As has been the case for many years prior to 2025, things at work are supposed to slow down significantly as we head into the final week before Christmas. For reasons that I cannot explain, the week that just was proved to be busier and more chaotic than I had anticipated. Even as I write this, I can't fathom why in the hell work was more taxing this week than it ever needed to be. I'd prefer to sort of half-ass my way into the week of Christmas, but the powers that be, whether in the office or the universe at large, decided that this whole "taking it easy" nonsense was not going to be this past week.
So what in the hell happened this week, you ask? Let me see...
Usually, the final week at work before Christmas is filled with work group parties and all kinds of gift exchanges going on in the office. Sometimes these gift exchanges come in the form of Secret Santa or White Elephant. In other instances, you have a bunch of people willingly giving gifts to their friends in the office and within the department. I was able to completely avoid having to do the Secret Santa and White Elephant things. Our work group didn't even bother to do the seemingly obligatory Secret Santa thing, which goes to show just how far the camaraderie and morale have dipped within the work group in just the last 12 months. We did that Secret Santa thing within the work group last year, though Morie had effectively rigged the whole thing so that Gloria and I would end up getting each other. Had I gotten anyone else (except for maybe Nessa), I would have given my person a lousy gift and I would have barely applied myself to put it all together. I'm thinking I would have put their lump of coal, wad of used chewing gum, or trio of broken Popsicle sticks inside of a torn and tattered gift bag with newspaper or toilet paper in it, over your standard issue tissue paper. Then again, I could gift-wrapped their coal, gum, or Popsicle sticks using wrinkled and tattered gift wrap with holes in it and even remnants of used tape. Truth be told, I would not have given a fuck and the gift would have clearly reflected that.
This year, I bought gifts for a few select people in the office, as I have done in previous years. I want to say that this consisted of maybe a dozen or so gifts in all. I didn't break the bank, but I didn't want to go the cheap and easy route either. I bought a few gift cards, which I typically hate to do, but sometimes my laziness gets the best of me and well, there you go. It's the thought that counts, or so I've been told.
Netty learned two weeks ago that she's going to be transferring to another office within the department, one that's actually closer to home for her. She was hand-selected for a promotion and she decided to take it. This past Wednesday, Morie and some of the other less dense people in the office decided to throw her a goodbye breakfast. They filled one of the three conference rooms in the building with a variety of breakfast foods, stuff like pastries, bagels, doughnuts, and a bunch of other shit that diabetics like me shouldn't be eating if they want to maintain some semblance of decent blood sugar levels.
I had a bagel. Plain. Nothing in it. I'm too lazy to slap some cream cheese on my work bagels, so I've grown accustomed to eating them plain. As far as I could tell, my blood sugar remained within what I would consider to be normal, for me anyway. Netty would be one of the smarter and likeable people in the office and suffice it to say that she will be missed. Her departure also means that the average IQ of the office decreases drastically, because that's how dumb the office has become in recent years. A lot of the veterans in the office have left or are steadily in the process of getting the hell out of the building, which leaves behind a lot of youth, inexperience, laziness, and incessant whining and complaining.
In the hours before Netty's going-away breakfast, I was battling some intense pain in my right flank. I've had this sort of pain before, though typically, this pain has plagued me in my left flank. I woke up with this pain, though it was my hope that this pain would go away as my morning progressed. I got up Wednesday morning at my usual 3:45am, with said pain in my side. I hopped into the shower, with the mindset that if I let the water continuously hit that side of my body for the duration of my 15-minute shower, that flank pain would just kind of disappear, without the use of any kind of medication, over-the-counter, prescription, or even illicit. Maybe this was in my head, but the pain weakened just a bit with that lukewarm water hitting it, to where I could continue with my morning routine and leave the house. I dried off, got dressed, packed up my stuff, and hopped in the car. I felt well enough to drive, but I was still in pain. It was tolerable during my 15-minute commute to work, but for whatever the reason, the pain really intensified once I got to the office and settled in at my cubicle. Before doing any actual work, I started writing Netty's Christmas card and was able to write the first half of it (the left side of the card, that is) with the pain easing up just a little. Once I had moved onto the right side of the card and was looking to finish it off, something happened and I was only able to muster, "Merry Christmas, Netty!" I had just enough strength left to sign the card, put it in its envelope, and seal the envelope. The pain had not only returned, but it had definitely intensified and damn, it fucking came back with a vengeance, like I owed it money. I had made the decision to get the hell out of the office, but only after I dropped the card off at Netty's office. I struggled just to walk over to the other side of the building, where Netty's office is, but I eventually made it without keeling over and collapsing onto the floor into the fetal position from the pain. I placed the card next to her desk phone, where I was confident she would see it.
I headed back to my desk, where I intended to grab my stuff and drive as fast I safely could to one of the local area hospital emergency rooms, likely the same one I had visited the last time I had a kidney stone about a decade ago, though something told me to stop by the restroom first. I didn't have to go or anything. I think I wanted to try to see if urinating might help the pain. Rather than use the lone urinal in the men's room, I opted to enter a stall and sit down on a toilet. I was in so much pain, I didn't feel like standing. That, and truth be told, I tend to seek refuge in a stall during the work day anyway, so sitting in a stall on an actual toilet is not out of the ordinary for me. Even with the pain being what it was, I may have wanted to check my e-mails and continue to send some text messages to a good friend of mine, who just so happened to be awake during my 5 o'clock hour. I had made her aware of my brewing medical/health crisis.
This is where things got very weird for me, to where I can no longer explain what happened to me using any kind of logic or common sense. Seconds after sitting down on the toilet, and before that urine stream gets fully going, I feel something weird coming out of me, something I think may have been some kind of solid. It didn't hurt as it fell out of me, but I knew that I felt something, something that definitely didn't feel orgasmic as it came out. This prompted me to cut off that urine stream and take a look inside the bowl. Through the yellow, though still mostly clear water, I saw a dark colored object. It looked like a pebble. Black, brown, I couldn't tell, but it was dark. This minuscule object was bigger than I would have anticipated anyway, considering how it didn't hurt on the way out. Without giving it a second thought, I reached into the bowl and pulled this thing out. It felt like a pebble. It looked like a pebble. I will tell you this. That pebble was not in the bowl before I sat down. I was and remain wholly convinced that that pebble came out of me. I felt it. After effectively peeing that pebble out, sticking my hand into the bowl to retrieve this pebble, and then spending what felt like at least an hour studying this thing, I suddenly realized that the pain in my right flank was gone. Like it was never there. I stared straight ahead of me, as if I was gazing into some kind of imaginary abyss, trying to explain the events of the last five minutes. When I eventually came to, I realized that I was done urinating and that I managed to get it all in the bowl this time. As if I were escaping a crime scene, I quietly got up, zipped up my pants, exited the stall, washed my hands, and promptly got the hell out of the restroom, like I was going to make a break for the exit.
I attended Netty's goodbye breakfast later that morning without any pain or further incident. She starts in her new office this coming Monday. We all wished her the best and reminded her that she will be missed. Nobody in that office wanted to see her leave, but we also know that when promotions come by, you can't turn them down, lest you want to be ignored and overlooked when the next one rolls along.
Days have gone by since what I'm referring to as a kidney stone episode and that pain never returned. I also misplaced the stone. I meant to post a picture of it in this entry, but I thought better of it. No one wants to see that sort of thing anyway. At least, I don't think anyone would.
Carmen had a birthday yesterday (12/19). I haven't seen her in a few months, but I still wished her a Happy Birthday, which I have done annually for well over a decade. I've lost count as to how long this streak has gone, but I haven't forgotten her birthday in many years. We're supposed to get together and have lunch one of these days, but we just can't seem to align our work schedules to make this meal happen. We've been trying to eat lunch together for nearly three years now. I remain hopeful that we'll figure this out soon.
This would be one of the longer entries that I've written here, so if you made this far, thank you for seeing this through to the very end.
My life still remains boring and bland. Still, this past week proved to be busier than I'm used to and I may have taken more space and words to outline it all in this entry.
Next week has to be slower. It just has to be. Just no more stones. I can do the Flintstones and even the Rolling Stones, but I do not want another fucking kidney stone any time soon, if ever.
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