I took a vacation day last Friday, and had two painful experiences. One caused my ears to bleed (slight exaggeration), the other my mouth (another slight exaggeration.) We'll start with the mouth incident, even though the bleeding ears happened first. That's a much longer and drawn out story.

My husband met me at Red Robin. It's where we go for lunch before our big Costco excursion. Even though I'm trying to eat healthy, I always have the onion rings while there. Frankly, it's for the sauce that comes with them. I suppose I could just order the sauce, but what fun is that? I was so excited for that taste treat that I had that onion ring in my mouth before I realized how hot it was. I ended up very ungracefully spitting the onion ring back out, but not before getting a huge burn, followed by an instant blister on the roof of my mouth. But there were still 5 onion rings to be had. I figured out a way to only eat on one side of my mouth, still causing pain, but enjoying the onion rings and sauce very much. I'm still paying for that even now as I write. I ended up with an abscess in the gum about three teeth wide next to that burn, have a swollen jaw and neck to go along with it, and can't eat anything that's not soft. Will that stop me from having onion rings again? Nope.

That brings me to the next topic on the same theme. I'll let you figure out the theme. :wink:

My hairdresser. She does a fine job. My hair is very important to me, so much so that I used to drive almost two hours each way to see my last hairdresser. When she ended up M.I.A. (later she resurfaced, so you can call off the APB), I had to find a new one. The first visit wasn't too bad. I did find the fact that she mumbles really softly to be rather annoying, and the fact that she talked about all of the loser men that she's given un-repaid loans to even more annoying, I was willing to overlook all of that because she did a good job on my hair.

The second visit was a bit unnerving. I think she started feeling like I was someone she could trust with some of her "theories". She shared with me the fact that she believes that spiders are really aliens from another planet. Between this and the last appointment, I'd spent a good three hours with her. She doesn't have a sense of humor, so I knew she wasn't joking. She went on to tell me why she thought they were from another planet, but then started the mumbling thing again and I missed most of the explanation. The irony of having foil all over my head while she was telling her alien stories was not lost on me, however.

Visit three. This was last Friday, prior to the onion ring incident. I spent 3.5 hours, captive in her chair listening to more theories. This time they were more along the lines of government conspiracy. She shared with me the following:

Newspaper editors write headlines that have nothing to do with the story. This way, they can tell what they want people to think because most don't read the story; just the headline.

The "flu shots" (and she did the little finger quote thing) are really antidotes to biological warfare. She went on to remind me that the government recommended everyone get a flu shot after 9/11. What she fails to recognize is that the government always recommends flu shots around October.

The government experiments on military families (this one I believe, after she told me she grew up in a military family. Now THAT makes perfect sense.)

Then the mumbling thing started again and I had a hard time hearing her. I think there were at least five more theories that day; one having to do with Nazi concentration camps, if I recall. All I kept thinking was that she must be really tired by the end of the day with all those thoughts running around in her head.

3.5 hours of crazy-talk every 6-8 weeks. You'd think that this would dissuade me from coming back. You'd think. You'd also think that having a week of having a swollen and painful mouth would make me think twice about having onion rings anytime soon. Nope. I'll be back for both.

Have you figured out the theme yet?