Dancing Penguins Meet the Living Dead

They told my son that having your tonsils out at 29 years of age isn't quite the bounce-back sort of thing it is when you're in Kindergarten, that recovery is measured in weeks and if you skip even one of the every-four-hours pain doses in the first week, you'll wake screaming to regret it.

He agreed to stay at Mom's place for the first couple of days after surgery.
So Mom prepared.

Jello, of course.

And a fridge full ice cream, popsicles and lots of stuff to drink.
The docs said that staying hydrated helps minimize the pain but the patients tendency is to get dehydrated anyway because it just hurts so darn bad to swallow anything.

My son is a manager for Best Buy and owns every kind of electronic gadget you can imagine. His computer set-up looks like Mission Control at NASA. Mom, on the other hand, lives a more primitive lifestyle. No satellite, no cable.


I own one DVD. It's called Happy Feet and it stars a little dancing penguin.

The day of surgery, David arrived with a survival kit: a nice little book about zombies and a collection of DVD's about zombies and stuff like that. Flicks like Day of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, which I understand to be big favorites with fans of the living dead, it's just that I'm not a huge fan of the living dead.

So while I cooked up pans of Ramen noodles and chicken soup
a parade of zombies marched through the living room while he dozed in and out on the couch.

I really tried, but I'm just not much into the whole thing of watching zombies rip off peoples feet and chew on 'em. This was a real nice girl 'til she got zombied somehow and then she just turned real creepy, walking funny and doing bad stuff like biting peoples faces off.

I kept retreating to the kitchen, closing my eyes and thinking happy thoughts.

But they just kept on marching.

Forty-eight hours later my David went home to the comfort of his own bed, taking all of his living dead friends with him, mentioning on his way out that I'd become a bit of a "clear liquids Nazi".
He may have a point, but after all these years he's been out on his own, it was kind of nice for Mom to get to fuss over him for a couple of days.

I sent the ice cream and packets of noodle soup home with him, folded up the blankets and spent some quality time with my favorite penguin this afternoon.
All that remains...........

.......are the empties.
(Ok, so maybe he had a point....?????)