Fish Out of Water

There are few things quite so horrifying as realizing – 40 minutes into a long run – that the foul stench at the gym is not the sweaty pig of a man next to you, but is in fact, you. Well, not my body, per se, but rather, it was the gym shorts I didn’t wash when I thought I did because, in my infinite purchasing and laundry wisdom, I re-washed the clean navy shorts instead of the utterly foul black shorts and ran many miles in stank shorts. Of course, the only thing that could possibly make it worse is that by some strange law of the universe, this event fell on a day when there were no fewer than seven superhot, buff dudes working out on various pieces of equipment throughout the gym.

I mean, obviously I’m not on the prowl or anything, but one never wants to smell like sweaty taco near hot specimens of any kind, really. Funny how smells completely change good/bad status, depending on where they are located. Fish, for example, can range from mildly pleasant to downright horrifying, depending on the location, which should never include the gym or, ah, anywhere on the body, and yep, I just grossed myself out. Let it be known, however, that I did not smell like fish OR tacos at the gym, and I now realize that’s what it seemed like, and oh God, no! NO!

Speaking of fish (the hell?), I got in quite a bit of trouble over the holiday for discussing the presence of cod worms as we prepared the baccala (salt cod), for I’m told that my oldest nephew will no longer eat fish of any kind, and frankly, I don’t blame him. I continue to eat cod and just pray that the fisherman have eradicated all of them before it reaches my table, but I am forever tainted by an experience demonstrated to me by a marine biologist family friend that involved microwaving non-dewormed cod and seeing the, ah, little suckers standing on end like miniature trees. This is, by the way, why you should never eat cod uncooked, because those suckers can survive in your intestinal tract and become frustrating little parasites for everyone involved, and no, I’m not making this up.

I’m not sure how I’ve come to this place, but I’ve horrified myself, and very likely you, completely right the hell out of here. I’m sorry.

I spent the better part of today in the waiting room for bloodwork and an ultrasound – a fact that I should not have announced to the office before I left, because the rumors are already swirling that I am either pregnant or dying. It was a normal thyroid ultrasound, as I have every six months, and while usually it’s a quick appointment, the technician was unusually backed up, which resulted in me being stuck in a waiting room for four hours, and of course, I had to have this done today, as a series of appointments in the coming weeks hinge on the ultrasound results, and there were no further appointments to make the deadlines.

Those four hours, I might add, included sitting across from a man waiting for the MRI machine to be fixed so he could have his head checked, when really, I’d rather they examined his wife, who was wearing a T-shirt that read, “Don’t worry – be crabby!” and crabby she was. I suffered through literally hours of her constant complaints, ranging from the magazine selection (“embarrassing and inappropriate!”) to chair comfort (“My back! My BACK!”) to the long wait (“Are they MAKING THE MACHINE FROM SCRATCH?”) in a voice not dissimilar to an out of tune trumpet, only louder.

She screeched and hollered for the duration, and I was about to politely ask her to shut up, for the love of God, before someone killed her, when she announced to no one in particular that she didn’t appreciate the fancy wine opener her children gave her for Christmas, as she prefers wine in a box or at the very least “WITH ONE OF THEM SCREW-TOPS” and so, in fact, she “PLANS TO RE-GIFT IT, BUT PLEASE, DO NOT TELL THE CHILDREN.”

I liked her a little better after that.

Anyway, the four hours in the waiting room meant I had to do four hours of work tonight, which means you get nothing but cod worms and screw tops this evening, neither of which are all that pleasant.

*Tears for Fears

29 comments January 2nd, 2007