh."

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 3

...The morphine took about an hour to fully take effect and then I was in much better spirits during my hospital stay. We were told that a CT scan would be the next step in determining whether the gallbladder was in fact causing the pain in my upper abdomen. Summer, Beata and I settled into the idea that our road trip plans were probably pretty much ruined, though we held out a glimmer of hope that maybe the CT scan would reveal nothing was wrong after all (typical whenever I have decided to finally go to a Doctor in my life) and that perhaps we could continue on, albeit delayed. 

I had to drink something so that my insides would glow properly for the CT scan. I don't know if it was Barium or what, but the cup said Barium, and I was on morphine so I went with it:

This nice lady arrived with a wheelchair to deliver me for the CT scan. First class service all the way. Nothing less for this fancy lady: 

At some point however, I began to wonder if I really truly need to be in the hospital...I mean after the morphine takes effect, let me tell ya...and p.s. you know how I initially refused the morphine? Here's a tip I received via text from Summer's RN sister Holland: "Kady. Rule # 1: Never refuse Morphine."

In addition to the Barium or whatever it was they had me drink, they injected me with two very scary looking vials of cloudy liquid, which I was warned would feel immediately warm, and the warm feeling would congregate in my crotch and would feel like I was peeing myself. This turned out to be all 100% true. That is exactly what it felt like, warm and weird and then a burning in my crotch. And a feeling like I was peeing myself. Anyway, other than that it wasn't bad. I'm very claustrophobic and was terrified of the idea of a "CT scan", imagining an MRI tube-like-machine, but this thing was no bigs...more like a big donut than a tube, and never even came near my face.

They immediately uploaded the images to a radiologist in Madison and after two hours, it was determined that my gallbladder looked totally normal. But he or she (I like to imagine it was a she, because this was a BRILLIANT call) didn't like the look of my appendix and ordered up two additional views of my innerds. Back to the wheelchair and back to the first class fancy lady service and back to the CT donut machine. Apparently said appendix had moved up into the upper part of my abdomen (this is rare, but it happens enough that it's called something like "lateralizing" or at least that's what I think I remember them saying) and that's why I didn't feel any pain in my lower right quadrant -- where appendicitis typically presents itself. Dr. Birkenstocks did a couple of push tests and lifted my right leg and exactly where he was pushing and lifting I felt excruciating pain. The new CT views confirmed it. Acute appendicitis it was. Get this though: acute appendicitis caused by an appendicolith, aka fecolith, aka fecalith, which I and the Doctor took to calling a "shit stone", because that's exactly what it is. Look it up.

And then I told the girls, "I KNEW this was gonna be shit-related."

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 2

...So the girls brought me to the Urgent Care, in Who-Knows-Where, Wisconsin. I had been doubled over in pain for nearly 12 hours, and dry-heaving for five so they were a bit concerned, and it turns out they were right to be. 

The Urgent Care people rushed me right into a room and those blessed caregivers hooked me right up to an IV (I was so dehydrated they could barely find a vein to poke), gave me MORPHINE after I repeatedly refused it (I did not want to take a crazy medicine known to make people nauseous and addicted when I was already feeling SOOOOO sick, and plus isn't morphine for people who have serious problems???), took a blood sample which showed that my white cell count was up to 20.9 (normal being about 11 or 12) indicating that my body was trying to attack something. I mentioned that my little sister Kasey had to have her gallbladder out a couple months prior and my mom had hers out when she was pregnant with me and all of my symptoms seemed to point to a probable gallbladder attack. A CT scan would get us closer to finding out. I was congratulated for not having eaten or drank anything for at least several hours because I was probably heading for surgery.

SURGERY??? I DON'T GET SICK. Well at least I had Summer Grimes there to document the whole thing:

I guess my veins are very tiny.

Summer's concern may have been feigned, but this pain-face was very real.

They set about dividing my assets right away. Brand new Dior lipstick got dibbsed by Beata.

Dr. Birkenstocks. At one point I apologized and asked if he could smell my stinky breath and he said, "well it doesn't smell like peppermint" and I about died.

Hospital beds are more fun with friends.

Super stinky breath. Well, I hadn't eaten or drank anything in hours, and spent the whole day puking. Whatdya expect?

I love these two.

Obviously because we were on a weekend road trip, we had a carful of food. And obviously, after five hours of driving, these jerks were starving, but did they have to lay their smorgasbord out right in front of me? It's like they were already dancing on my grave. Well, they did save my life. And check out my pedicure:

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 1

It all started with a road trip with my two best friends. I didn't feel well and in fact that morning, I didn't finish my breakfast. I ALWAYS finish my food so that was a little weird. I figured it would pass though and decided to tough it out for a few hours.

Immediately after we got on the road I yelled, "pull over!" and that was pretty much how it went for the next five hours. 

I puked a million times, all across Wisconsin.

And they took video, because they're my best friends.

These are screen shots from the videos, since I didn't want to subject you all to a bunch of puking noises, aren't I nice?

Happy, happy puking girl.

AT some point they realized they should hold my hair back and be REAL best friends:

It took us five hours to go three. I wasn't actually puking anything up, but more like dry heaving and I was in a lot of pain. After a while of me crying in the back seat it wasn't funny anymore. Well, it was funny. But more like awkward-funny:

So eventually they started to bring up the idea of going to the Doctor. And I don't go to the Doctor, so I was like, "I ain't goin' to no Doctor!" But then one time we had to pull over on the side of the freeway, with semis and cars passing by at 80 miles an hour and it was very scary and I couldn't puke but I couldn't stomach the idea of driving, either. They found a Walgreen's pharmacy 16 miles up the road, to see if maybe the Pharmacist had something to make me feel better. He said you gotta take her to the Urgent Care -- it's just a couple miles away. So they did. And I quit arguing because it hurt so bad.

First of Many Posts About my Emergency Appendectomy

An email I just sent to my entire office:

My surgeons injected my stomach with a bunch of C02 so they could laproscopically get that appendix out of there (I guess it makes it easier for them to see things and isolate others). They didn't pop me like a balloon though when they were done, so at the moment I definitely look pregnant.

Apparently, some of the gas will re-absorb into my body. But then some of it has to come out (if you know what I mean). I have been instructed by Medical Professionals that I need to be farting as much as possible.

Anywho, I have decided to embrace my gassiness. I’m home alone working right now and every time the good lord blesses me with a nice round trumpet fart, though very painful, I throw up my hands (to no one) and exclaim, “Doctor’s Orders!”


You can expect this as normal office behavior from now on. 

Most Hilarious Craigslist Text Ever and a Narrow Escape from Being a Silenced Lamb

So I'll make this short story as long as possible, as per usual.

I'm trying to work more from home. I don't really have an ideal situation at the moment, though some may call it that...

Laptop desk? Cereal? Coffee? Check. Check. Check. Fancy Business? Check one million.

The thing is, I am trying to be a fancy business lady and so working in bed, though it has it's benefits (see photo caption above), it isn't a long-term solution. I do have an office, but I also have the world's baddest back -- so my adorable yet hella-uncomfortable little school desk just won't do:

I decided that a corner desk would maximize the little baby office that I have -- and I even created a Pinterest account so I could get "inspiration" for tiny office spaces and stuff like they have in this one really appealed to me:

Isn't that just fantastic? I don't have those stairs of course, but you get the idea.

ANYWAY. I went on Overstock.com and bought a white corner desk from them for $225 that would fit the dimensions of the tiny room. But a week-and-a-half later I realized that my desk wasn't here and then I tracked it on UPS and found that it was damaged in transit. I chatted a customer service rep and they told me that they were out of stock now, sorry. Full refund. Thank you Overstock.com.

So I went on Craigslist and found this little cutie for $95:

Except my office is only 91" long. So I texted the seller:

"Is this desk easily trimmable? And are you the kind of person who has the tools and goes around cutting desks?" and they said yes! 

And then we arranged for pickup, etc. During the conversation, I got the single most hilarious text I have ever gotten from an exchange on Craigslist. Here it is:

"GARAGE IS OPEN AND SAW IS READY."




Of course I responded as you see in the blue above, and thus began a hilarious text exchange regarding my demise:

Don't worry, he didn't kill me. And neither did his adorable daughter.

Instead, he cut 3" off the end of my desk and while we waited gave me and my neighbor Matt (aka bodyguard aka muscles-of-the-operation aka SUCKER) beers and refunded me $30 because I didn't take the chairs and then we all became best friends.

And look at my cute new little office, primed and ready for some fancy business:

Work in progress guys, I still gotta get that staircase installed.

All's well that ends well, am I right, Dad?

The Coca-Cola Myth, As it Relates to "Certain" Poor Children in America

When you're a poor kid in America, it is assumed that all you drink is soda (from here I'll just call it 'pop', because that is what we call it in Minnesota) because it's so cheap or whatever. My seven-year-old self WISHED. Because. Not in the Hexum house circa 1980ish. 

I guess "so cheap" was still expensive for us. The other poor kids in our neighborhood got pop. We never got pop.

There was a permanent two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola in our house alright, but it was in the lazy suzan and it was for one thing and one thing only: mixer for my dad's Canadian Windsor whiskey. The same two-liter bottle of Coke would be in there for about a year, that's how much he drank and that's how much we kids knew to KEEP OUR DIRTY MITTS OFF IT.

If on the very off chance that one of the older Hexum kids was feeling generous, you might get some, once in a great while and you'd definitely have to share it and there was no way you could ever dream of ever having your own can of pop so just forget it.

There was a similar family to ours in a more southern Minnesota town and they had the same horror of a pop-free childhood. 

But one time and by some miracle, as one of them related to me, two of them got a pop to share. They were in the backseat of their family's vehicle, probably a station wagon, sharing that pop. While one would sip, the other would eagle-eyes glare at the sipper to make sure not too much sipping was happening. And then the pop was passed so that the glarer became the sipper and the sipper the glarer and so on. For an eternity they shared the pop, each sipping just a tiny bit and savoring it and then passing to the other. And then the driver of the station wagon (probably) took a sharp curve in the road and somehow the back door wasn't shut properly and out of the station wagon (probably) tumbled two children and a can of Coke. 

The narrator then told me that as her head hit the pavement her out-of-focus sideways view showed in the periphery: the station wagon (probably); the other kid, lying there, dazed; the driver, screaming, running toward her; but all she cared about, all she could focus on was the can of Coke, on its side, spilling that priceless nectar onto the ground.

The Headless Americans

When I got my drivers' license, one of my chores was to deliver dogs across Minnesota and parts of Canada for my dog-training dad. He had a friend outside of Winnipeg who lived on a dairy farm with whom he frequently traded dogs. This friend had children similar to our ages and we loved going up there. It was on this farm that I learned where cow's milk came from. (SPOILER ALERT: It's from cows.)

Anyway, on one particular delivery Kasey and I decided to make a little vacation of out it and stay a couple of nights. One night, one of their boys wanted to take us on a four-wheeler ride.

Marko hopped on one four-wheeler and Kasey and I hopped on the other, with me driving. Off we went, into the Canadian Nothing. Past the dairy cows, past the fields, and into the woods. Since we had just turned 14 and 16 and we were stupid teenage girls, we didn't pack for a trip to a farm -- we packed for a trip to visit boys on a farm. So we were wearing our new cute matching GAP outfits. Oh my goodness, they were so cute. Pastel short-shorts with striped button-down sleeveless shirts and matching striped pastel Keds. (It was 1993 after all.)

We ended up at a huge mud patch and Marko SPRAYED us with mud. We were supposed to SPRAY him back, apparently. But I was so focused on the ruining of my new outfit I just sort of didn't SPRAY him back. I shrugged my shoulders at him, like, 'What? Come ON. New outfit!' and then I think Marko felt bad and we started heading back to the farm. What a bust. Poor Marko. 

On the way back I felt so bad for being such a stick in the mud (pun intended), that I started racing Marko down the path. We were going back a way we hadn't come and it was a perfect stretch to race. We raced and raced and laughed and laughed and then suddenly we were winning!

Marko was left in the dust and Kasey and I were hootin' and hollerin' like a couple of city girls who just showed up the farm boy.

Kasey was wondering how far in the lead we were so she turned around to look. Marko was a hundred yards back, stopped, waving his arms and acting like a darn fool. Kasey poked me in the shoulder and I turned around. It seemed like he wanted us to stop? So I stopped.

Marko caught up to us frantically. Not ten feet in front of our faces was an electric cow wire, hung neck-high.

"Hey? Uh, Hal? Yah, your daughters are dead, eh?"