To Whom It's About to Concern

 A lot has happened since I last wrote and things have gone topsy-turvy. I was planning on starting my Seven Weeks series, which is taking a lot more work than I anticipated to put together properly and in a way that makes sense to readers, as so much happened during those seven weeks. It’s easy to muddle it all together when trying to find the most comprehensive way to tell my story. I just want to get it right when I tell it. I want to make people feel seen. But, well, here we are. Hopefully, if nothing else, this post turns out funny.

    Back in June, I started having symptoms of a UTI. I went to urgent care and was diagnosed with, unsurprisingly, a UTI. I took the medication, but the symptoms didn’t go away. I’m in the process of changing PCPs because mine seems to never be able to get you in for a month or so at a time, even for a problem appointment, and I end up at urgent care. So, back to urgent care I went. This time, testing showed I didn’t have a UTI. They suggested I see a gynecologist.

    I was starting to cramp up, so I did just that. I saw her two Mondays ago and she expressed that her fear was that my endometriosis had returned. I had an entire hysterectomy because of endometriosis years ago and I refused to believe that it would just come back all willy-nilly like after all of these years. I hadn’t done anything to it. I insisted that it had to be my nemesis, the hemorrhagic ovarian cyst that likes to pop up every now and again, but the pain was worse than that and she didn’t seem to agree.

    Around 7 pm last Friday, the cramping suddenly turned into a horrific stabbing pain worthy of Friday the Thirteenth or Teeth or something. (If you don’t know what Teeth is, don’t Google it.) On Monday, I spent eight hours in the ER and finished my book before I even got into a room. I went to the tiny community hospital where her main office was located, and they did all of the testing she had scheduled me for over the next few weeks. They found nothing. Endometriosis is a diagnosis of exclusion when it comes to imaging, as it can’t be seen on any tests and is only found through laparoscopy. For all intents and purposes, it seems to be the endo. I see my doctor again next Thursday and I’ll go from there.

    The real reason for this post is that they gave me painkillers I had never taken before. I like to always be present and alert, so I rarely ever take more than a fourth of any painkiller; just enough to take the edge off so I’m not trying to find creative ways to crawl out of my skin. Caution be damned, because I took a whole half of this pill, 2.5 mgs, if you will. I could hear colors. Not all of them are nice. Some are quite rude, like the green on my dog’s treat packaging. The yellow / orange color is quite nice, if you're wondering.

    While on these painkillers, I somehow came to the conclusion that I had to order vanilla sandwich cookies in bulk, so I went to Amazon. They did not carry them, which apparently sent me. Where it sent me, I’m not sure, but writing a strongly worded letter (which I did not send) seemed like the right move. Thankfully, I saved it so we can all laugh at it together. Direct identifying information has been removed and edited, because the internet is a special place. All of the misspellings and incorrect usage of words / grammar has been left for your enjoyment. Warning, strong swearing that is very unbecoming of me.

*****

To Whom It’s About to Concern (Jeffrey Preston Bezos),

    I am a longtime, consistent customer of Amazon. Sure, I’m not ordering thousands of dollars of things a year. I mostly pay for Prime and nickel and dime the crap out of you with cat treat sells. If you look at my order history, it should tell you how sad my life is and why this letter is absolutely necessary. Truth is, I’ve trusted you for all of these years, but here the fuck we are.

    All I wanted to do was order sandwich cookies in bulk. Guess what you don’t sell? In case you’re new and don’t feel like thinking today, sandwich cookies in bulk. I’m incensed. I’ve never ever, not even once or twice, thought I’d see the day. Do I need 100 paper towels that I have no space for? No problem. A fucking 8 pound bag of Lucky Charms marshmallows that are sure to send me to the hospital? You got it. BUT NO GOSH DARN SANDWICH COOKIES!

    Before I fly into a minor rage, let me tell you why I’m so upset. I trust you to have my back. I’ve trusted you for years, and you know what you did to me? You built a warehouse facility in my quiet country town. It was supposed to be a distribution center where we would get packages delivered from. We were promised same day delivery AND groceries when it went in. Today it was announced that this was just a warehouse that would unpack large shipping crates and break them down to go to distribution centers. We hated this facility and fought in the first place, and now we come to find you, YOU FUCKING LIED AND I CAN’T GET SANDWICH COOKIES. Can this day get any worse?

    To top it off, your workers are morons. They keep asking us for directions to your facility. It’s a million square feet. I don’t know how you can miss it. It’s been very inconvenient, but I digress.

    You not having sandwich cookies in bulk is discrimination, but let me tell you why. I am a friend of wildlife; raccoons and possums. Do you know what they like? Sandwich cookies. Vanilla ones, to be exact. If there are none, they are very upset. If you knew how hard it was to find these stupid cookies at Aldis or Walmart, you’d reconsider selling them in bulk. I’d buy an abnormal amount just to keep the raccoons and possum from giving me those sad little looks.

    *Cue music from the ASPCA commercials.*

    You heartless bastards.

    Yours In Anger,
    Bri

    *****

     Medicated me is giving major Sal Vulcano and the “I Have Your Pants” debacle vibes.

The Truth About Adulting: Prime Days Edition

 Let’s talk about Prime Days. Do you remember the days when you were old enough to understand sales and money, but too young to have any money of your own? You always thought that, once you did have money, you’d make sure you hit up all the great sales and buy yourself everything you always wanted. You’d stock up on things you needed. You’d make the most of it. Then, you became an adult with money.

    Every year, I look forward to Prime Days. I convince myself that I’m going to buy all of the cool things that I’ve saved on my Wish List over the year, if they go on a Prime or lightning deal. I check Amazon religiously throughout the two days, determined not to miss a single deal. And every year, what I actually end up with becomes nerdier and more boring.

    Let’s take this year for example. I made an entire separate Wish List full of things I was going to buy. I was going to be cool. I was going to save money. I was going to stay on budget. I would work out everything that went on Prime deal, figure out what fit in my budget, decide what to buy, and purchase lightning deals accordingly. This is what I actually bought.

    - Probiotics for my dog
    - A waterproof blanket for my dog, who has seizures
    - Two different kinds of dog treats for my dogs, because one is allergic to chicken and the other loves it.
    - Corgi seat belt covers, because my seat belt digs into my neck and wants me dead.
    - An unnaturally large bottle of shampoo.
    - The Summer I Turned Pretty Trilogy by Jenny Han
    - The Rural Diaries by Hilarie Burton Morgan
    - Pre-ordered Dinner For Vampires by Bethany Joy Lenz (Yes, One Tree Hill is my favorite show. Why do you ask?)
    - 5 pounds of cat treats.

    Five pounds of cat treats. 5.

    You might have been with me up until that last one. I am over thirty-five and the cat signal has gone out that I am single and like cats. In my defense, if I have any at all, one pound of those treats is for my aunt’s cats. She has twelve, which is more than I have.

    All of the adults are reading this list going, “uh huh. Makes sense.” Especially all of the pet parents out there. So this post is for the kids. If you think that one day you’re going to be a super cool adult who gets Prime and uses Prime Days to order all of the cool things, let this be a lesson to you. You, too, can be as cool as me. (Which isn’t very cool at all.) Sorry.

To the Beginning

 Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog. That seems like such a basic thing to say, but not welcoming y'all would be really rude. 

Full disclosure, I have not blogged in years. By years, I mean that internet blogs were still in their infancy and you got what you got. There were no fancy layouts, just words on a page. Do you remember Blogspot? I had one. I'm also hilariously bad with technology, so if something looks funky on the blog, it probably is. I'll fix it. Maybe. I hope. If I can figure it out. 

I started this blog because I have a story to tell, one that I think a lot of people will connect with. Sometimes things happen in your life that are terrible, but you realize that you're not the only one who has gone through it. There's certain subjects that aren't openly discussed. Let's openly discuss them. Let's pull back the curtain on subjects that are stigmatized. If my story can help someone else or get a conversation going, then that's what I'm here to do. I thought long and hard about if I wanted to tell my story for quite some time, but ultimately it feels like something that I need to do, because the subject is too important to keep passing over. You can find more information about this in the menu under the title Seven Weeks.

That won't take over the whole blog, though. I have a lot of particularly strange things that happen to me. It's like I'm the magnet for unusual events. I love to write and tell my weird stories, so I look forward to sharing them as well. The blog will be about a lot of things, but I hope we all just have fun, which is really the opposite of "I hope both teams lose." 

I'm currently an aspiring author and working on my first novel, but for now I love posting children's stories on Wattpad. I'm a little all over the place with different things in my life, but I hope that you'll come on the journey with me.