Completely Inappropriate

A NOTE FROM DIANE HENDERS

This book is the fourth in the Inappropriate series: A compilation of posts from my blog at https://blog.dianehenders.com/.

All these posts can still be read for free on my blog. It’s a gift from me to anybody who wants it. (It’s more like a gag gift than an exquisite gem in a velvet box, but it’s the thought that counts, right? I never claimed it was an appropriate gift.) Better yet, the blog contains all the lovely comments from my fabulous and funny visitors.

But… if you don’t feel like tackling the whole blog; if you like the feel of a book (or e-reader) in your hands; if you like a neatly packaged compilation you can page through as you please... well, then, this book is for you. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for reading!

Diane Henders, August 2020

YEAH, I’M ACTUALLY LIKE THAT…

Progress…

A couple of days ago when I was lying helpless in a small dark room with a couple of dozen needles stuck in various parts of my body, I began to reflect on the state of modern medical science.

If you’re thinking that the combination of claustrophobia and needles might not to be conducive to philosophical reflection, you’re right.  The truth is I was trying to distract myself; not only from the pain and psychological discomfort, but also from the galling knowledge that I was paying for the privilege of enduring both.

I’ve been getting acupuncture on my arm in a futile attempt to speed its healing from my latest kickboxing injury.  (I should note that it’s my fault the acupuncture isn’t working as well as it should.  I’ve discovered it tends to be considerably less effective if I spend four or five hours digging dirt and moving heavy rocks immediately afterward.)

No; the acupuncture works well when I behave myself… but it’s ironic that with all of today’s cutting-edge medical science, the most effective treatment for tendonitis is 2,000 years old.  With fancy diagnostic machines and a lot of fiddling around, today’s doctors can tell me exactly which tendons are inflamed… but they still can’t fix them without sticking needles into me.

When I considered it, I realized most physiotherapy is actually a little on the barbaric side:

Ice and heat applied alternately to create the maximum possible discomfort.

TENS, which is basically electrocuting the sore spot.

Massage and active release techniques, which both boil down to ‘find the place that hurts the most and press really hard on it’.

And ultrasound, which is like hitting the sore spot with a zillion teensy-weensy invisible hammers. With blue slime as an added bonus.

The truth is we really haven’t even come very far from our Neolithic ancestors 6,000 years ago.  ‘Way back then, they used a technique called ‘trephining’ to drill holes in people’s skulls and let the bad out.  Sometimes the patients even survived.

Today we do pretty much the same thing for intracranial pressure, only with less screaming thanks to anaesthetics, and a slightly better survival rate thanks to antibiotics.  But we’re still drilling holes in people’s skulls, and we’re still trying to make their sore spots feel better by sticking needles in them.  The more things change, the more they stay the same…

And speaking of relieving intracranial pressure, here’s one thing off my mind:  The cover art is done for Book 8, and it even has a title!  And it’s halfway through the beta-reading process with only one minor revision so far.  Woohoo!

Here it is:

Railroaded into acting as a secret agent, Aydan Kelly only wants to return to her peaceful former existence.  But when trusted co-workers go missing along with a deadly weapon prototype, she’s forced to take over the investigation to protect them from an agent with a personal vendetta. 

And when a violent criminal organization abducts her lover, Aydan discovers exactly how far she’s willing to push the limits of her new role.  The bad guys are about to learn an important lesson:  Don’t piss off a middle-aged bookkeeper. 

So what’s on your mind this week?  Go ahead, let off some pressure!  And… has anybody got a miracle cure for tendonitis besides Stop doing stupid things and let it heal?

Weapons of Ass Destruction

So, this morning I was thinking about toilet paper.  (Never mind what I was doing at the time.)  And it occurred to me that toilet paper is the keystone to civilized behaviour in the western hemisphere.

You know I’m right.  All you have to do is walk into a public washroom that’s out of toilet paper, and you realize how superficial our veneer of civilization really is.

I know lots of countries get along just fine without TP, but I want to be there to see the expression on the first westerner who finds nothing but a pitcher of water in the bathroom instead of a cottony-soft roll.  Or, hell, I’ll settle for seeing their faces while they watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dKkryfdtMNQ

(You know what bothers me most about this?  Water might be very-very clean, but it’s also very-very wet.  And there’s nothing to dry off with… except maybe the hand towel… if there is one… not that I’d want to touch it…)

Yep, toilet paper rules the modern western world.  All our technological toys are as nothing next to it.  People may profess utter dependence on their electronic devices, but would you rather be caught without your technology or without toilet paper?  I’m thinking that sleek new iPhone isn’t very absorbent.

Centuries ago, people used whatever was at hand.  Apparently wealthy Romans used silk or goose necks.  (I presume the necks were no longer attached to the geese.  I’ve been around geese enough to know you don’t wanna let those suckers anywhere near your tender bits.)

Grass, leaves, and pine cones worked for indigenous people, though I assume their elders passed down critical wisdom like ‘leaves of three, let it be’ and ‘use the pine cone with the direction of the scales unless you need a hemorrhoidectomy’.

In earlier America, corn cobs were a common choice.  Apparently they were quite comfortable when fresh, but after they dried they became weapons of ass destruction.  No wonder everyone heaved a sigh of relief when Sears and Eaton’s started printing their mail-order catalogues.

Today, toilet paper engineers are the unsung heroes of the western world.  These amazing folks create a product that’s strong enough to withstand zealous scrubbing of regions better left undescribed, yet designed to fall to pieces seconds after contacting water so your toilet doesn’t plug.  Soft enough to prevent abrasion, yet not so soft as to leave Klingons circling Uranus.

And it’s not just the engineers who should be lauded.  Then there’s the next step:  convincing consumers to buy.  First the marketing geniuses have to come up with umpteen ways to say ‘our product wipes your ass best’ while avoiding any scatological reference whatsoever.

Then they create ads inexplicably featuring fluffy kittens and cartoon bears.  Those commercials bring out the worst in me.  Every time I see them, I think of the joke about the bear and the bunny taking a dump side by side in the forest.  The bear turns to the bunny and says, Do you have a problem with shit sticking to your fur?.  The bunny says, No, and the bear says, Good!, grabs the bunny and wipes his ass with it.

I can just see the tagline:  Soft as a bunny, strong as a bear.

And now you know what it’s like to live inside my brain.

Sorry about that…

A Grizzly Attempt At Humour

I made a scary discovery this past weekend.

Our garden is out in the wilderness so we’re always wary of bears, particularly in early spring when they’re hungry and grumpy and in late fall when they’re foraging for enough food to last them through hibernation. This has led to me regularly jettisoning my dignity as described here: https://blog.dianehenders.com/2013/08/28/scuse-my-bear-behind/.

But it’s mid-summer, so I’ve been starting to relax a bit. I figured by now the bears would have moved on to higher ground, and it would be too early for them to be coming down around our place searching for winter provisions.

How wrong I was. I had just finished strolling happily through the woods to my garden when one of our neighbours came by and stopped to chat. Be careful, says he. Fish and Wildlife says there are seven grizzly bears in our area right now.

Seven? SEVEN GRIZZLIES?!?!

Yikes!!!

Needless to say, my trip back through the woods was accompanied by a wildly swivelling head, a sweaty hand on my canister of bear spray, and embarrassingly high-pitched off-key singing.

That might have been pretty funny to a casual onlooker, but it’s old news to anybody who’s read my blog for a while. None of you expect me to exhibit any kind of dignity or decorum anyway, so when I started to plan this blog post I thought, Let’s see, what can I say about grizzly bears that’s new and funny?

Y’know what? I got nothing. Nothing is funny about grizzly bears. Grizzly bears scare the shit out of me. If I ever met one