Third Degree

Twins: leaving for Cape vacation at noon sharpish. (let's be honest, anything involving children rarely occurs at the Sharp Time)

Fox: birthday party, departure: 12:15, arrival home: 5pm or after.

A three-fer! Quite the rare occurrence.

Do you know what this means?

A real, honest to God, date. Of the Let's Get Dressed In White, as we've no Sticky Gooey Fingers to worry about, or spilling soda, juice boxes, dog paws, mud, grass, or bike grease to worry about. IMAX 3D movie discuss, tickets nearly purchased, for some reason, we held off. Call it intuition. Call it Divine Intervention. Will be only Divine Intervention I'd see today.

J's mom and I have things in common: we both enjoy tea, crossword puzzles, and sadly, our most in common trait? We can take down a vehicle in one sitting. Not just any old thing either; always always always a special order part. I'd like to think we've other things in common, however, today, the trend I'm noticing? The pair of our abilities in breaking things, blowing things up, requiring a good deal of J's time to undo damage? Staggeringly similar. Frightening, really.

Long story short? All dressed up with nowhere to go.

No biggie. Still have afternoon. Should really eat something, as meds for jaw tend to do better on a full stomach versus empty (i.e., I may not be comatose should he get out early enough for us to go sit outside, have a cocktail or snotty coffee.....) so I raided fridge. Located cheesy rice with tiny re-hydrated broccoli, loosed lid (see? learning that closed lid= explosion) popped into microwave. Busied myself with brewing a hot cup of coffee, pondered my options: perhaps I'd get a little studying in, or read some more of my book I'm quite enjoying - nearly cannot put it down while I waited for ding.....with a great flourish, microwave was opened, little tupperware container lifted out.

Was so bloddy hot I dropped container onto stove, where lid flew off without so much as a snap in warning, splattering hotter than hell rice in my face.

Okay, fine. (add a big huffy breath) Also nailed hands, arms, and neck; but those were individual grains of rice, not the whopping great gob of it glued to my face.

Did I mention, MY FACE? Right above nose, near left eye. Lost several eyebrow hairs. (most likely the ones I may have plucked anyway - that is NOT the point) Did the WTF dance, as tupperware continued it's fall from grace to splatter stove front, floor, side of fridge, legs and feet - though still leaving enough for lunch. Trying to focus on positive.

Screw positive.

Even Pucker Up hid in her kennel, howling all the way.

Serious in unison howling in our house.

Took several swipes at attached rice to dislodge, threw into sink, yanked on cold water, plunged in hands and arms. I might have doused my face, but seriously, I do have perfectly dried hair. Whipped open freezer door, slapped ice pack on face, all with speed generally seen in Batman comics. Figured I'd second degree burned everything. Steam being notorious of second degree burns.

Til pain in face abruptly stopped.

Is. Not. Good. Sign.

Have yet to peer into mirror, to check out just how bad damage is; who knows, maybe J will simply meet me in the ER, we can have an Adult Discussion while a plastic surgeon stares in horror at my face.

Have steeled myself. Going for mirror.

Please hold.

Both better and worse than originally feared. Noticed rice and cheese sauce decorating for once, perfectly blow dried hair. Hair I'd not doused with water, as was finally finally finally looking great. Drat. In the plus column, the redness faded slightly... overtaken by crusty white outer layer, similar in appearance to chicken pox. Or Foot and Mouth disease. Or herpes.

Or, you know, like some great heaving boob burned herself on fucking flying rice.

Skipping ER, though if this were Fox's face, we SO be going - it's not that I'm not as important as he is. Nope. Sadly, it's worse than that. I'm too embarrassed to tell anyone other than J what happened.

I can only imagine the incredulous looks, the calling in of the interns, (damn teaching hospitals) laughter bubbling in tightly controlled gasps from all attended, the question, asked over and over....

'Cuz you do realize when you show up looking like this?

They always give you the Third Degree.