August 23, 2010

the wrong way to use caffeine to wake you up in the morning

oh you guys, i have such a backlog of things i need to blog about that i hardly feel like i can blog about ANY of them since it seems unlikely i'll be able to blog about ALL of them any time soon. it's this kind of stupid logic that keeps me from ever having a clean house, by the way. i don't have enough time to clean EVERYTHING, so it's useless to START! right? makes perfect sense. also: i apologize in advance for the state of my house, should you ever come over.

anyway! since i'm (still) slammed at work and in the middle of a 6 straight weekends in a row where i'm away in trips, i'll stick to blogging about the one of the things i do best: injuring myself in strange and difficult new ways.

i, um, ended up in urgent care because i spilled starbucks on my back.

let's just ponder that for a moment, shall we? urgent care. starbucks. my BACK. i have honest-t0-god BLISTERS over my left shoulder blade. we'll start with what is, by far, the most common question i've received over the past few days: how in the HELL did i manage to pour scaldingly hot chai ALL OVER MY OWN BACK? allow me to paint a picture for you:

last wednesday. my morning commute. we're in the middle of a massive rainstorm which has flooded out several roads in the area, causing me to have to turn around and backtrack halfway to work. i call my boss, gertrude, to let her know i'm now going to be late. and to gripe, because that's what i do. i grumble that i really need some caffeine already, despite not having even made it to work yet. she counters that if i stop at starbucks and get HER a chai, i'm totally allowed to be even later.

20 minutes later, i posted this:

soooo. imagine me leaving starbucks with 2 grande skim chais, a large purse, and an open umbrella to protect against the downpour. i've got the chais stacked on top of each other so i can hold the umbrella in my other hand. once i get to my car, i very carefully put both chais down on the roof, unlock my car, and then get in with one chai. with the first one safely deposited in the cup holder, i'm feeling very pleased with myself for not spilling anything, and i reach up over my head to grab the second chai from the roof - with the umbrella still held over the open door in my other hand.

it was at this point that i apparently hit the chai with the corner of the umbrella before i got to it with my hand, because the next thing i knew, i had SCALDING HOT LIQUID cascading down the back of my neck. it was a sort of surprising sensation, given the circumstances - since i didn't realize i'd knocked over the chai - so my natural inclination was to duck. which did absolutely nothing except allow the chai to pour all over my back as well as my neck.

at this point, the whole "scalding" thing kicked in, which resulted in me hopping out of my car and dancing around next to the open door yelling "OW! OW! OW! OW! OW! OW! OW!" over and over again, while sort of flapping my arms around ineffectively.

there were several people sitting in front of starbucks at the little sidewalk tables, mind you, watching this entire event unfold. because the only thing that could make something THIS RIDICULOUS even better is an audience.

one dude came up to me as i was finishing up my flappy-dance, and asked if i was ok.

"umm. yeah. i guess? i mean.. i suppose so. man, that really hurt."
"yeeeeeah. it looked like it did."

so now i was standing next to my car, in the rain, and soaked from head to knees in chai. and the skin on my back was reeeally starting to burn. i called gertrude and told her i was going to be even later. and that she wasn't getting a chai.

i had to stop at target before continuing in to work, due to the fact that my sweater was literally dripping with a sticky tea-milk combo, and my pants were stuck to my left leg. i bought an entire new outfit, finally got to work, and pulled gertrude into the bathroom to rub some sunburn-type cream on my back. i tugged off my shirt, exposing the scald-mark that ran from just beneath my right ear, across my back, to under my left arm. gertrude sent me to the doctor. where i had to fill out my triage slip with "BURNED BACK WITH STARBUCKS."

so! i'm pretty much fine, all things considered - the scald mark went away except for a weirdly-shaped patch on the left side of my upper back, which has a few blisters and a freaking TAN LINE from my bra strap down the middle of it. A TAN LINE. FROM TEA.

i feel fairly confident that i'm one of very few people who spent a good deal of their weekend in vegas explaining to concerned people at the pool that i hadn't "missed a spot" when putting sunscreen on my back.

24 comments:

  1. Oh, lady. I feel like you and I are quite similar in this regard which is why I asked Shawn why he wants me to die when he told me he'd pay for the course if I agree to get my motorcycle licence. Hope you're feeling less burny now :)

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  2. Oh man, I swear, only you. I used to think I had the world's craziest luck for the most random things to happen to me. And then I met you.

    But hey! Good blog fodder! :)

    Glad you're OK!

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  3. I used to think that I was accident prone but I give up, you win. Wow. I hope you're feeling better!!!

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  4. I'm pretty sure that drawing made my day.

    I did the same exact thing once, without an umbrella. Only good thing was the coffee had a lot of milk in it so wasn't that hot.

    And it landed on my head.

    Which was not a cute look.

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  5. I think the room for a lawsuit here isn't against the umbrella company but against Starbucks for their insufficient lids.

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  6. You injure yourself in the most unique ways, I will give you that. I can totally picture how this all went down. It's one of those days where you're like- I should have stayed in bed.

    I hope it heals quickly!

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  7. Oh. My. Gosh.

    BE MORE CAREFUL, my friend.

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  8. Wow. That is quite an interesting way to scald yourself using coffee. That might rival the labia burns the woman that sued McDonalds had 10+ years ago!

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  9. oh man this is an amazing tale!
    I need to use burned by starbucks in a play.

    and now I want a chai!

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  10. Yet another example of how Starbucks is pure evil.

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  11. Yet another reason I've kicked the caffeine habit (and never had a coffee habit)!

    BTW, if I can hire a cleaning lady to make sure my house is presentable, who says you shouldn't go ahead and hire a blog writer to make sure your blog is, errr, presentable?!? =)

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  12. Sorry about the scalding. Still, that's a fantastic artist's rendition!

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  13. That drawing is the funniest thing ever. The detail is AMAZING. :)

    Glad you didn't suffer any permanent damage!

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  14. What a freaking nightmare! You poor thing! I am happy the burns where not that bad that you could not still go to Vegas :)

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  15. I hope you're feeling better! I've been thinking about your back since you posted on Twitter.

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  16. Oh man, I can only imagine how much that hurt...but god, that is hilarious.

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  17. You find the most inventive ways to injure yourself....

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  18. I must apologize for laughing -- because, PAIN -- but your mad Paint skillz and your proclivity for injuring yourself in strange new ways... [here I confess stifling another giggle]

    So are you saying that if I take a chai bath I will have an amazing tan?

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  19. See, nothing good ever comes out of Starbucks. Dunkin Donuts alllll the way!!!

    Wait, where was I? Oh yes, you're back. OUCH. I hope you are better friend. Next time you want to make a coffee run, I'll come with you so as to ensure enough hand are carrying everything and NO hot beverages are spilled ANYWHERE.

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  20. This sounds like something I would do to myself. Although, cutting, falling, bumping into walls or other objects is more my style then burning…..

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  21. Oh wow...that sounds pretty terrible all the way around. I'm so sorry.

    On the bright (kind of?) side, that's an awesome illustration.

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  22. LOLLLLLOLOLOLOLOLOL

    I'm sorry - I mean "I'm so sorry!" *snicker* *snicker* hehehehe.

    A tan line from tea! hehehehe.

    Ok - i'm going to go spill something down the front of me now because i'm just not as talented as you :)

    xo

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  23. I'm really not laughing at your pain. OK, maybe a little. But if you can't laugh at someone else's pain, what can you laugh at? Hope you're healing up well for the next random accident. Maybe iced coffee or tea next time?

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  24. OMFG. Now that I have stopped laughing, I am seriously driving up right now to fit you for your own personal bubble.

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