Happy Ending

Today we had a patient come in and I recognized her from when I was younger, around 14 or 15. I was homeschooled at the time, and although I liked myself alright, I was SUPER dorky, so I didn‘t have a ton of friends. We didn't have TV, so I read a lot, we shopped at GoodWill for clothes, and I was "different" in that way kids like to make fun of. To get my socialization taken care of, I went to the church youth group, and this involved going on the "spiritual retreats". (Now "spiritual retreat" usually means doing shots with Rob at four in the morning, which is much more edifying than the bullshit "kumbyah" experiences of my youth group days if you ask me. But I digress.)

During one of these retreats, we were staying in a hotel for a three day weekend. Every day at different times there were lectures about God and Jesus, honoring your parents and, of course, staying sexually abstinent until marriage. In between, we were supposed to be bonding, making the youth group stronger so we could be united for Christ, becoming one youth group under God. Mom, are you gagging yet?

I hung out with a group of kids; one of them was Vanessa, my nemesis then and patient today. She was gorgeous, got all the attention from guys and I even though I didn't entirely approve of her actions (smoking, sneaking out past "lights out", boys in the room... I was horrified.), I wanted to hang out with her and her friends.

We were chatting in the lobby day one, and out of nowhere the whole group of them got up and started running. I jumped up too, and jogged after them, not really sure why we were running, or to where. They kept running, and so, so did I. Around corners, through a stairwell; all of them were laughing together.

I hate cliches, but it actually felt like a ton of bricks hit me when I realized they were running to get away from me. Stunned, and then crushed.

I dropped behind, and locked myself in a bathroom stall where I cried for about four hours. (I probably missed that sexual abstinence lecture. oops.)

Well, flash forward to today and look who's complaining to me now about pain in tooth #14! Oh ho ho!

AND... she has not one but TWO kids. (I guess she skipped a certain lecture, too... probably to go smoke). AND she got fat, which I was super excited about. For that, I actually performed an impromptu dance in the hallway. Plus, her eyebrows weren't as nice as my newly "done" ones, and she had a mustache forming. The best part, though, was the huge, black mole on her chin. A mole is fine, but a mole with hair sprouting out of it? Bleck. It looked like a black spider had stuck itself to her chin, rolled over on it's back and died there, legs sprawled towards heaven. Dr. McGovern and I couldn't stop staring at it.

I told him the story while we were waiting for her x-ray to develop, and said he was glad I wasn't using the drill. It was a nice ending to 2004. And now I'm going to go continue my New Years Celebration: watching TV. I really miss Dick Clark.

Blogger Land, I will see you in '05!