My Personal Problems Exposed!

Here we go again!

It's a fact that I am not the best candidate to own a cell phone.  In the past, I have dealt with the embarrassment of taking countless photos of the inside of my pocket, having my phone ring at a funeral, and sending bogus pocket text messages.

Saturday, the thirteenth, was no exception.  It was around eleven in the morning when I noticed that I had a new text message from one of my coworkers.  It said, "REALLY?  Four times at six in the morning?  What were you doing?"

I was confused.  I jogged my memory to see if I did anything even once at six that morning.  I don't think I've ever done something twice in the same morning, let alone four times.  Then I checked the messages communicated before hers.  There were four messages sent by me saying "in a meeting." This is one of the pre-loaded text messages that came as a feature on my phone.  

Then I remembered!  It was the morning I helped my wife as she helped an organization that provided food for the needy provide fruit for runners of a 5K event.  I loaded her bounty into the car and rode with her to the event...all with my phone in my pocket.

So I guess I jiggled in just the right rhythm to send four bogus messages to my coworker, evidently the last person to text me before that time.  Upon noticing my little faux pas, I texted her apologizing for what happened.  Fortunately for me, she said that her phone was not near her when the messages were sent.

Since the incident, I've been keeping my phone at bay.
I also keep my phone ringer silenced at this point.  Disrupting my reading groups at school was getting embarrassing.  Getting weather alerts in the middle of the night was annoying.  So, at night and in school as well as all other times, I pretend it's bygone times: being able to work, drive, go to church, and sleep without full-time communication, just like the good old days!

******************************************************
Last week, there was one morning that saw all the normal parts of my hygiene regimen completed, lunch was packed, and I was on my way to school.  The third grade classrooms are on the opposite side of the one-story structure than our office, and there is a significant distance for a elderly gentleman to walk.  When my teaching partner and I got to our classroom, I whispered to her in fear, "I think I forgot to put on deodorant this morning!"  

Being the polite friend and coworker that she is, she replied, "I don't smell you."

By the middle of that eighty-something degree day, and in that un-air conditioned building, my faux pas became more and more undeniable.  I only live a few miles from the school, so I could have gone home at lunch time and fixed the problem, but decided that by the afternoon, the kids had been in gym class, at recess, and were also in an un-air conditioned building, so no one would know if it was the children or me causing the unpleasant stench in the air.....

***************************************************************  
The day I'd been anxious about for some time had arrived:  The day of my annual physical.  I must be getting old because these things take longer and longer every year.  Every year, I lay there in my underwear and get scrutinized...inside and out, and from one end to the other.  This year, I am happy to report that I'm as healthy as an old horse:

  Blood pressure...normal. (There are no kids living at home at this point.)  

Weight...no change (It's only the beginning of the school year and the snacks in the office have only just begun to show up, and as I've mentioned before, I get my physical as far away from my birthday and Christmas, the worst food days of the year, as possible.)  

Heart rate and pulse, lungs, skin...passed the test!

Then IT happened.  The doctor, who I've been using for my medical services for over two decades, alerted me that I have athlete's foot.  How could this be?  I've never been an athlete, how could I have athlete's foot?  He said I could use over the counter creams to control it, but that he would be happy to call in a prescription for a stronger cream.  I agreed, we finished the exam, and I went on my merry way.

I picked up the fungus fighter, brought it home, then read the prescription details.  Apparently, CVS Pharmacy filed my prescription by the first two letters of my last name followed by the word 'ACUTE' !

'BO ACUTE'!!  Did word of that day at school "without deodorant" leak into the community and into my personal pharmacy?  How embarrassing!

Here we go again!