There's A Burn Hole In My Hospital Gown

     I was sitting there on a bed that could have easily found itself on the inside of an ambulance, struggling to draw breath through lungs that just wouldn't unclamp, pausing only to vomit in a sick bag, and all I could think about, besides not being able to breathe-- and oh god why aren't the medicines helping-- is that the person that wore my hospital gown last might be dead. I'm not entirely sure what causes burn holes in someone's hospital gowns but I can't imagine that it was at all pleasant.

    Yesterday was not a good day for me. As all the not previously scheduled hospital visits I've had in the past, this one shook the puzzle box that is my life and waited for me to realize that it'd magically changed the shape of all the pieces, again. Some people have near-death experiences and change their life for a few months before turning back around to their old ways. That worked out great for me... the first time. Now, some power out there is taking matters into its own hands that I don't go down a path I oughtn't be going down. I just wish, sometimes, that said power would be kind enough to send a warning. Actually, I take that back, now that I think about it, I totally saw something coming. I apologize anonymous fate, I just really suck at reading your signs sometimes. Or, at least, predicting what exactly they entail. My fault. Anyways, moving on.

     Today, I had an appointment with my pulmonologist/allergist. I dare you to live my life and not believe in some form of higher power. No, really. I had a flare up a few weeks back and my mom managed to get me an appointment at the overbooked clinic for today. I'd completely forgotten about it until my mom told the ER people that a follow up appointment was unnecessary as I would be seen at the clinic the next day. Such coincidences are oddly the norm of my life. The doctor, at the clinic, told me my cat had to go. I call one of my best friends in tears to ask if they would take in my cat. They still live with their folks so they had to ask. I was a wreck trying to find someone to take in my cat when a good bit later, they call to tell me they can keep the cat. Apparently, the patriarch had been wanting to get a third cat. See what I mean about coincidences? I swear, my cat knows something is up. Normally, I'd just say I'm projecting human emotion onto her but she cried. I mean like, a big fat tear streamed down each eye. Under different circumstances, I'd be calling a vet but she had this look in her. Maybe she's just stressed that I haven't stopped crying since I got home.

     Then, there was work. My doctor advised, and by advised I mean ordered since he did say my cat had to go, that I should no longer work in direct contact with animals. That led to a lot more tears. So, I went to hand in a resignation letter. My boss didn't take it. Instead, she talked to my other bosses and they've found me another job in the store. After such a crappy day, I think that's the one redeeming factor. I found out I was valued enough that they refused to take my resignation letter. That, or the tears streaming down my face, the emotional wreck that I was/am, got to them. Seems like I'll be learning to work a cash register and working normal hours. I'm going to miss my old job but I don't have to say goodbye to my coworkers! Who knows, maybe this was part of the plan. Oh yeah, still don't believe in that higher power I was telling you about? I don't care what you call it, just pay attention sometime and see what I mean.

     On a rather amusing note, my mom implied to the hospital staff that I was an atheist. I don't have any of the religions they listed. Haha!

Work Ethic

    I have to be at work in two or so hours and I haven't slept. Well, I woke up at 3am. My sleep schedule is a little off thanks to my odd shifts. Regardless of the strange hours, I like my job. I mean I have to like my job if I'm willing to take $8.50/hr. Home Depot would have done me two full dollars better(don't get excited, I speak multiple languages) but standing around waiting for customers to show up sounds incredibly boring. I'm fairly certain that's what they do most of the time given how very 'attentive' they are to customers. Still, considering I'm not full time at my current job, it wouldn't hurt to try out.

     What I don't like about my job is the lazy scum whose slack I have to pick up. It's the one thing that has seriously had me almost quit on the spot several times now. To make it worse, I'm absolutely certain said scum gets paid more than I do. While I work up the courage to ask for a raise, I quietly stew in anger.

     I have a coworker that's convinced that the reason I'm better at my job than my slacker co-worker is that I'm a woman. Okay, I live in the south and my job requires a good amount of cleaning so it's not entirely unexpected but I somewhat disagree with the notion that being a woman makes me more inclined to clean. Living where I live, entitled males who won't lift a finger to clean up after themselves aren't what I would call rare. Living where I live, women that clean well are pretty common considering the culture. While my co-worker could very well be one of those slobs, I wasn't raised to be neat. My mother still does my laundry from time to time because I let it pile up in my room until the bin is overflowing. I'm working on that, by the way, so don't judge me. So far, I've managed to keep my room neat enough that it never has anything growing in it.

     Part of the reason that I have better work ethic is because I'm a woman. Yeah, I just said that wasn't the reason but keep reading. I have better work ethic not because I was raised to know to clean and get things in order but because as a woman I have always had to work twice as hard as my male counterparts in nearly anything I cared about to receive any acknowledgement. I can't get by with writing a good paper, it has to be excellent. I like to think that they just want to push me harder but I'm pretty terrible at lying to myself. I've seen the papers of my male counterparts and of my female classmates(even the ones I don't get along with to make sure I wasn't just being biased). Anonymous grading is a joke since it's pretty obvious by the sentence structure who wrote it. So, it's no surprise that I took to my job the same way I've taken to anything in my life. Can you believe that I was expected in grade school to color within the lines while male children were allowed to be sloppy with their coloring? God, I never even thought about that. No, I'm not going to go over my memories of childhood. Not gonna do it. Nope. I don't want to know how hard the world tried to make me into what they thought a girl should be.

     Too bad world, the internet made me a feminist. Take that. At that word, you might have made some assumptions about me. I don't hate men. I just expect them to clean up after themselves and know how to make their own sandwiches. I like having a clean environment and I like making food but that doesn't mean that I'm going to put up with someone that expects me to treat them as if they're a child incapable of doing it themselves. If I had to learn that no one is going to clean up after me, no one gets a free pass from me for being born with a dick. If that means staying single until I can find a man that doesn't expect to be coddled, so be it. I'm no one's domestic slave. Although, to be honest, if he turns out to be a guy that makes so much money that he makes my future post-degree income look like pocket change, I'd have no problem with being a stay-at-home mom(I don't have kids but want them at some point). Odds are though, that he's going to be making around the same range as I will and I am not going to work all day to come home to an unfair share of house-work.

     The other reason is my ethnicity. I'm Hispanic and that comes with its own long tail of problems. I'm not going to go into "racism" but I get tired of being treated like I don't belong in the city I've been in all my life by some jack-ass who hasn't been in Texas for a year even. Let's just say, I have a reason to want to hold on to the job that I already have. I have no guarantee I will find employment where I'll be treated fairly or that I'll like. Between having a vagina and a tan complexion, you learn to work twice as hard so people will look past those two. Hey, at least I'm attractive. I find that helps to balance the scales a bit.