Technical Problems & my Vaginal Extraction Day.

This past weekend I celebrated my birthday, or like one of my Facebook friends so eloquently phrased it – my “Vaginal Extraction Day”. But as life would have it the run up to my annual celebration of burdening the world with my fagalicious presence was met with some upheaval. You see for this weekend we did not plan any boisterous activities - it was to be simple and subdued affair. But, three weeks prior to the big day, fate once again gave me a glimpse of what a bitch she can be and the countdown to commemorating my vaginal extraction was riddled with unexpected problems.

Three weeks ago the first sign that fate was in a provocative mood with a sadistic sense of humour was the fact that I came down with the Swine Flu. Now, I have had the Swine flu once before and it was awful. After about a week of having a snot nose, coughing, wheezing, headaches, loads of self pity and daydreams about slaughtering Babe the pig, I eventually conceded that I was sick and saw my doctor. He ran some tests, confirmed the swine diagnoses, stuck a massive needle in my ass cheek, and sent me home with medication and instructions to take it easy and stay in bed. Did I listen? No. I did spend the weekend immobilized horizontally but the next week I got onto a plane and dragged my sick ass to meetings. Not surprisingly, when I got home after my trip I was a little worse for wear.

You see, doctors tell you to take it easy for a reason and it’s always highly recommended to heed their advice. My lack of compliance and stubbornness caused me not to get over my flu, and to date, I still have reminiscent swine flu related sniffles and coughing. But that was to be the least of my worries. Our oldest cat, Scary Pussy, got sick around the same time as I did. She was losing weight and didn’t have an appetite. So on the same day as my swine flu diagnoses I took my ailing pussy to the vet. One thing you should know about Scary Pussy is that she does not travel well. She does not like vets, and if she doesn’t want to do something it is never a good idea to try and force her.

Arriving at the vet, feeling like shit myself, I did warn the vet that Scary Pussy is highly neurotic, volatile and a scratcher. All information I assumed vital for the vet to be able to prepare her plan of action. All was well until she needed to shave Scary Pussy’s hair in order to draw blood from pussy’s neck. It was a blood bath! The vet, her assistant and I were scratched up, the table and floor was covered in blood and hair (not all the cats though). It involved screaming, hissing, scratching and a few prayers, but the vet got her pint of blood and Scary Pussy got hers too. Scary Pussy lost one of her lives at the vet’s office that afternoon and I lost part of my dignity. With Scary Pussy groaning like an injured and angry demon cat from hell in her carrier, bloodied and embarrassed I shamefully paid the vet, apologized profusely, got Scary Pussy’s medication and headed home.

Trying to give medication to a sick cat is a skill. It requires trickery, illusion and timing. Giving Scary Pussy her antibiotics was a two man job. We tried sticking it down her throat, but she would spit it out. Tried disguising it in her food, but she would refuse to eat. Eventually we found that diluting it in a little bit of milk, putting that into a syringe, wrapping her in a towel, peering her jaws open and squiring it into her mouth was the only way it would work. Only 40% of the medication made it into her system, but hey, at that point 40% were plenty for us. With one week left to my birthday the cat now slowly recovering and I was no longer yearning for all pigs to die. I thought it would be smooth sailing to my birthday weekend, and then fate intervened again.

We started experiencing electrical problems at our house. For some inexplicable reason our power would go off during the evenings starting from around 8pm continuing right through to the next morning. It’s especially annoying if you’re are cooking dinner, doing laundry and plan on having a party on a Friday night and have a family lunch due on the Sunday with my roast having to braise over night. As the deadline for my birthday was loaming and frustration building we got out an electrician. Late one afternoon he pitched up and started doing what electricians do. He checked wires, appliances and like an astute detective he narrowed the problem down to a single garden lamp. He opened it up and to my horror discovered that my Operation Genocide of a few months ago was not a complete success. A few of those sneaky devilish termites from hell survived, and the survivors covertly colonized the lamp causing power surges resulting in our blackouts. With the electrician confident that he had found and resolved our problem, he left. But this would not be the end of that.

By 8:30pm that evening, the power still did not go off and hubby and I were relieved that our problem had indeed been fixed. 9:10pm the power goes out! “Mother Fucker! Damnit!” were the words my neighbours heard as I made my way to the main power board in the dark and accidentally bumped my hip, which is still blue, into to dining room table. I flipped the switch and as power was restored hubby and I looked at each other with a sense of defeat. I went to the guest bathroom, peed and as I flushed the toilet the flushing mechanism broke! As I walked towards the lounge to inform hubby that we now had plumbing problem too, the power went off again and I again bump into the dining room table but this time with my other hip. “God Damnit!” I thought, my birthday is just two days away, we are going to be celebrating in the dark, with cold raw food and the guests are going to have to go to the toilet either in the main bedroom or if that is occupied in the garden. On the verge of breaking down and crying like an emotionally disturbed child, I opted to take a sleeping pill and go to bed instead.

As if this was not enough fate thought it appropriate to add insult to injury and in addition to our electrical problem, plumbing problem and other ailments I also got an eye infection in both my eyes. But my vaginal extraction day celebrations were to go ahead regardless. After all I did not spend 18 hours, some thirty something years ago, being pushed out of my mother's vagina to have a few technical difficulties spoil my day. Eventually, on Friday evening we managed to rectify our electrical situation, tracing the problem to a faulty oil heater. On Sunday my brother-in-law fixed the guest toilet, and with blood shot eyes and a few coughs and sneezes I celebrated my birthday. Yes fate can be a vicious bitch with a wicked sense of humour, but unfortunately for her I can be one persistent bitch too!

Till next time.