purple line, visit, bite

I’ve been making the drive to my folk’s house for decades and even with my propensity to get lost in a parking lot, I really don’t need a GPS to get me there.  Same route, every time.

But, it’s nice to have to keep track of when I’ll arrive and to have a back up in case there’s an accident or traffic. (Either of which would lead to a bout of intense and somewhat therapeutic swearing. In Klingon.)  And the calm and reassuring voice is nice too.  But, mostly, it’s the purple line.

I like physical maps and I’ve always been good at reading them. And that purple line is like how I would see the route I need on a paper map. Instead of “glowing” in my head, the line on the GPS stands out and lets me know I’m on the right path. It’s a little thing, but having been born with no innate sense of direction, it’s nice to have a little technological help.

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The thanksgiving visit with my folks was good and my nieces were fun. We did a lot of coloring, played games, and ate too much dessert. I did a lot of reading and while I can’t say I actually watched a lot of football, I was in a room where a lot of football was watched. My youngest niece managed to give me a cold and I fought a headache on the drive back on Sunday and for pretty much the rest of the day. It turned into a sore throat last night that got worse this morning.

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While I was at work today, this happened. I’m going slow things down for this narrative, but it pretty much happened all at once.

I sneezed. A powerful and intense sneeze. And since I have a sore throat, the sneeze itself was painful. In the middle of the sneeze, I grimaced in pain. Which caused me to clench my teeth. My tongue got in the way and I finished off the sneeze by biting my tongue hard enough to taste blood. Oh, and I sneezed all over my desk.

So, I’m bleeding, wondering how I’m going to get that stopped and should I try – improbably – to put a band-aid on my tongue. And this was as I cleaned off my desk, cleared my head, and tried not to cry. I also spent a few minutes doubting my ability to look after myself if this kind of thing was going to happen.

Then I chalked it up to “Monday” and got back to work.