My Whiny Week in Review

The disruption of the week has been that I spent the week in Union Grove attending a certification course for advanced wound care. I learned a lot this week, some of it even pertained to wounds....

1) I could never, ever, ever work somewhere where I had to commute.
Many of you know that my usual commute to work is 1.75 miles. Sometimes I drive, sometimes I take my scooter, and sometimes (when there is not a lot of school traffic) I walk. This week I commuted 127 miles round trip every day. There are a million windy twisty, rural roads, which totally suck to navigate. And the Interstate is not much better.
And then there is all the dead air on the radio stations. The rate a radio station gets reception is inversely proportionate to the degree to which I am enjoying it. We'll just call that Wimmer's Law.
Is it wrong that I entertained myself by evaluating all roads and crossroads by how fun (or not fun) they would be to bike on? Come to think of it, maybe if I had biked to the class, I would have enjoyed the ride a little more.

2) Every road in Eastern Wisconsin is apparently always under construction. ALWAYS.
I went to the same place every day. I was not ever able to take the same route twice and often my way home was different than the way I got there in the morning. Off ramps and on ramps were closed with no notice from day to day. Traffic was re-routed due to construction, accidents, tree removal services, changing light bulbs in the traffic lights, ..... you name it and a road block was thrown in my way. I have never in my life been re-routed so many ways and forced to punt on directions.

3) The GPS unit is possessed by something that seriously wants to mess with my tiny head.
I was endlessly given directions that I KNEW were not the fastest or best way to go, and sometimes roads did not show up on the map, or it tried to take me the wrong way down one way streets, mostly in the Burlington area. And let me tell you that the little guy who tells you what to do has a bad case of Tiny Man Syndrome. He is BOSSY and gets really really pissed if you don't do what he tells to.

4) My family gets WAY to much pleasure from me getting a ticket.
Thursday morning, Exit 29 on I-43 was closed for construction. I read the sign the day before and planned to get off at Exit 28...... which was closed too and didn't know it. So I got off at the next exit after 29, which routed me all over the frickin place. I would through tiny town after tiny town and wound all over the place. As I pulled into the tiny town of Honey Creek (Population 50) I thought "what a quaint little town......where the hell am I? And how am I going to get back to where I need to go?"
as I pondered it, looking all over the place for signage, driving 55 mph, I noticed that the speed limit dropped to 25. I never saw a warning it would happen. As I lifted my foot from the accelerator, I saw barney Fife sitting in his squad running radar. I held my breath and as I passed by, the lights started to spin. I still had no idea where I was.
He swaggered up the car window, looking every bit like Jackie Gleason in Smokey and the Bandit, complete with the little mustache (no lie!). He asked where I was headed, which cascaded into a blubbery meltdown about how I was lost, frustrated, and just basically trying to get the hell out of Honey Creek and to where I was actually headed and was now going to be late getting to. He asked if I had ever had a speeding ticket before, and I told him truthfully I had not.
As he walked back to his squad car, I was crossing my fingers that he felt bad for the lost, crying lady, with a 25 year clean driving record.
Before long he came back. He handed me a ticket for going 43 in a 25 zone, gave me some la-ti-dah speech about protecting school kids, and said he did me the "favor" of ticketing me for 43 since he had clocked me at 44 first and it was apparent to him I was in the process of slowing down (Um, thanks. Makes no difference in my ticket, points, or insurance, but um, yeah.)
Then he gave me directions to get to Union grove. I was about 3 minutes away. Rats.
Needless to say, I have taken a fair amount of crap from Mike and the boys. Bastards.

5) The content may change, but every class/seminar is basically the same.
There are basically the same few people in every class ever.
There is the lady who asks the same dumb questions all day long. I know they say there are no stupid questions, but trust me there definitely are dumb ones. And it makes you look stupid for asking.
There is the lady that has an example to share about "what our facility does" in every situation. The story is never short, barely on topic, and just ties up my time.
There is the person who always says "YES!" when the teacher asks if we need to take a break, even if w just took one like 20 minutes ago. Really? I think we should be ok without one....
There is the person who talks to the presenter at every break using every big word she knows on the topic and inserts her opinion on everything throughout the presentation. She.Knows.Everything. which makes me wonder - if you know freaking everything and want to argue with the presenter about the content because you are always right, why did you take the class? If you know it all, you should just take the test for $75 and save your employer $4925 for the certification course! But then you would not get to show off how smart you are. (She actually asked one day "So are You lying or is the workbook lying because the workbook says ___ and you just said ___.." I think my jaw hit the floor.)
And then there is the person who just sits back and stays uninvolved, and wants to get through the day as quickly as possible, doesn't make a lot of conversation and gets annoyed more easily every minute she has to hang with all the others. That would be me. Miss anti-Social.

6) I could not do something where I had to do the same thing over and over again.
If I had to deal with all those people in every class day after day after day, I think I might poke some eyes out with a sharp #2 test pencil. Seriously. Give me a good old week on the nursing unit with something different to do every day, makes me much happier. And sane.

7) The more I have to sit still, the crankier I get.
By lunch time, I could not stand to be still anymore. Most of the days I was able to walk around the grounds for 45 minutes or so, which helped a bit, but it was jut not enough to totally take the edge off. By the time I got home I was a royal witch.
It was kind of a strange place to walk around since it was also the grounds for one of the state prisons, so I was walking around lovely brick buildings with little gardens, all surrounded by high fences topped with coiled barbed wire. Kinda creepy.

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Anyhow, the week is done and I am glad. I took my certification test today and in 4-6 weeks I fully expect to be able to add WCC to my credentials ("Wound Care Certified"). And the best part is I don't have to go to the recert class again for 5 YEARS!!!
Now I will just have to pay my ticket to Racine County as a reminder of all the fun I had there.

(I forgot to mention this but during all the fun of looking at grody pictures and learning all about sterile maggot therapy and other biosurgical interventions, I also managed to break off one of my teeth. It's a molar and it's not painful but I have managed to rub my tongue on it enough times to make the tongue bleed. Best part? I can't get into the dentist until Monday because I was too far away to get to the office before it closed ........ That's just choice.)