Jim's quiet musings . . .

COLOR ME MISERABLE!


This is the "I'm MISERABLE," contest...

I am miserable...

Sunday, August 8, 2010 at approximately 10:20 a.m., I spilled boiling water on my hands and forearms while heating water for a bath for my dogs.

After the screaming stopped, I just stood there for a second and tried to calm down and gather my thoughts. My health insurance had run out, I had very little money...(in fact, I can't even pay this month's rent..), and I knew from my medical background I had a severe second degree burn...

Once my duckies were all in a nice little row, I went into the bathroom, stripped down, and began dousing my arms and hands with cold water...for about twenty minutes. Thoughts kept creeping through my mind...should I go to the doctor? Should I call in to work?

That afternoon I had a scheduled meeting at a local Hat Yai restaurant with the C-Bright Language School staff. I had ordered my meal ahead of time, so I had to be there....

I finished bathing, dried off, powdered down, and then went upstairs and got dressed. At that point all I had to worry about was the pain...and it was pretty intense. But, as I dressed and got ready, the pain slowly began to subside...of course two Paracetamol tablets and a couple pain pills left over from my surgery helped a bit too.

I managed to get to Hat Yai, to my meeting and back without a lot of pomp and circumstance. The next day was a Monday and my day off, so I took it easy. But, I woke up with my arms covered in blisters. It seemed every time I did something...washed a dish, hung out clothes, attempted to cook...I'd either pop a blister, or rub and inflame a sensitive area, so by Tuesday, I was one sore dude.

I was eating Tylenol like it was candy, but if I didn't, I was in some pretty unbearable pain. Riding my motorcycle into Thung Lung was no easy task, as my hands were swollen up like balloons. Then I got onto the Songtheaw heading into Hat Yai, and the first miserable incident happened...I was sitting in the Songtheaw, minding my own business, and on hops a drunk Thai man, yapping to beat the band...

"Hey Falang!" he said, and my heart sank. This is one of the things I hate about riding in a Songtheaw...the asshole passengers they sometimes pick up. Without warning he reached over, grabbed my hand and squeezed, trying to be friendly. What happened next, he was not prepared for...neither were the rest of the passengers...

I simply screamed, as he pressed his goddamn hand right into a painful area where a blister was...actually a group of blisters....popping about four out six of them. I screamed and at the same time jerked my hand away...finally showing him (up close) just what he had done...

That shut him up. Nobody, including me, ever heard a peep out of him after that...meanwhile, I just sat there in silence, feeling the pulsing of pain that matched every heartbeat.

Okay...got to work, taught my students, then headed back. Was hanging on the back of another Songtheaw (the women sit down, men stand up unspoken rule. You know...gentleman crap), and suddenly some jerk bounds onto the back pedestal where I'm standing, never freaking looking at where he's going or what he's doing, and grabs onto....NOT the passenger handle...but, MY GODDAMN ARM....popping another four or five blisters....Big ones! So, now I'm hanging off the back of the Songtheaw with serum from my big blisters quite literally dripping onto the tarmac...little pieces of me, scattered all over southern Thailand....

Pain? Hey, let me tell ya...at this point, pain becomes a relative thing...Relative in a sense that at the very moment some jerk grabs my hand or arm, there is an intense amount of pain, but that pain tends to subside quickly, so this last time I didn't even so much as flinch....but, the real pain comes later.

Put my arms up above my heart...no problemo. Drop them down below my waist....OUCH! The pressure is almost unbearable...so you can see how this effects daily life...you just gotta work around it.

Okay, so now I'm MR. MISERABLE.

Your JOB....-should you choose to accept it-...is to click on the black and white "Miserable" picture above, save it to your hard drive, and finally....COLOR THAT BAD BOY!

Yes! You heard me right! COLOR THAT BAD BOY!

...means, clicking on the black and white "miserable," picture...saving it to your hard-drive, then pulling it up in say....Paint.net....or the lame, "Paint," or any other program, color it, add action, flash, or just....whatever!

The best one wins!

Submit your final project to: jeeeminasia@gmail.com

Good luck to you all...and for those who lose....MISERY!

-Jeeem-