MR4D Survival Guide

I’ve decided that I need a crazy number letter combo nickname à la swine flu’s H1N1. I’m just as dangerous, so I felt this was justified. Not to mention that I, too, want to be viral and highly contagious!  So please spread the word and share my blog so that you can keep me safely quarantined in my apartment vs. out on the streets, handling your food. No, that’s not a threat…

Henceforth, I want to be known as MR4D – an anacronym for my blog title (and title of my life). Coming from a finance and corporate background, I think anacronyms are great. In my experience, if you fill your brain with anacronyms and spout them regularly, all that pesky “thinking” goes away.  Thinking is so tedious, after all. Just ask any member of the GOP – j/k…

Today’s survival tip: carry Salonpas strips. These analgesic strips make all the pain that comes with being a disaster fade away.  Oh, and they’re CHEAP!  Recurring theme with me:). For about $3+change in chinatown, I get 40 strips that for some reason work better than icy hot, bengay, and tiger balm combined. I use them every Sunday after standing and bumping into things with my knee all day during brunch service.

They also make these giant, perforated strips meant for large, flexible areas like your back and knees.  My mom actually got me some to try as she knows what a klutz I am.  Well, if I were talented enough to use these damn strips, I wouldn’t need them in the first place!  Right before bed, I ripped open the patch and pulled the giant bandage off the plastic backing. First tip: don’t do that. It immediately stuck to itself and bunched into a ball. Damnit. So I tried to pull the edges apart, but ended up making it stick together even more. I kept trying and it kept mocking me by balling up into a wrinkled, mentholy mess.  Eventually, there were no sticky surfaces left and I ran out of curses.  I threw it out and pulled out another one.

This time, I just pulled off the top part of the bandage and then attached it to my leg.  I repeated this method of sticking part of the bandage first, then pulling off more backing, until my knee was covered.  Usually, I can feel the smaller, non-perforated strips working immediately, but I felt nothing at first.  I could smell it, though, and so could my husband.  He hates these strips because he says I smell like an old, Asian man…  I could see how that would be unattractive.  I went to sleep, unconvinced at how effective this larger, hole-punched sheet would be.

Well, I woke up in the middle of the night like someone had stabbed me.  My knee was on FIRE.  I literally shot up from the bed and grabbed at the blankets until I could expose my legs.  I was only half-awake, so my hands were about as effective as if I were wearing oven mitts.  I kept trying to roll up my pant leg, but it kept getting caught on a corner of the sticky bandage on my knee and my mitten-like hand would slip and the pant leg would roll back down.  Finally, I got my opposable thumbs in gear, got to my knee, and ripped off the lava-like strip from my knee.  Um… OUCH.  In my blurry-eyed, basically useless state, I forgot that ripping off something sticky might ALSO burn.  I then tried to pull the strip from my hands, but like a ridiculous cartoon, every time I pulled it off one hand, it would stick to the other.  Finally, I shook it off and laid back down, exhausted.

I might try these strips again when I’m not sleeping so that the burning heat won’t take me by surprise.  And I definitely won’t throw it onto the floor, sticky-side down next time, either.