It's no secret that one of the best parts of work is that Mr. Ostlie often leaves me little presents in the form of "I HEART YOU" stickies. Mr. Ostlie and I have been married for several years now after I said, "Can we get married?" and he said, "Sure." And made me an engagement ring out of bubble gum wrappers and masking tape. Later he upgraded my ring to an enormous plastic diamond ring held together with making tape. Our marriage was founded on the fact that he could keep his then girlfriend and now legal wife. Technicalities. I called first dibs.
Moving on. To say I've been a little busy and stressed out with work would be like calling Mount Everest a minor hill. This morning I got to work and within ten minutes I was trying to juggle a college student in my room asking about a tutoring job, a phone call and a mouse that wasn't working. The mouse, I discovered, was courtesy Mr. Ostlie who had left a sticky with a heart on it over the light so it wasn't reading. Obviously, it was a cheap ploy to get me to call Mr. Ostlie bright and early all "I got a problem, can you help me?" I was too smart for him and fixed the sticky right quick.
So I walked up to the office, made some copies and here's where the story starts to really get going: stopped by to tell Peggy thanks for fixing my bracelet that Randi had broken. I wasn't there long when Peggy exclaimed, "Bethany, what wrong with your ear? It's all red!" I said, huh? and Peggy insisted on showing me extremely red and swollen left ear in her mirror. It was rather bizarre because Gretchen had not said anything to me this morning, so I assumed it was something that had happened recently. I marched myself back over to our rooms and to Gretchen and said, "Yeah, Gretchen, quick question. Did my ear look like this this morning?" To which she yelled, "OH MY GOD!"
She took a picture, but it didn't come out well and she wanted me to take some Benedryl and while I would have appreciated the sleep, it wasn't going to help me to get any work done. "Well, since you're not going to take some Benedryl, maybe you should at least put your hair down." I didn't like that option either because I hadn't washed my hair, so I left to go find Mrs. Watt, the health teacher to see if she had some cortisone cream.
She was gone. But her assistant said that my ear was quite bizarre and she remarked that it had even gone to my right ear. So I left there and was on my way to the restroom to see if my rash had spread to any other part of my body. On the way there, I ran into Toni, the security guard and I said, "Toni! Look at my ears!" To which she yelled, "OH MY GOD! You look like Rudolf, only with red ears." Toni said the rash was spreading to my face and afraid that I might pass out on my way to the nurse's office, she insisted I ride on the golf cart and off I went to the nurse's office.
In the nurse's office, I pointed to my ears and said, "Look at my ears." And the nurse yelled, "OH MY GOD!" And the kid sitting in the office said, "Yeah, I think there's a rash going around because my gramma got it and she was itchy all over." I thought great, I've got some crazy ear disease. So the nurse took my temperature, then Debbie walked in and said, "OH MY GOD! Did you check your blood pressure?" Since Debbie's so practical, the nurse, Toni and I set about trying to get my blood pressure. The first cuff the nurse discarded because the reading wasn't right. The second cuff did work and she said, "Oh wow, yeah that first one was right." Because my blood pressure was 140/100 and I never have high blood pressure. She subsequently put some cortisone on my ears, which subsequently looked less swollen and decidedly less red rather quickly. I stuck around long enough for the nurse to tell me that I should come back in an hour for a second checkup on my blood pressure and ear redness. Toni drove me back to my room and as I was thinking I should sanitize the phone in case my mysterious infectious disease was still lurking around, I picked up the receiver to find that Mr. Ostlie had placed scotch tape over the earpiece and written "I love you" with an accompanying heart with a red Sharpie pen.
To which I yelled, "OH MY GOD!" Because I had just wasted 45 minutes of my morning trying to diagnose a mysterious ear rash without alerting the CDC, which was really a redness caused in part from red Sharpie and in part from the allergic reaction to red Sharpie. I promptly called Peggy who said, "OH MY GOD, I'm going to kick Mr. Ostlie's ass." Mr. Ostlie said, "My God, how did you not notice? At least we know you're allergic to red Sharpie." I responded, "If I were you, I'd lock your door, cuz Peggy's on her way."
Récapitulons: Before allowing anyone to convince you that you have an ear rash requiring hazmat suits, check the earpiece of the phone for red Sharpie. And FYI: I am allergic to cats and red Sharpie.
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