Behind the Pain Lies a Sandwich

Once upon a time, I had this baby. At first she was on the inside, then of course, she had to come out. Waving a cookie in front of my belly didn't bring her out, neither did caster oil, jumping up and down, bumpy car rides, spicy food, getting amorous, or any of the hundreds of other "helpful," "fool proof," ideas the population of the world told me about. Very funny, population of the world, very funny indeed.

After a million hours of torture (I'm keeping it vague cuz my sister-in-law is pregnant and I don't want to scare her off in case she's reading this...la la la, it was a beautiful birth! A lovely experience! Why, it didn't hurt at all! It was like mild PMS!) and an emergency C-section, I was sent to recovery. After surgery they give you drugs, and they also continue to give you Pitocin, which is the Anti-Christ, in order to keep your contractions going so you can get your uterus back into shape. Or something. I was on drugs. Whatever. I know they had removed the human being from my insides, stitched me back up, and I was still having contractions. Which wouldn't have been a big deal since I was on drugs, except I wasn't anymore, because my I.V. had busted and all my lovely drugs were pooling on the floor. Unbeknownst to me or the staff. I just knew I hurt like hell and since this wasn't my first rodeo, I knew something wasn't right.

By the time we discovered the broken I.V. and the nurses turned me into Swiss cheese looking for a vein, I was behind the pain.

Being behind the pain is not good. Not fun. I wanted death. Smooth and quick. I did not care that there was a helpless babe lying to my side somewhere, nor that I was too young to die. I didn't care that I hadn't sky dived (dove?) yet, nor gone to Europe, nor gotten a tattoo, nor tried caviar...I didn't care. Give me death.

Catching up with the pain meant a Morphine Clicker. I'm sure it has a name, but I don't know what it is, so we'll just call it a Morphine Clicker. I got to click it something like every three minutes or something, for another jolt. In a little while (three or four years. I think the wee babe was potty trained), when I finally caught up to the pain, I had enough morphine in me to down a horse.

All that to say,

Forgetting to eat breakfast on a busy day, is a little like getting behind the pain.

By the time you realize what's happening, it's too late for an easy fix. There's no catching up until some food hits your belly, and not only hits your belly, but your blood sugar stabilizes.  And by then, you're behind on everything else: the chores, the schooling, the to-do list. Everything's behind and you can't catch up. The slightest "wrong" in your day sends you into hopeless oblivion. What might have been a minor setback yesterday sends you shrieking through the house on a broomstick.

A Coffee and Sandwich Clicker would be an excellent invention for those moments.

That is all.