shredded head

I woke up this morning with a shredded head. At least that's how one of my friends described it. It's just a cold, but since my job consists mostly of dancing and being kissed, I decided to call in sick.

I'm a little annoyed that I'm sick, because I have the lifestyle of an 80-year-old woman - I sleep nine hours a night and obsessively take vitamins. Capsule vitamins, like any normal adult. My liquid-loving French friends think my taking capsule vitamins is like licking the bottom of my shoes each morning. "It's about time you got sick," they all say "what with those capsule vitamins." The last time I took liquid medicine my mom kept me home from kindergarten and I got to spend the day watching Mister Rodgers. What I'm trying to say is, liquid medicine is for children.

After everyone had said "I told you so" and made me drink eleven glasses of herbal tea, they sent me to the doctor's. I thought it was kind of ridiculous, but my head was too shredded to argue.

The doctor ended up being in the same building as me. And his office looked the same as my apartment, with a dozen chairs crammed into what would be the kitchen. There was no sign-in or anything. But there was a poster advertising the Utah National Parks. Not a valid substitution for a sign-in, but thought it was worth mentioning. One woman was appropriately knitting a scarf. I was reading a Hunger Games in French and writing down new words on a Kleenex. Everyone else was just staring into space - including a three-year-old boy, who did not make a sound for the entire two hours I was there.

When people meet me for the first time they do some quick math to figure out where I'm from, and doctors are no exception. It goes something like this:

   she has an accent
+ she weighs less than 500 lbs and isn't wearing a cowboy hat
= she must be British

At one point during the visit the doctor said "I don't know how they do things in England!" and I wanted to add "Neither do I!!" but I decided to just roll with it. Why? Because some people know what nationality I am and some people know what color my mucus is, and above all I like to keep those two groups separate. This seems like a good time to mention that the doctor was wearing what looked like a sheep costume. I am not well today, guys.

The doctor gave me the whole week off work. And four boxes of medicine, all liquid. None of them are flavored, and one of them is "effervescent." But then I realized - I get to stay home from kindergarten tomorrow. If I can find some Mister Rodgers on youtube maybe this will be fine after all.

Every half hour someone calls to see how I'm doing. "Are you eating enough oranges, Brooke? Drinking orange juice? Taking liquid vitamins? I don't know how they do things in England, Brooke..."

We'll probably never know how things are done in England.


Mandatory x-ray I received after arriving in France. And a wooden cat that probably thinks I'm not eating enough oranges.