8.24 Pain - Not an Emergency

Bestest Friend and I are in the middle of a blog project. Each day of the month we will post a picture on a pre-determined theme and write a little something about it. The theme for the twenty-fourth day of each month is "Pain."
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For years I never entered a hospital.  Outside of one time visit to the dying mother of a high school friend's hospital room while I was in college, I don't think I went to a hospital from 1994 until 2002. 

And so for those of you for whom the hospital is a just in case kind of place, I get it. But for me, it's the kind of place where the lady at the information desk just looks at me and points, the folks in the lab start to leave snarky comments about you in your medical file (hey, those are online now, WE CAN SEE THEM), and a Saturday night doesn't go by without swinging by to pick something up.

I spent two hours this afternoon in a fruitless search for a birthday gift for my sister. I must give her a gift, I know this. But I worked really hard on thoughtful gifts for her for Christmas and received nary a thank you in reply. I find myself tempted to just put a card in the mail, fuck the gift, but I also know that my own sense of guilt and her not so subtle hints about familial loyalty will make me feel worse than if I just purchased something random without much thought.  Here's a garlic press, person who doesn't cook!  Here are some tennis balls, person who has not voluntarily exercised in decades! Here's a vase, person whose home is filled with cats who think it is their duty to knock everything off horizontal surfaces!  No, I want to be thoughtful. But I'm all thunk out.

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To see what Bestest Friend wrote about the theme of the day, check out her blog, Too Legit to Quit.