2013 – Page 12 – The only certainty is bad grammar

I got gastritis. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

February 7, 2013 Crystal humor, medium, sh*tty things that happen to me

My doctor told me not to eat chocolate for at least 30 days because the my stomach lining is swollen and I have an ulcer in my intestines and apparently chocolate is bad for those things.

And I was all, “But, umm, I write for a candy magazine. It’s literally my job to eat chocolate.” And she was all, “He He He. You’re so funny. Just eat other candy.” And I was like, “Whoa. This sucks.”

And then I went back to work today after being out sick Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and wouldn’t you know that I got a sample box of 16 chocolates with a retail price of $48. Those are some seriously amazing chocolates.

Ya, I ate five of them.

And they were all amazing. One had passion fruit in the center and I loved it.

Backing up a few steps, for those who don’t follow me on Facebook, I was in the hospital Monday and Tuesday. Apparently I have gastritis in my stomach and the aforementioned ulcer. It basically feels like someone took a metal bat to my side.

And because gastritis rhymes with bronchitis, I can’t help but quote this amazing women pretty much all day, every day.

You’d be shocked to learn how often I can tell people I wanted a “cold pop!”

Anyway, so ya, Monday morning I woke up, and my side hurt and I thought I was going to die, and so on my way to work I figured I’d just swing by the emergency room — you know, to see how long I had.

They pumped me full of morphine like the second I walked in the door. Then they X-rayed my chest, but nothing showed up. So then they gave me a CT Scan and it turns out that I am one of the few people who vomits after being pumped full of the dye they rush through your system right before they take the pictures. So, ya, that sucked.

And then they were all, “The CT Scan looks pretty good. We think you have an ulcer. We’re going to keep you overnight so we can better manage your pain, and then tomorrow we’re going to stick a camera down your throat and take a look around. Cool? Cool.”

And I was like, “OMG!!!! What if I wake up while you’re sticking a camera down my throat?”

And the dude was like, “Ya, that could happen. But you won’t remember it.”

Which wasn’t exactly the response I was hoping for.

I slept with an IV in my arm and every single time I bent my elbow the alarm on the IV beeped like an insane person worried the sky was falling and then I had to call a nurse and I think the nurse got annoyed that I kept calling, but she wouldn’t tell me how to shut the IV off myself when that happened, so whatever.

My mom and grandma came up and spent the night in the hospital with me because spending the night in the hospital sucks and is scary and people literally wake you up at 4:30 a.m. to draw blood from your arm like it’s normal and so it’s really important that your mom and grandma spend the night in the room with you when that happens.

The two of them rotated between the bed and the couch.

Here is my mom on the couch:

And here is my poor grandma sleeping on the chair:

I’m really sorry you had to sleep like that grandma!

My brother Steve was also by my side for most of this crazy hospital adventure. He served as the coherent person in the room when I was doped up on morphine and the doctors were trying to explain crazy things to me about my intestines.

Of course, my amazing boyfriend was there as well. He held my hand through everything and was awesome and brought me roses and I love him because he is so awesome. And once, when the nurse was pumping drugs into my IV, I was holding his hand and the nurse was all snark and all, “What do you think is going to happen?” And I was all, “Nothing. I just like to hold his hand.” Boo-ya!

Now, to answer the question I know you’re all thinking: How the heck did my stomach get so screwed up? Well, it turns out that taking 9-12 Advil a day, every day for 10 years can mess you up. I basically can never take another Ibuprofen again for the rest of my life. Ever.

Also, for the next 30 days I can’t eat tomatoes, drink soda or have large meals. So far so good on all of those, even though before this happened I basically lived pop and large, heavy tomato-based meals. The last restriction though — no chocolate — well, ya. I hope the doctor wasn’t super serious about that one.

Why my boyfriend is super awesome

Published: January 23, 2013 / Updated: January 24, 2013 Crystal medium

Title: Why My Boyfriend is Super Awesome.
By: Crystal Lindell

So ya, I have a super awesome boyfriend.

First of all, he’s really cute. I especially like when he wears his black button-up shirt and jeans, but he also looks equally attractive when wearing a hoodie, or a Bulls sweatshirt.

Second of all, even though he doesn’t quite like Taco Bell as much as I do, he does like it lot and I can’t really blame him seeing as how nobody in the world likes Taco Bell as much as I do.

Third of all, when I tell him I got a new exciting jewelry organizer on Amazon.com and that it totally changed my life because it freed my bathroom of clutter and helped me find long-lost earrings, and then I post a picture of said jewelry organizer on Facebook, he goes on Facebook and writes “Wow” in the comment section because he knows it will make me smile a lot.

Ya. He’s pretty great.

We’ve been dating for a little while now and stuff. And he makes me laugh whenever he brings up any of the 1,000 inside jokes we share. Also, he calls me every morning to say good morning and every single night before I go to sleep he tells me, “Sleep like an angel.”

I mean, ya, sometimes we argue or whatever, but we always talk it out and move on in like three seconds. It’s the talking it out that I truly love. Nothing lingers. Everything gets said. And sometimes, when I do that girl thing where I’m silent, but in my head I’m all, “He better ask me what’s wrong or I’m going to drive over and punch him,” and then he says, “What’s wrong?” and then I say, “Nothing,” he always knows something is actually wrong and then he makes me tell him and I love that.

He give great hugs. He plays Words with Friends really well, and even scored 536 points once. Also, he’s awesome at predicting which team will win football games. In fact, he’s so awesome at it that one time he won like $3,500 from a national contest for who could pick the most NFL games correctly during the season. He beat like 1 million other people to win that contest. True story.

He takes me to baseball games, and musicals, and lots and lots of movies.

He tells me I’m pretty, and that I’m beautiful, and he even says those things when I have no make-up on and I haven’t washed my hair in 48 hours and I’m on a mission trip.

Oh! And, of course, he’s a Christian. Duh. He goes to church every Sunday, and he prays before every single meal and when he got me a Pandora bracelet for Christmas he got me a Bible charm because he knows how important God is in my life.

He gets excited when I succeed. He laughs whenever I make a joke. And he always knows when to bring me flowers.

So in conclusion, I have a super awesome boyfriend. How lucky am I?

I totally got through to KLOVE! Here’s how it all went down.

Published: January 4, 2013 / Updated: January 4, 2013 Crystal humor, im cool, long

It all started on Jan. 2. I was driving into work for my first day back after a week-long Christmas vacation, and there were only about three other people on the highway.

There I was jamming along to Klove when the morning show hosts started talking about the station’s 30-day challenge. Basically, they say that listening to only Christian music for 30 days will change your life. And I love KLove, so I was like, I’m going to try to call them and tell them that I totally believe in the 30-day challenge.

So, I dialed them up (I have their number memorized). And let me just say here that I have in fact tried to call them about 458 times in the past and have never, ever, ever gotten through to a live person. They’re a national Christian radio station and at any given moment about 40,000 people are trying to call them.

But for some reason, this one time, a human being actually answered when I dialed the number! They were all, “This is KLOVE” and I was like, “Woah. Did I dial the wrong number? How? What? I’m so confused.” And then, out loud, I was all, “Umm, ya, Hi! I was just calling to talk about the 30-day challenge.” And the dude was like, “Ok. Please hold.”

And then, in my head, while I was driving down 55 North, I was all, “OMG! OMG! OMG! I got through! What the heck am I going to say? This is crazy! OMG! I wonder if I’ll actually get to talk to Craig, Amy and Kanklefritz! Dear Holy Sprirt, please be with me and give the right words to say!”

About five minutes later, while I’m jamming to the hold music, I suddenly hear, “This is Crag. Amy. And Kanklefritz. What’s going on?

And I was like, “What? Umm, Hello?”

And they were like, “Yes, go ahead.”

And I was like, “Woah. Hello? Really?”

And they were like, “Yes, go ahead.”

So I did. I started babbling on about how I love listening to KLove on my commute and that it totally changed my life and helped with road rage on my hour and a half commute to my full-time job, and that I’m a part-time youth leader in the Chicago suburbs and I always tell the youth that what you put in your brain really does affect you and that I was skeptical about Christian music at first but now I love it.

And then the hosts were like, “Woah there, why were you skeptical?”

So I was like, “You know, because Christian music has a reputation for being boring.”

And they were like “WOAH! BORING? WHAT? Do you still think it’s boring? Do you think we’re boring? Now we’re all self-conscious.”

And I was like, “No. No. No. I LOVE you guys! I listen to you every morning!!! I don’t think that at all anymore!!!”

Then one of the hosts was like, “Uh huh. Sure. Ok. Well, you said you’re driving to work, where do you work?”

So I told them I work at a candy magazine. That’s when things go crazy. They got all excited and asked me if there were chocolate rivers in my office, and I was like, “Sure.” And they asked whether I burp my way to to the top of an elevator every morning like in Willy Wonka. and I was like, “Yes, every morning, while I listen to Klove, I burp my way to the top of an elevator. How did you know?” (You can listen to all that in the YouTube video on the top of this post).

I seriously talked to these guys for like five to seven minutes, and it was so awesome because I really do feel like their my friends because I hang out with them every single morning.

After I hung I was just so freaking excited and I was kind of hoping they would play the conversation later that morning. So I listed until the end of the show, but no go.

I thought maybe they would play it the next day, but I didn’t know for sure and I didn’t want to get my hopes up, so I didn’t really tell anyone about it except my boyfriend and one of my friends.

I figured, even if they didn’t play it on the radio, I would still always have that conversation for myself.

Then, bam, at 7 a.m. the next day my uncle Randy from New Orleans calls me. And I knew. I knew that he must have heard the conversation on the radio. And he had! He was all excited and he said they had only played half of it, but they were going to play the second half after a few songs.

And I was like “OMG THIS IS SO COOL!”

So I quick turned on the radio and called my mom to let her know. Except she already knew because randomly, my grandma’s radio alarm clock was set for 7 a.m. to Klove and she had heard the first part of the interview and called my mom.

And so we all listened, and it was seriously so cool and I love KLove and now I can totally cross this off my bucket list.

As you may have noticed, I recorded what I could of what they played on the radio, and made a little video (see the top of this post). Enjoy. 🙂