The uvula spectacular.

Today’s post is about the uvula (last definition).

Up until this week, I had not said that word very many times, or even paid very much attention to mine, and I doubt you’ve ever paid that much attention to yours.

Before I get too far into this, I’ll let you know that this is gonna be moderately graphic, and kinda wierd. If that doesn’t appeal to you, see you tomorrow =).

Anyway, woke up two days ago, and it hurt like hell to swallow. Like, real bad, a sharp sting every time I had to swallow. I staggered to the bathroom, and opened my big ole mouth. There hung my uvula, approximately a quarter inch wide, and, as far as I could tell, 2-3 inches long. I can’t say for sure, because it dissappeared behind my tongue, and was resting on top of it. It was blippin gross. Here’s a picture of a healthy uvula:

(if you wanna make this super interactive, quick, go look in the mirror at your own uvula. I bet it looks leet.)

Anywho, that’s a normal one. Let’s see if I can visually indicate what mine was like:

I don’t feel like this captures the essence of how big a deal this was to me, MSpaint.exe sometimes can’t come through like it should for me. Nevertheless, imagine with me. The solid red area is what I could see, and the dotted-line indicates the part that went down behind my tongue, that I couldn’t see. It could have been up to a half inch longer than shown in that picture, its hard to say.

Anyway, it sucked. Bad.

I went to the doctor’s office, fortunate enough to get an appointment around noon that day. The physician said that this was fairly common (yeah ok, I’ve never heard of it, don’t make it sound normal, cause its not normal, lady), and she would give me a shot of steriods, and strep test. Sounds good to me, drugs ahoy, mateys.

Now, some of you have been with me on this ‘ere blog for a long time. Others, just a few months. And others, this might be your very first post. Before I continue, I need to reflect on the past, as in this situation, it helped me to not repeat it. Please read these two posts about Eric’s… encounters with nurses with needles in the last year, if you haven’t already. Heck, read em again even if you have read them before. See if I care! -> Well hello, madam! and Open letter to nurses, whatnot.

So this big ole black lady comes in, one of the nurses, and brings a syringe and a cotton swab for pwning my tonsils for the strep test. So I start chatting with her, and it occurs to me, that this is my chance to see where this lovely needle is going to be, uh, inserted in me. I say to her, “hi, where is this shot going to be injected?”

she replies, “in your arm. either one you want!” oo I get to choose, how exciting!

I reply, “oh, thats good. the last time I got a shot, she said it was going to be in the hip, and it was actually right… here”, as I point to my bootay, or rather, where my back meets my legs.

she replies, “oh you mean the buttocks? yeah, if I was gonna do it there, I would say it would be in your butt”

Owned at this point, I reply, “oh, right.”

This shot was a double-dose of steriods, which apparently is what made my now-smaller uvula go down. I asked her if it would help me bench press more, she said no.

One thing I did learn in this experience, was a sweet new pick-up line (no, I don’t use pick-up lines, but just imagine how sweet this one would be if I did):

Hey, baby, wanna see my uvula? It’s swollen.

And I’m done.

FL: Flowchart for geek gifts – this is good stuff, and generally true. It’s especially timely, as one Josh Brown 2 recently confessed the following to me:

Josh Brown 2: i got a podcast coming up in about 5 minutes
muahahhahaha
i have become a techy though
i can’t deny it anymore

Eric: nope
your a geek
and a techy

Josh Brown 2: true enough