what not to do

If you are one of those "Too Much Information!" people then stop reading right here.

It was a good evening. The rest and extra asthma meds and new steroids seemed to be working. I did some reading for school, short stories in Spanglish from around 1920-1947. Rook and Moomin were asleep. I took a sleeping pill and had a small nightcap of cognac, an amount of liquid that to anyone else would look like the dregs of someone else's wineglass, but to me, the little extra kick that would make me pass out happily while reading something nice and boring and relaxing.

And as I sat on the edge of my bed and began to lie down, Hakluyt in hand, thinking vaguely about the Spanish Armada, I realized I felt a mild burning sensation - perhaps a yeast infection? Ah! Good thing I know just where the yeast infection stuff and the vagisil are! I moseyed over to the bathroom which is about 5 steps from my bed, book in hand, thinking hard about that spanish armada and the holier than thou rhetoric of the brits. And got the tube of gynelotrimin or whatever it was, you know, Wal-Lotrimin or something. You kind of have to picture me with my plaid pajama pants down and one leg up on something - a box, I think - left hand holding the book open on my knee and also working to squeeze out a bunch of the white lotion on my right middle finger. Yes, still while reading Hakluyt in my other hand which was also holding the tube of vag cream. A pose rather like Rodin's "The Thinker" but with half my ass bared and a tampon string hanging down. While pondering, I smeared some Wal-trimazole-or-whatever on down there good and thick.

I'm sure you've known for a few terribly funny sentences where this is going.

"Hmm, it kinda burns. It's funny how it always does that. I guess that's why you put on vagisil afterwards. Hey, it really burns. Hey it REALLY burns. Oh no."

Oh yes! I stared in horror at.... the super extra strength capsaicin red pepper cream for arthritic aching joints! This was about to get bad fast. The pain was coming on and I knew it would soon get really bad! Rather like moments where the hero under fire is able to think like lightning and act as if time has stopped, I realized in a flash (I shall not fear, um, fear is the mind killer? um, what comes next?) that

1) thank you holy mother of blood clots that I still have a tampon in because otherwise I would have crammed that stuff so far up it would take a rotorooter to get it out and it would be coming out of there for days

2) If I don't take that tampax out now, it might never come out, as things are going to become so painful it will be impossible without full sedation, I'd have to have a sort of tampon d&c

3) Mother of god I'm glad that didn't go on my clit head. Thank you, merciful couple of extra millimeters that missed the sweet spot of the bat, so to speak... Good work, there, you bashful introvert of a clitoris. Hide, hide!

4) Once this is over it's gonna be hella funny to blog.

5) I can DO this. Yes. I can do it. Not to panic.

6) Take THAT, yeast. Die, you fuckers!

I dropped everything and high tailed it to the other bathroom. Squatting in the freezing cold water, I had to wake up Rook. "Wake up! I need some help. Bring me, immediately, baking soda, from the upper cabinet, sugar, and tylenol 3 with codeine. And ice cubes. Then go look up what neutralizes hot pepper cream. Capsaicin -- Oh, fuck, C-A-P- oh fuck, never mind, bring the baking soda." Oh man! It was bad! I reminded my self a million times, squatting like a pale, unheatlhy frog with the top half dressed in a hiked-up purple nightgown and the bottom half having ice cold water swooshed over it as fast as my hand could swoosh. "Rook, even in a situation like this, a true Stoic would behave with dignity, as befits a Roman and a man." Rook giggling but horrified and rather pale. Gggling and leering at me crouching in the tub like a crazed vaginal fireman. "This really, really, really, really, really hurts. But I can deal with it. In fact it is pretty funny. It's damn funny!"

"How could you have... HOW?! Tcchhh! *giggle* How???"

"I told you. I was READING about the SPANISH ARMADA."

"But how...!? how?" *stifled snorting* *head shaking*

"You know what Rook. Those yeast are DEAD."

Many times in the last hour, I have reminded myself that I gave birth with no anesthesia, and it was fine. But you know, labor comes on slow, at least it did for me, and you get the hormonal painkiller surge, and can cope. "People do this for fun you know. Some people get turned on by this. I put icy hot all over some guy's ass plug once. He ASKED me to. It wasn't the EXTRA STRENGTH hot pepper cream though."

I was a little nervous about the baking soda. What would happen? Would it be like that 3rd grade science experiment where the vinegar and the baking soda bubble up out of the volcano? Except the volcano is my cunt and the hypothetical town full of screaming townspeople are my poor inner labia, dangling in a bowl of ice cubes?

I will tell you right away and not leave you in suspense. Baking soda was a very good idea. It didn't fix it all but it was a good thing. The sugar was okay too, but the baking soda was better. I figured a variety of things might have a chance of washing the stuff away.

I tried getting out of the tub. Walking all tenderly bow-legged like a vaquero... all I needed was some chaps, with an extra pouch that snapped across the middle to hold in my new ice-pack maxi-pad. Hi-ho, Silver!

I looked up stuff (Rook too disturbed to deal well, only coming up with "sugar'. I suspect him of not knowing how to spell 'capsaicin'). Bleach, and milk. I am not putting bleach on my labia, nope, no sirree. Milk sounded good. Back to the tub (STAY IN THERE TILL THE CODEINE HITS YOU FOOL screamed my (definitely not arthritic anymore if it ever was) cunt. Back in a new change of freezing cold water.

I am sure you can guess the next problem.

I realized what was going to happen when I next had to pee. This made me instantly feel that I had to pee, or die. Possibly I would pee AND die both. Either way, I had to go. NOW. In the tub seemed sensible and so I adopted a method of swooshing new cold water as quickly as possible. This is the part where I started to scream a little. It was kind of the cauterization scene from when in movies they amputate something -- the amputation part is gruesome, but the guy turns pale and green and beads of sweat stand out and he bites something and his mates give him whiskey from a goatskin. He can take it. As I took the first 20 minutes or so. But then peeing.. that was when they do the cauterizing part of the amputation with, lord knows, hot tar? something? God, if only I had not had that really big glass of cranberry juice! No! They don't need the hot tar for the cauterization, because they could just call me up and I'd pee my cranberry-pee on him. It was that bad! My fingers have the bite marks to prove the extreme effectiveness of my pee. In movies, that is the part where the guy screams in agony.

Well.. a fresh batch of non-pee water, more milk, more baking soda... i really had to get up in there to wash everything and I don't mean to brag but there is a lot of rather intricate labia in there to wash, because I am just that sort of sexy, big-labiaed woman... I figured patience and washing...

I am now out of the tub and sitting on a cold pack. The codeine is my friend.

Should I throw away the capsaicin cream? I rather think not - instead I should put it in a special ziplock bag with the baking soda as a reminder of what a complete idiot I can be...

I'm kind of hoping I'll be able to walk tomorrow.

A few years ago I had some of that stuff on my knee and had an allergic reaction to it.

To quote my friend The Acrobat when he mass-emailed everyone he knew, when he got poison ivy all over his dick: "It's not like I was wanking off out there in the woods or anything."

I believe I should take his tone of injured innocence and claim that I was not wanking off to Hakuyt's Voyages... I swear to god! No way! Really man! Would I do that? No!

P.S. As some of you may remember from when you gave birth and were all torn up. It works great to have a big glass of cold water by the toilet, and as you are peeing, pour the water over your coochie and it won't be so painful.

Have a good laugh at my expense, everyone!

Comments

[Joshua]

Milk, baking soda paste, and honey are all effective for skin contact. Nothing is 100%, though. The baking soda was probably your best bet.

[Jo]

Oh your poor coochie! Mine is all pursed in sympathy!

[Melanie]

Not just pursing, but cringing. Did you even know coochies can cringe? Glad to see you were level-headed in a time of crisis and skirted disaster. This time. I think putting the capsaicin cream in a special ziplock bag with the baking soda is your best idea yet.

[bri]

Great cringing coochies!

This episode should be giving you all sorts of product ideas to make ONE MILLION DOLLARS with.

[minnie]

hahahaha. that was WAY better than my terrorist glass in the ass bathtub expreience.

[Jo]

The thought of putting honey up my coochie is also a bit daunting, I must say. Though if it were on fire I'd probably try just about anything.

ps blame yuppie k_llen's mom for the pickeye. He got it first.

[Jo]

That would be PINK eye. ewww.

[bri]

Hi. I'm Ricky Shroeder and I'm here to tell you about something a few of us will face at one point in our lifetimes.

I'm talking about Pepper Coochie Syndrome.

Doctors haven't found a cure yet, but we do know it arises from a terrible combination of the Spanish Armada and a tube of Vagisil.

But please -- read before you pee. Think of the coochies.

* The More You Know *

[bri]

Besides, I just have to ask (to continue this field day I'm having at your expense, and for that I apologize):

was there a warning label on the pepper cream? to the effect of "do not spread on genital area"?

[cynthia]

Oh badger, I hope the capasaicin has been fully neutralized...ow ow ow ow ow *crossed legs in sympathy*

[badgerbag]

Actually I am totally fine.

On the "playing the glad game" side, we can all be glad it wasn't hemorrhoids.

[Jo]

Is there no end to what the Spanish Armada will do!

[elswhere]

This is even funnier than the swans on the piano.

[Prentiss Riddle]

Actually capsicum is supposed to be good for hemorrhoids, the application of chiles to the anus being a preferred form of police torture in South Asia notwithstanding.

[John F.]

Had a fraction of this problem when I came home to eat awhole jalepeno pizza. The next mornin(of couse forgetting what I had eatin the night before)was on the white throne in terror. Thanks for the reminder