Okay, while I wait for the mailwoman to bring me my Dr. Horrible DVD, I’ll blog something. The story of my hand drama!

Okay. So last weekend it’s in the negative single digits and I decide I need to plug in my car. So I go out there to do it, la la la, and the cord won’t plug into the car. It’s too cold or something. It’s like they don’t fit together. Darn it! I think, “Oh, ho ho, I have an extension cord inside! It’ll be warm.” So I go in, get the other cord, and sure enough it plugs right into the car. Whoop! But alas - ‘dramatic music’ - it’s not long enough to reach to the building! Gasp!

So, I decide to plug the other cord into this short cord. Okey doke. The first cord is still too cold to be plugged in. ????! But I sit there struggling with it. I’ve come so far! I figure I HAVE to plug in my car. It’s negative whatever degrees. So I wiggle it and try to shove them together and I’m making a little progress. And I’m getting colder and colder and colder and deciding this is ridiculous. I don’t have a boyfriend to come out and cram the two cords together, I’m gonna have to do it myself. I was sure I had the strength somewhere. I decide to just hulk out and shove them together and get this over with. Cuz I’m probably starting to embarrass myself in front of the neighbors. So I ‘RAAAARRRRR’ totally cram them together. Yes! Then the cord plugs into the wall easily (WTF???! But yay!).

My hands are a little tired, certainly warm, even with the cold temperature. I had on 2 pairs of gloves. Anyway, I don’t worry about it. Then a few hours later I go to drive the car. I start it. I unplug the cord from the building. I’m thinking the cord will come off the car easily, it went on easily. HA! That cord has now become cold too and it won’t come off! DAMN!

So I wiggle it and struggle with it, and pull. Then I go inside to get some rubber bands, to help me get a grip on the plugs. It helps with opening jars, to wrap a rubber band around the lid. It’s hard to get a grip with gloves on, but there’s no way those are coming off. Cold! I bring out the rubber bands and they help some. I wiggle the plugs around some more, la ti da, and I have to hulk out a little bit, and finally the cord is unplugged. Yay! I cram the frozen cord in the backseat of the car and go to my mother’s. My hands are a little tired and worn out at this point and I think, “Haha, isn’t that funny? Winter. Pfft.” Then my sister can’t get in the back door of the house cuz the knob is too cold to turn properly and she makes me struggle to open it from the inside. I try to turn it, “Can’t you go around?” “No, open it, open it!” So I eventually force it to turn. I say, “My hands are already sore!” La la la….

I go home again eventually and shove the cord back onto the car plug. It was partially warm I think from the inside car heat. But then I realize I am NOT going to mess with it like this the next morning when I go to work. So I decide to unplug it again. HA! I struggle with it and wiggle it around and it mocks me, yada yada. I think, “My rubber bands!” I pull them out of my pocket. They are not as helpful this time. I think, “That’s it! I’m getting the tools.” I go inside and get a wrench or pliers or whatever that was. At one point I thought, “What if I just pull the cord around and shove it into a window and mostly close the window and just drive around with it that way?” Then I thought, “No! That’s ridiculous.” So I mess with it some more, hulk out a little, blah bitty blah. I eventually make enough of a space for the pliers to fit into and after much messing with them FINALLY figure out how to use them to pry the two plugs apart. Tada!

I cram the cords into the back of the car and go inside. I think if my car doesn’t start the next morning, screw it, I’m taking a vacation day. Pfft.

Okay, next day. I get up. I find it funny that my hands are sore. Hahaha, winter, I think. Then I notice how hard it is to do things like put in my barrette. I go out, my car starts fairly nicely. But it hurt like hell to turn the key in the ignition. Hmm. Hurt again to click my seat belt closed. Oooowwwww! Plus my hands were kinda wobbly and drunk or something. Weird.

I go to work, I start to scan the papers and ow ow ow ow ow. Every movement hurts. Who would have thought it was possible to strain your hand muscles?! Ridiculous! I think, “As soon as I have these papers scanned, it will all be smooth sailing.” Okay, so I gingerly scan the papers. Loading up the scanner with as much as possible, though I usually feed it like 3 pages at a time. But OW. Then - phew! - scanning done. I get ready to index. Damn. I realize indexing the papers will take even more hand motions! I have to type in patient numbers and then the names of the reports and things. OowWWWW!

#@%$##@@&*@!!!! Frickin’ shit! Okay, calm, everything is cool. It hurts too much to move my fingers around to type, so I decide to hold a pen and type with that. Which I do and it all works fine, except it’s much slower than usual. That’s fine, I think, all I have to do is get through the day, get my 8 hours in, and make up the work when my hands are better. La ti da. Then my hands start to hurt anyway. I’m still using them after all. They ache and I think to myself, “Oh, my God, I’m going to have to go ask for a sick day because of my hands.” !!!! Holy shit! Which I was totally fine with doing. Using a sick day for that, because OW, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to casually explain that to my boss. “Yeah, my hands hurt, so I’m gonna go home.” “Your hands hurt?” I mean I could say “stomach” or “head” and there would be no questions asked. But if I go in there and say my hands hurt so much that I can’t work, DUDE, that’s gonna require some explanation. And that would be embarrassing! “See, I was trying to plug in my car this weekend and I sort of had to hulk out…” You know, like doesn’t everyone have this experience? PFfft!

Damn! So, okay, I decide to take some ibuprofen and if I don’t feel better I will have to go embarrass myself and go home. I even felt stupid taking ibuprofen for hand aches. For headaches, sure, menstrual cramps from hell, sure, but for HAND ACHES???!! Damn! So, after a half hour or so my hands are feeling a little better. Looser, less painful. I start to carefully type without the pen. Then with it, then without. In the afternoon I went without the pen, but I needed more ibuprofen then too. I didn’t have to go home, though. Phew! Thank God. How embarrassing. THEN, I go home after work and my hands are exhausted. My BRAIN is exhausted. Just from trying to get through the day with my messed up hands. There’s no way I can surf the web. Typing? Plfthlp. All I can do is sit in my chair and watch TV and mope. I can’t even blog or twitter about my hand experience, because ow! Lol!

The next day I needed one ibuprofen, and I typed carefully but felt much better. The next day felt even better. ‘Til I was mostly better by Friday. Damn! Oh, also, around Monday or so - because my hands were all uncoordinated - I managed to pinch my hand in a mustard bottle as I was closing it. ????!! And I still have a red mark from it. I didn’t even know you could injure yourself from a mustard bottle. God! Man, was I frustrated this week! Bah!

And that is the story of my winter hand drama. Tada! I now have to go check the mailbox for Dr. Horrible. Adios! Arriva derce! Goodnight!

P.S. I had to pause for 2 1/2 hours before I had a chance to post this. So, in case you were wondering, the Dr. Horrible DVD didn’t come today. Booo! (Monday! Monday!)

Okay, I’m a little hyper, lol. Merry Christmas!