Worth every bit of $0

You’ve all heard phrases like “Nothing worth having is free” and “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Yesterday the Romgi and I reaffirmed the validity of both statements.

Denny’s was offering free Grand Slams from 6am-2pm, so instead of going before work (which we considered, but decided against since I was still on morphine and hadn’t really slept all night), the Romgi took a long lunch so we could stand in line and get our free food. We got to the Provo Denny’s about 11:15, and the line was wrapped around the building. Lots of high school students, older folks, the typical Denny’s crowd. Right in front of us was a woman who appeared to be the director of a homeless shelter, along with several of her…tenants? Shelterites?

Everything was fine until we rounded one corner and another homeless man cut in front of us to join the group ahead. I feel very judgmental and un-Christian for being creeped out by him, but he was a creepy man. I don’t mean his appearance – which was just your run-of-the-mill homeless look – but the fact that he kept turning around and staring at me, swaying from side to side.

Eventually (about 5 minutes later) I became so disconcerted that I had the Romgi turn to face me and be a barricade of sorts between me and the homeless man (the homeless man and I?). This was actually less effective since then the guy started lurking behind the Romgi’s back trying to look over the Romgi’s shoulder at me. When you get the feeling that someone is not quite mentally stable, having them lurk to look at you is not really fun.

I tried to carry on conversation with the Romgi about anything I could possibly think of, including repeating things we’d already talked about, so that I could stay occupied and hopefully not have to talk to the homeless man. It only worked for so long.

At first I didn’t catch what he said – although he was speaking loudly – so I said, “I’m sorry, what?”

“What’s your child’s name?” he repeated.

I figured that any name I said would just prolong the conversation, so I said we haven’t picked a name yet (sort of a lie. We’re pretty sure that we’ll do Evan, but no guarantees until we see the Bwun). To which the homeless man replied,

“My name is right here,” unzipping his jacket to reveal a bright orange t-shirt that said something like ‘Iswalleh + Yonica.’

We just sort of mumbled a reply. What else were we supposed to do? After another minute of lurking, he meandered off to stare at the driver of a minivan that was waiting to leave the parking lot. By the time he came back the Romgi and I decided we would just take the Grand Slam vouchers that were being handed out so we could come back later in the week – without having to wait in line.

So for the low price of an hour and a half in line and a conversation with a creepy homeless man, the Romgi and I each get a free Grand Slam sometime soon.

Worth it?

I’m still deciding!

Free Socks

This weekend I got a new pair of ultra-comfortable socks. They’re warm, they fit well, they have those little rubber grippers on the bottom, and I didn’t have to pay for them.

Not me modeling.

Well, mostly. All I had to do was have the Romgi drive me down to the Payson hospital in the middle of the night, through the thickest fog I’ve ever seen in my life.

And that’s like free, right?

Disease, Disorder, Mayhem

For some reason, I feel there should be a more emphatic distinction in casual speech and writing between the terms “illness,” “disease,” and “disorder.” Example: kleptomania is correctly considered a disorder. My good friend Wikipedia explains the terminology differences, informing readers that a disorder is “a functional abnormality or disturbance” whereas diseases are “clinically evident” and result from the presence of pathogenic microbial agents.”

Since, at the moment, my brain isn’t functioning at normal capacity, I’m not entirely sure about those pathogenic microbial agents, but it sounds like Wikipedia claims diseases tend to have specific (though they may be unknown) physical causes, and disorders, well…maybe those are more vague. Some have known genetic causes and some just sort of happen. Kleptomania isn’t something you can test for, like meningitis.

You really wonder where I’m going with this, don’t you?

Recently I’ve heard a couple people misuse terms (in my opinion). One person spoke of hoping to someday find a cure for diseases like trichotillomania. I felt this was a ridiculous statement, because trichotillomania is an “impulse control disorder” similar to kleptomania; in no way does it constitute a disease. To me, calling something a disease makes it sound like there ought to be clear ways of diagnosing and (hopefully) treating the problem – although, to be fair, many diseases are ones for which we still have no treatment.

Anyway, impulse control disorders, anxiety disorders, and so on are not things that we can just prescribe a two-week dose of medication for and then expect them to be gone. Disorders must be managed. It’s vastly unfortunate that we don’t know what else to do with them, but that’s how life is right now. People who have the extremely difficult burden of dealing with depression and anxiety have probably learned that there’s no easy fix. No vaccine that can prevent you from catching it. No IV that would make the problem go away. I repeat: there is no cure.

Alright, on to the second person. In church yesterday we had testimony meeting (ah, my favorite), and I thought it would be awfully short and pleasant because there were so many people visiting that it took ages to get the sacrament to everyone. By the time the testimonies started we only had 15 minutes left in the meeting. But, I forgot about people who manage to take up 8 minutes on their own. Eight crazy minutes.

This woman, who I am absolutely positive is an extremely nice woman, spoke to us about her fibromyalgia and what a terrible disease it is – which, in and of itself is alright (except that she called it a disease), but then she quickly turned to telling us how sad and lonely she feels when people avoid her because they know she has fibromyalgia and they don’t understand it. All she wants is a friendly hello or someone to come over for a cup of tea.

Quite honestly, what she described – walking down the hall and someone coming her way, then realizing it was her and taking a detour or ducking into a room so they don’t have to talk to her – sounds more like high school. I suppose it’s entirely possible that such things really happen to her, but…my guess is it’s more a personality issue than a “you are diseased” issue. At any rate, she spent the last 4 minutes letting us know that we need to learn more about fibromyalgia so we can understand her intense suffering. Then we can be friends.

(I thought of the disease/disorder thing not only because she kept calling it a disease but because apparently there is some controversy about whether fibromyalgia is actually a psychosomatic disorder – which, given the 8 minutes I saw of this woman, might be understandable.)

So…that was my rambling, and I’m sorry it wasn’t very interesting. If any of you actually made it to the end, I’m sincerely impressed.