Use Your Words - Lizard Poop

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once, and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are:

swollen ~ lizard poop ~ called out ~ cat ~ laundry 

They were submitted by: The Crazy Mama Llama - Thank you, Sarah!

Pre Pandemic I used to tell you about our Office Christmas Party that usually takes place in February. Our last one - "Christmas 2019" - was therefore in March 2020, I think it was on the very last Friday  before the lockdown, and I wanted to put the link to that post in here, only I didn't blog about it!

Yeah, well. 

We're catching up. 

Christmas Dinner "2020" was upon us in late May 2022. People were looking forward to it and had been discussing the menu days before.

The excitement started on Friday morning. It was supposed to be just another day at the office., however, one of my coworkers didn't show up. Instead I noticed he had sent an e-mail at 7:30am that went like this:

Re: Will be late

Good morning,

I will be late. Have to go see the doctor and show him my finger. It's not what you think though.

Hahahahaaa!

To show the finger is what we use in German for raising the middle finger or flipping somebody off.

Of course wild speculations arose immediately. What might be wrong with our colleague's finger? Yesterday everthing seemed fine. 

Was is his left or right hand? Did he cut himself? Has he jammed it in a door? Did he overdo tapping on his phone?

There's also a not so nice saying we use when referring to lazy people: they are supposed to remove the finger (from their butt****) and get productive already. So maybe there had been an incident? ;-)

When he was still missing after 10am, I tried to call him . He didn't pick up but texted "I am at the Emergency Room now. It will be a while."

What???

It was lunch time, and he was still not there. We typically eat together in the break room where we have a fridge and a microwave. 

At 12:15pm he walked in with a gigantic finger bandage on one hand and a McDonald's bag in the other. 

All eyes were on him of course. 

What happened?

He tried to give a low profile: 

He woke up, he noticed his finger was swollen. It may have been festering a bit, too. It didn't hurt, but he thought it was reasonable to have it checked out, so he drove to his GP's office, and from what he claims, he told the assistant he didn't have an appointment but was worried about his finger. He took a seat in the waiting room. Patients arrived, patients' names were callled out, patients left. An hour went by. 

He asked the assistant how long it was going to be, and from what he claims, she snapped and told him it'd be his turn when it was his turn.

So he left.

He went to a drug store and asked for some ointment or whatever it was they recommend in a case like this.

The person who looked at his finger said they were not giving him anything. He needed to see a doctor. Now.

That's how he ended up at the ER, along with all the other people who got tired of waiting at their doctor's office. And the people who don't have a GP in the first place. Up until a year ago this could have been me. 

There were people whose cat had scratched their face. People who sniffled and coughed. People who hobbled, people who were about to barf because they had ingested laundry detergent, and people who claimed they had come into contact with lizard poop.

So the waiting continued. 

In the end they had him bathe his finger in some disinfectant solution, then they put this huge dressing on.

Of course we teased him.

This is how you're going to attend our dinner? Can you even hold a fork and a knive? Are you on drugs? Can you have a glass of wine?

So the restaurant is called Schloss Falkenstein, falcon stone castle. I'm not sure if it's a genuine old castle, but the ambiance was princely enough. 

The highlight for my teammates was the snowball dessert: A yogurt / curd foam filled with cranberries that was deep-fried in nitrogen at minus 196 degrees Celsius (minus 321 Fahrenheit)

 

My personal highlight was to see my injured teammate on his way home - on his bicycle! It had nothing to do with his finger, he would have come by bike anyway. It was his way of making sure he didn't drink and drive. While it's the safer choice, if things were to go bad, the legal ramifications would be the same as if he drove his car though.

Bicyclists are also fined at a level of 0.5 during a police check. Depending on whether the limit is exceeded, this can mean a suspension of the driver's license.

Well, he made it home OK, as did the rest of us. 

Among the ten of us we have my hubby who just doesn't like alcohol, a coworker whose licence has been suspended not once, but twice for driving under the influence, so it's Coca-Cola for him always, one is Muslim, and one doesn't say it but I believe he's a recovering alcoholic, which makes for four designated drivers. 

Baking In A Tornado
Wandering Web Designer
On the Border 

Climaxed

The Crazy Mama Llama

Part-time Working Hockey Mom