In Which Chicken Salad and Needles Make Me Pissy

I got really ticked off this week about two things:  chicken salad and needle sticks.  Generally, these things bring great delight (the former) or abject terror (the latter.)  But not this week.  This week, they just made me pissy.

Actually, the actual THINGS didn't make me pissy.  But the manner in which they were delivered did, and I'm trying to figure out why both incidents bother me so much.  It's possible that it's all related to my hormones or the weather or something, but I think it's more along the lines of I'm tired of people telling me what to do.  Or how to spend my money.  Or, you know, talking to me about anything that is not directly in line with the way I feel.

So, the other day at work, I went down to the hospital cafeteria and opted to get a chicken salad sandwich on whole wheat bread.  The chicken salad at the hospital is not, you know, the best chicken salad ever, but it's passable and with some onions and cucumbers, it tastes just fine.  I requested a small scoop of chicken salad on my sandwich.  I do not like gigantic wodges of chicken salad on my sandwiches.  I like the chicken salad layer to be no thicker than one of the pieces of bread on the sandwich.  I am VERY specific about this, even when the chicken salad in question is MeHaHo's chicken salad, which is better than any chicken salad on the planet.  Ever.  (Gawd, I want some of MeHaHo's chicken salad...)  Anyway, even with her celestial chicken salad, I only want a bread-thick layer.

I asked for the small scoop of chicken salad as politely as I ask for anything, which is very politely, because my Mama raised me right.  And so when the hospital lunch lady put the small scoop on my bread and I said, "That's great, thanks," and she looked up at me like I was crazy or perhaps, you know, possessed by Satan, I was a bit nonplussed.

"That's all you want?"  she asked.

Really?  I thought.  "Yes, ma'am," I said.  "Thanks."

And she said, "You're paying for a bigger scoop."

Er.  "That's okay.  That's all I want."

"Why don't you want more?  You're going to pay for it anyway.  That's just silly," she said.

"Okay, but that's really all I want."

At this point in time, I could feel that thing that happens in a crowd of people when the situation gets uncomfortable and everybody gets all tense and awkward.  I could feel people saying, "For the love of all that is holy, Heather, just take the damn humongous scoop."

So I said, with as cheerful a smile as I could, "Okay, just give me a big scoop."

And I thought that would end it, but nooooooo, Ms. Lunchlady keeps on talking.  She keeps on talking about how I can scrape off the extra and eat it on a sandwich tomorrow.  She keeps on talking about how it's ridiculous not to get what you're paying for and what I want to tell her is that I am NOT getting what I am paying for, because at this point in time, I would rather eat a giant brown widow and hotdog sandwich than eat her fricking chicken salad.  When she asked me what I wanted on it, I asked for lettuce, which WASN'T what I would have wanted in the first place, but which seemed like the only thing she wouldn't question or comment on.  Goodness knows what would have happened had I requested diced tomatoes.

Do I even have to tell you that I scraped off a good half of the chicken salad she put on my plate, threw it away, AND found what my coworker and I decided was probably a finger from the morgue in the remaining stuff?  I will NEVER eat chicken salad there again.

When I finally got over the chicken salad incident, I had to face the blood draw that my insurance company is requiring for some program that means lower premiums or opportunities for health programs or maybe fairies dancing over your head tossing glitter around.  I don't know.  Will asked me to do it, so I did, BUT I put it off til the last minute.  Which I figured out meant that there was a chance that I wouldn't be able to be a part of the program, which would have made Will insane.  For whatever reason, the doctor's office wouldn't be able to have the results of the tests in (glucose and cholesterol, in case you were wondering) by the deadline.  The lady at the insurance company said, "Well, it's your call."  Which seemed kind of assy, but whatevs.  The lady at the doctor's office said I could try to go to the hospital, but there was no guarantee the tests would get finished in time.

Okay, A of all:  I had gestational diabetes, so I know it takes all of seven seconds to get the glucose levels done.  B of all:  the free cholesterol screenings that pop up from time to time take ten minutes.  So I'm not really sure what the problem was, but again, whatevs.  I'm no medical expert and maybe there's some super awesome way of getting glucose and cholesterol readings that I don't know about that is, like, more super awesome than other medical testing stuff.  WHATEVS.

I betoodled myself over to the hospital and talked to the lady there and handed her my orders and she said, "Oh, well, if the doctor's office had put stat on it, they would definitely have the results by the end of the day."  I blinked.  Erm.  Okay.  So all I had to do was go request that they put stat on the orders and it would be good.  Right?  Right.

I called the doctor's office and asked if they would be willing to give me a stat order.  The woman I spoke to said, "Well, I can do that, but there's a chance that it will cost more and the insurance won't pay for it."

I said, "Okay, but will y'all do it?"

And she said, "I mean, I guess...if that's what you're sure you want to do.  You do know it may cost more, right?"

I said, "Yes.  And if it does, I reckon I'll just have to put on my big girl panties and pay extra because, you know, this is going to save money in the long run, and it's my fault in the first place, and OH, BY THE WAY IT'S MY MONEY ARRRRRRGGGHHHHH."

Not the last part.  Heh.

Getting a stat order meant that the lady in the office wrote "stat" on my original order.  I was, frankly, disappointed.  I wanted a new order form and a stamp, at least.  After all, I'm paying the big bucks for them to read my test results in super awesome quicktime.

The blood draw sucked.  (Even though the blood draw lady was awesome and the stick was NOTHING.  They just suck in general.)

Y'all.  I have gotten to the point where if one more person with whom I am not tight (and I mean blood relative or somebody who has loved me long enough to know and fear my general frugality) tells me how I should spend my money or questions the purchases I make, I will lose my dang mind.

I do not need strangers telling me I'm not purchasing enough chicken salad.

I do not need people I see maybe four times a year questioning the wisdom of paying extra for tests required by my insurance company.

I do not need people on the interwebs telling me it's ridiculous for me to pay more money for organic poptarts because high fructose corn syrup is okay OR because I could save more money by making my own.

I have realized in the last few seconds that some of this pissiness must stem from my disappointing foray into the land of EvenCheaper wherein I bought supplies for laundry detergent, spent time making it, and then discovered that, for my family, it doesn't work.  I don't know if we're particularly dirty or messy or what, but I have come to the conclusion that  regular laundry detergent was the only thing that kept all of my clothes from smelling vaguely, you know, not clean.  Not DIRTY (except for the stank linens), but not...fresh.  Without dirt.  They all sort of smelled like sweaty kid, to be honest.  I noticed this only over the last few weeks, but after a week at the beach wherein even with the sulfurous water and the unscented laundry detergent my mother in law brought, my clothes smelled CLEAN, I went back to Cheer.  Yes, it costs more, and yes, it has some funky chemicals in it, but in the case of the stank linens, I have spent a tremendous amount of money AND used a tremendous amount of bleach AND water trying to get my stuff clean when the homemade laundry detergent (with chemicals, it must be said) can't do the job.  I MIGHT at some point in time go for some Seventh Generation stuff, but right now, I am reveling in the joy of unstank sheets.  And tee shirts!  And socks!  Huzzah!!!

Anyway.  This was my weekly rant.  About chicken salad, needles, and homemade laundry detergent.  Next week it might be spaghetti noodles, bamboo stakes, and caterpillars.  Or turnips, rude people at banks, and cat hair.

I never can tell what will set me off.