Or I shall rise up from my bed of sorrows and smite you with a white-hot revenge, man.

1:19 am Monday night the phone rings.

Now, I live with my elderly parents who specifically DON’T have phones in their bedrooms. Why? Because someone with a lively personal life is apparently one digit away from their telephone number. Me, I’m still in the mindset of “Oh my Gosh. What if one of my kids got arrested and needs to get bailed out in the middle of the night?” or “What if my future-ex-husband was just nailed by a drunk driver and the hospital is calling to tell me I’m now a widow.” In other words, I ALWAYS answer the phone.

1:19 am I’m pulled from REM sleep by my phone. I bolt to answer, still remembering the downy kisses of–oh, never mind. “Hello?” “‘S Rog there?” “Huh? Who?” “Rog?” “Wrong number”, and I hang up.

But my mind does not hang up. I stare at the ceiling. I do Yoga. I eat crackers. I read my book. Two hours later, at 3:19 AM I’ve had enough. I pick up my phone and scroll down to my mystery caller’s ID, and hit dial.

When his cell phone prompts for a message (of course, and Rog’s friend is sleeping the good sleep of the non-introspective mind), I blurt, “How does it feel to get a call in the middle of the night because someone can’t dial the right number (beat) MORON!!” and I hang up.

If nothing else I got the last word. Ha. So there.

Because, in California, when they slap you on the wrist for drunk driving, you stay slapped!

LA Times reported on Oct. 6, 2009 that actor Mel Gibson went before a judge to have his infamous drunk driving conviction expunged from his record after completing the terms of his plea deal.

Think what you like about Mr. Gibson’s anti-Semitic leanings, his adulterous affairs, or his drain-circling acting career — The man paid his dues. His penalties for first-offense driving under the influence (called DUI in most places, OWI here in Wisconsin) included:

• Mandatory 48 hours jail time
• Loss of license for six months
• Drunk driving school (Fate worse than death for some people)
• Attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings (Not the usual penalty, but some judges can impose this)
• Perform in public service announcements (for free, yet. What actor wants to work for free?)
• $1,300 in fines (plus $1800 court costs)The going rate in California — not jacked up because he’s rich)
• Three years of “supervised probation”

Legal experts called the resolution fairly routine for a first-time DUI case in California that caused no injuries according the LA Times.

Compare that with a first-time DUI/OWI under current Wisconsin law

• First offenders are still handled in traffic court with the jaywalkers and the speeders. Wisconsin is still the only state that fails to treat drunken driving as a misdemeanor crime from the start. (All Business, Green Bay Press-Gazette (Wisconsin) Tuesday, September 1 2009
• First offense OWI / DUI with a BAC of .08 or more, but less than .10, there is no surcharge or other additional fees. (Mr. Gibson was reported to have a BAC of .11)
• Over .10 is subject to a fine of $150 to $300, plus an OWI surcharge of $355, and license revocation from 6 to 9 months.
• But wait! If you really want to keep driving, no problems, Mate: On a first OWI / DUI offense, a person is immediately eligible to apply for an occupational license. There is no waiting period. Just go down to the DMV and fill out a form.

Wisconsin has the highest drunk driving rate in the country — and no one wants to deal with it

I knew when I moved here that alcohol would be in my face–not really a safe place for recovering alcoholics. I grew up here, and it hasn’t changed much since I was a kid, except now the cars go faster, and one drunk driver can take out more people in one shot.

Occasionally, someone tries to pass a law about it or increase the penalties, but there is a deep, passive aggressive resistance to not drinking alcohol that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Here’s a good example from “Letter to the Editior” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Tuesday, August 25, 2009, regarding proposed legislation to change the law allowing children to drink in bars with their parents (really). The new law will require children to be 18 before they can pop back a few Brewskis with their folks (the legal drinking age, however, will still be 21, so go figure.). See our previous blog entry about this.

Let parents decide

I totally oppose the proposed bill regarding minors drinking in a tavern with parents. I am not in favor of minors drinking but am absolutely against Big Brother taking yet more control over our lives.

This bill basically says that the parents are too stupid to know whether this is right or wrong for their kids. One would have to assume this is aimed at the “bad” parents who don’t know better!

Patrick Kemmerling
Waukesha

Well, duh, the legal system thinks “the parents are too stupid to know whether this is right or wrong for their kids”. Age-related laws exist because many people who have children don’t have perfect judgment — and you, Mr. Kemmerling, don’t get a pass just because you want one. Same with buying the Little League cigarettes, letting your daughter have sex on your couch with her English teacher and dropping the dead body of the girl your son delivered a drug overdose to on her front lawn.

Who knew the pins can work themselves out on their own?

In a previous post, I told about my triple arthrodesis foot surgery. As an interesting update, my Orthpaedist took x-rays after 16 weeks and mentioned casually, “Hm? Look at that. This pin has worked it’s way out.”

Sure enough, I could see on the x-ray that one of the three crossed pins had, indeed, retracted (moved) about a half-inch backwards, toward the top arch of my foot. “Well, if it bothers you, we can just put a little local anesthesia on it and pull that baby out.” Bye and see you in three months.

There is a little tender place at the top of my foot, which is where the top of the pin (or screw?), and nowadays, if my foot hurts at all, the pain is centered around that point. Livable for now, but I may have to have it out eventually.

My physical therapist laughed mightily when I told her the Doc said “local anesthetic” and “just pull it out”. “No one gets near me with a pair of pliers unless they KNOCK ME OUT FIRST!”

How I spent my summer vacation

Thinking of having a Triple Arthrodesis? Here’s what it was like for me.

I had surgery in April 2009 to fuse my foot bones due to degenerative arthritis. Almost 16 weeks later, I’m walking without a cane most of the time. Pain is still my ever-present shadow, but it’s getting more manageable.  No matter what discomfort I have now it’s a hangnail compared with the nerve entrapment pain of the last five years–it used to get me to break down in sobs some nights.

Click here to see my Facebook photos about my surgery:
How I spent my summer vacation–A Triple Arthodesis Adventure Album

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