Sunday, February 15, 2009

Head Trauma or Lil' Flip?

I am a person who can’t just wake up and jump in my car and go to work; never have been. It just takes me a while to wake up. If I need to be at work at 4:45, I get up at 2 or 3 a.m., so that I have time (in my words) to “get over myself”.
Everyone knows I have been ill with the flu or some other respiratory-type illness now for a couple weeks, and I am getting tiresome about my symptoms and all their details. I have improved every day, so you can imagine my dismay when I awoke at 5 a.m. on Saturday to prepare myself for work, and I had something wrong with my hearing! It was a horrible buzzing and roaring sound, with blank spots. Okay, I did have an earache with this flu, but I thought it was better, and until now, it hadn’t affected my hearing. My first thought was an ear infection or fluid in my ear. Ohh, wait—my hearing is fine, it’s not my ear at all. The noise I hear is inside my head, a whooshing, sucking sound! My second thought was I had a stroke—only a brain lesion would make that kind of howling noise. Or--nooo, I think I would feel much worse if I had a stroke and maybe not be able to use my arm or leg and be unable to make coffee; the noise isn’t inside my head. Oh, I know, it has been storming—that must be it; yeh, the wind is blowing. Well, hmmm, if the wind is blowing that hard, as unlikely as it is to happen in California, it does sound somewhat similar to a tornado.
So to check on the storm, I pulled open the back door after I had determined I did not have ear infection, wasn’t going deaf, hadn’t had a stroke, and was still able to make (and, most importantly, drink) coffee. It was just Lil’ Flip, a “celebrity” motorcycle rider who lives behind us, riding his stunt cycle, revving the engine, and sliding around corners, over and over, at 5:00 a.m. in the rain. Silly me, I thought stunt riding was a 5 p.m. thing, not a 5 a.m. thing, and it hasn’t been that long ago that he was “stunting” and ran into the mailbox, and broke his arm.
I’m happy to report that my flu symptoms continue to subside, my hearing disorder is gone, and I don’t think Lil’ Flip broke any bones.

1 comment:

Greg said...

It's entirely possible Lil' Flip had been drinking and was putting on a post party show!
The telling of this story was by turns hilarious, worrisome, incredible, and in the end, just another deal of Elaine being Elaine. She's such a drama queen only she could confuse Lil' Flip with a stroke! But I love her, and my fancy hot dog dinner is ready so off I go...