Ever wonder what would happen if you were just standing there, minding your own business, when suddenly a chisel comes flying out of nowhere at a very rapid velocity and comes to a sudden stop in your eye?

No?

Me neither.

Yet, thanks to my very dear, oldest and bestest friend in the world, the man I promised to marry if we were both single by the age of thirty, a man I now consider to be my brother and who happens to be my husband’s bestest friend in the whole world, I now know.

It’s not very pretty.

Think squished grapes.

I’m going to be offline for a few days, holding a certain Cowboy’s hand, and making sure his wife eats until we know the status of his vision. Any well wishes or prayers you might want to send in our direction would certainly be appreciated.

Meanwhile, it’s not all bad. Did I mention his attending physician is unbelievably good-looking? It’s always nice to have a good piece of eye candy to drool over while stuck in a hospital and trying not to relive disturbing memories of your son’s life while praying for a miracle.

Be back soon. Unless of course the good-looking physician decides to kidnap me and take me to a deserted island.

Then you are on your own.

I love my husband’s family. Stop laughing, it’s true. I feel very blessed to be included in such a wonderful family. They have and continue to be a large part of my support system, through the death of my son and with Boo being gone most days of the month.

That said, I often wonder what planet these people come from. It stems from the entirely different upbringing and values his parents raised their family with than what I grew up accustomed to.

His dad worked on the family farm and at his daily job for the gas company and was home every night for dinner, to ride herd on his family; never missing a birthday or a holiday. My dad worked out of town in the oil patch and would be gone so long that when he finally came home sporting a full beard, I would wonder who the hell was this dude sitting at the kitchen table in his underwear having a cigarette.

His mom taught Sunday school and sang church hymns as she baked fresh bread and cooked three square meals a day, while chasing chickens and feeding cows and generally being a little Molly Homemaker. My mom worked in an office everyday, putting on business suits and heels and was so exhausted by the day’s end the only thing she was singing was the blues.

Our childhoods were vastly different. I wouldn’t say his childhood was better than mine, or vice versa, just really different. He was a country kid from a Christian family and I was a city kid with working parents. Boo never had the joys of being able to walk to the park or the store after school, and I never had the joy of hauling my arse out of bed to go do farm chores before I was allowed to eat my breakfast.

I would pay big money to see my mom wearing an apron chasing a chicken around the yard to kill it for supper.

If I tried to emulate my mother in law, I think my children and my husband would fall over dead from shock if I slapped on an apron and started belting out hymns while baking cookies. I’m no Martha Stewart.

Because of these vast differences in our upbringings, I often find myself feeling a little out of place with his family. I’m not exactly the wife they had in mind for their baby Boo. Not that I’m a bad wife. I’m just not exactly a good one.

Still, they welcome me with open arms and overlook the fact that I’ve got more holes in my body than any of them, I don’t know the words to Amazing Grace and they try to see past my skin which is starting to look like a canvass a three year attacked with finger paints when Mommy wasn’t looking.

They’ve adopted me as one of their own. For which I’m grateful.

Yet when I discovered there was going to be a large family gathering this weekend to celebrate the 90th birthday of the family matriarch, I panicked. Boo wasn’t going to be home to apologize for whatever blunder I was about to commit and I felt like I was marching off to the gallows, awaiting my fate.

Silly, really, as this family is full of kind and loving people. Even if they thought I was a nut job who should be locked into a rubber room, they would never let that show. They’re too nice for that. I could walk around wearing hooker boots and a leather bustier, with my hair in a mohawk, and talking about conspiracy theories while food fell out of my mouth and they would just nod and tell me ‘that’s interesting dear. Would you like a napkin?’

It’s just I haven’t been to a gathering of this magnitude since the day I buried my son two years ago. The last time I saw many of these faces, they were crumpled with tears or sporting looks of pity on them as they tried to console my husband and I. I wasn’t sure I was up to facing the crowd with out my husband’s broad shoulders to hide behind.

I didn’t want to answer the dreaded “How are you doing?” question that inevitably comes up when someone remembers that yes, I’m the mother to a ghost. I wasn’t sure I was mentally strong enough to pull off a family function without turning into a puddle of self-pity and tears.

Turns out, like always, I was worried for nothing. Because I like to do that. You know. Fret and sweat and get all up tight over nothing. It’s part of my charm.

I tried to take special care with my appearance. I gussied up and made sure all of my bits were covered appropriately. I didn’t want the guest of honor to keel over from shock because her grandson’s wife looked like a two bit hooker looking for a john. (I’m thoughtful like that.)

I tried to watch my manners and make sure my children didn’t act like wild little animals that were ready to chew off the legs of anyone who came near them.

I sat with my legs primly closed, and my back ramrod straight. I smiled and made small talk with the hordes of family that descended upon us and tried not to show how nervous I was. It may have felt like they were all circling in for the kill, ready to pounce at my jugular, but really they were just wanting a chance to catch up with our lives.

I think.

I thought I did pretty good.

I got cocky. I started feeling confident. Until an aunt came up to me and stuck up a conversation. She prattled on about writing, and how she had just submitted a novel to a Christian publishing house. Then she informed me that she heard I was writing.

“What are you writing?” She inquired as she eyed my tattoos.

“Um, nothing serious. Just a little here and there,” I evaded, while telling myself to behave.

“Where could I find some of your work?” she asked, genuinely interested by the fact there was another writer in the family.

And with that, I stared at her and shit my pants blinked. Crap.

“Um, I publish online sometimes. Not very often,” I hurried to add. She lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Really! That’s fabulous.” She smiled and patted my leg. And then it came. The question I feared worse than a plague of locusts. “What do you write about?” I could feel the battle of good and evil wage within me.

I took a well timed sip of my coffee and wondered do I dare tell this highly religious, mother of four, prim and proper, rather uptight, well respected woman that I spend my time writing about nipple rings and blow jobs, composing odes to bath tubs filled with shit and dead animals and how I spend most of my time hiding in the pantry drinking wine instead of parenting my children.

Common sense was screaming at me to shut my mouth and lie. Tell her you write about your feelings, the angel on my shoulder implored. The little red devil begged me to tell her about the post I wrote about waxing my beaver.

I was torn. But not for long.

“Well, I occasionally talk about my angel boy and how we’ve struggled with his passing,” I started. She nodded and told me how fantastic that was.

“But most of the time I like to write about wearing nipple tassels and knee pads for Boo. You know, crotchless panties and the such.” And then I excused myself to get the hell out of Dodge get a cup of coffee without making eye contact. As soon as I said it I wished I could take it back. It sounded good in my head. Why Lawd, why did you make me with out an impulse control button, I wondered.

She didn’t try and strike up conversation again after that. I wonder why.

This is why I like to have Boo with me for these types of gatherings. He generally keeps the devil in me muzzled.

Later that night, feeling like an arse, I told my husband what I had done and how good it felt to be bad at the time yet how I was now suffering with remorse. He consoled me and told me not to worry about it.

“She’s cool. She probably thought you were joking. Don’t worry about it. You have a bigger problem,” he warned me.

Oh great. Because it’s not enough that I basically made myself look like a sex feigned twit. I need more things to freak out over. “What? What more?” I whined.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he continued.

“I know…”

“You’ve got crotchless panties and I’ve NEVER seen them!” he noted.

Ya. I guess that is a bigger problem than placing both feet in my mouth at the same time. Thanks for the perspective honey. I needed it.

The universe was talking to me yesterday before I even rolled my dimpled arse out of bed. It was saying, “Don’t do it, T. Stay in bed.”

I, of course, was not listening. I was jonesing for coffee and wondering how I could lure my husband back home so I wouldn’t have to be the one to referee Fric and Frac first thing in the morning as they argued over socks.

Because I wasn’t listening, the universe decided to send me a clear message. Namely, by having my dog’s claws snag my boob jewelry as he raced to fetch a teddy bear thereby stretching out my left McGuffy until the boob gave up, cried for mercy and rolled under the bed for sanctuary.

Gathering my stretched and sore appendage to my chest and vowing to switch from hoops to barbells, I made my way to the kitchen, dreaming of a dog with no legs. Where I promptly stubbed my toe on the birdcage, dropped wet coffee grinds onto the floor and discovered there was no creamer for my coffee.

Still, I ignored the Universe and my cozy warm bed and plundered on with my day. When my lovely daughter reminded me I was supposed to be fasting for a medical appointment and was not supposed to have any coffee, I should have just given up and crawled back into bed.

A morning with out coffee is akin to hell. Still, I persevered. Because I am the picture of optimism. The day can only get better I figured, as I whistled a snappy tune and hopped into the shower, smiling with possibilities.

Okay, no I didn’t. I moaned that God, Himself was out to get me and then cursed a blue streak so creative my son high-fived me and then immediately committed said cusses to memory so as to be able to repeat them on the playground as I stomped into the bathroom.

I made a promise to Boo that I wouldn’t put my health on a back burner any longer so I sucked my shitty start to the day up, shoved my legs into the only pair of jeans that haven’t split down the middle when I bend over still fit and then hopped up and down as I tried to button the buggers up. You know the dance of which I speak. The one where you are valiantly trying to squeeze that roll of flab into a pair of too-small pants while looking like you are having epileptic fits to music only dogs can hear. Ya, that’s the one.

Then I promptly unbuttoned the little buggers when I got in my car to drive to town. It was either do that or to hold my breath as I drove 35 km to the lab.

When I walked into the rural hospital where the lab was, I glanced around to see how many old people were milling about. Old people equal longer wait times which equals an even bitchier, annoyed Tanis who is in desperate need of caffeination.

Not a blue-haired person to be seen so I started visualizing the steaming hot cup of coffee I was soon to be swallowing. I handed my lab papers to the receptionist whose cup of coffee sat before me and mocked me with it’s tantalizing aroma and sat down to wait as she found someone to stab me with a sharp pointy stick. Er, needle.

I’ve been poked before, many times. Once, when I was really sick and the docs feared my appendix had ruptured they ended up poking me 27 times before finally finding a vein in my ankle. Good times. I’ve harboured a healthy fear of needles ever since. So picture me sitting in the waiting room, salivating over the scent of badly brewed hospital coffee wafting through the air, beads of sweat springing out on my brow and twitching slightly with nerves.

It was right about then a light shone down from the heavens above and angels started singing. Brad Pitt stood before me.

Well, okay, not Mr. Pitt, but surely his doppelganger. The best looking man I have ever seen in my life walked towards me. He was perfection personified.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but you’re drooling,” he said as he offered me a tissue. Dear Lawd, he had an Aussie accent. Could he be any more perfect, I pondered as he stared at me and wondered if I was mentally disabled.

“Ma’am? Are you Tanis?” he repeated.

Snapping out of it and realizing he was not only talking to me but he looked a little worried that I was about to strip him naked and jump him. I pulled myself together, shut my mouth, wiped my drool and tried to act cool. Because drool is cool.

“Um, yes,” I stammered. His muscles rippled like a caged tiger as he walked. It was all I could do to reach out and pat his arse to see if it was made of stone.

“Here. Pee in this,” he said as he handed me a plastic cup. How sexy. As I blushed three shades red, I rushed off to escape my own idiotic behaviour and get a grip.

It was right about then that I realized there was no way I could squeeze out any urine. I had fasted for 13 hours. I was dehydrated. But there was no way I was going out there and announcing to that handsome hunk of a man I couldn’t pee on command. So I sat there and thought of Niagra Falls, visualizing the rushing waters of Nature.

Three drops later, I figured that was as good as it was going to get and put the cup in the little box, hoping he wouldn’t check it until I was well the hell out of Dodge.

Wrestling with my jeans again, I ignored my reflection in the mirror because after the drool there was no way this man would ever find me attractive so I may as well just accept defeat, and I made my way back to the chair to commence with the poking.

As he pulled up my sleeves and eyed my veins, we chatted about the weather, about his accent and about small towns in general. I tried to ignore the fact he was getting ready to stab me and make off with my blood like a vampire. I focused on how beautiful this man was, on how lucky I was to be married to a slightly less beautiful man, on how there was a spider hanging from the web in the corner. Anything except the sharp pointy needle he had just picked up and was pointing at me.

He looked up at me then and noticed I was sweating profusely a little nervous and asked if I was afraid of needles.

“No, no. I just get nervous when a good looking man pokes me with out any foreplay,” I stammered.

“I’ll try and be gentle,” he reassured me as he wished I would just shut my freaking mouth already.

“No, no, I like it rough.” Shut UP TANIS!!! Oh look, I’m a drooling twit who can fit BOTH feet in her mouth. It was a puzzle why he wasn’t offering to be my love slave for life.

He raised his eyebrow, chuckled and then shoved the needle in.

That’s all I remember.

Until I woke up on the floor.

Ya. I fainted. At the feet of the good-looking nurse. As he was stealing my blood. And thinking what a damn dork I was.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” he asked as he patted my back and handed me a glass of juice.

Um, ya. I’m fabulous. Not mortified at all. I just passed out suddenly and the world’s hottest nurse keeps calling me ma’am. Could life get any freaking better? I looked down, expecting to see a needle still stuck in my arm, but there was nothing there.

“Don’t worry, you fainted as I was pulling the needle out. I got all the blood required to test you for that geeky gene you must surely have inherited.”

“Goody. I’m awfully sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t normally fall at the feet of gorgeous men. I like being stabbed, I’m generally a vampire’s wet dream,” I blathered as I stuffed myself into my coat and tried not to make eye contact with McSteamy.

“Well, it could have been worse. At least you didn’t pee when you fainted,” he joked as he twirled around my near empty pee cup.

Ya. Thank God for small miracles.

I really should have listened to the Universe when it spoke. This’ll teach me.