The Things People Say

This Sunday I will get on a plane that will take me to a bright, sunny, tropical place...Cancun!

Here's just a sampling of what people have said to me at work about my trip:

"Do you have any idea how dangerous Mexico is? Are you even aware of world current events? You should really consider watching the news."

"Don't drink the water. Have a Corona instead."

"You're on vacation, you can drink anything that you want. (Conspiratorial whisper) And it doesn't even count."

"You're going to be gone for a week? Do you even work anymore these days?" For the record, I do work.

"Maybe your trip will be one of those What happens in Mexico stays in Mexico."

"Have you seen Blue Streak? Just remember--'Don't nobody wanna go to jail in Mexico, man....' Words to live by."

(And my favorite)
"Who knows? You may never come back. What if you meet a tall, handsome, totally ripped guy and he wants you to run away with him?"
"Yeah, I think the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim."
"You're such a cynic. You would say no to a guy who had a boat and all he wants is for you to sail away with him?"
"Wow, this order is getting kind of tall."

The Lip Herpe

Yes, those are my nasty cold sores. Maybe you can't tell because my lip is the size of a grapefruit in that picture. I think it's unfair that I drew the straw that gives me nasty cold sores when I'm in the sun too long or stressed out.

On the morning of the bridge move, I woke up to see my lip oversized and riddled with sores. Ordinarily, it wouldn't have mattered so much, I get them all of the time. But I was hosting a huge event that night with over 300 VIPs. After a quick trip to the doctor for the strongest stuff I could get (thank heavens for gay doctors who understand that I was there not because I was sick but because my vanity was at stake), I could only hope my hard hat would cast a long shadow over my ridiculously nasty lip.

This has got me thinking on my long history of cold sores and how I always lose the battle. They always find the most unpleasant moments to pop up. My top five cold sores in order of worse to even worser:

5. People told me that the mark of the end of finals week in college was an automatic cold. But I proved them wrong by getting one whopper of a cold sore as I literally walked out of my last final. I would have rather taken the cold.

4. Once, in high school, the cold sores migrated to my chin looking like a clash of zits and pimples. Not pretty and super painful.

3. Getting my first nasty cold sore due to overexposure of the sun. At 15, my family took wave runners out at Willard Bay in North Ogden. What's ironic about this mess is that I was legitimately trying to prevent any sunburns. I reapplied continuously but forgot two critical areas: the tops of my legs (which were burned from sitting too long on the wave runners) and my poor lips. Ugh. My lip ballooned to hideous heights. Aside from painful, it wasn't too much of a big deal, until my family met up with a family from our Alaska days with a beautiful son just two years older than me. And there I was with a fat lip that prevented any sort of actual smiling. I grimaced at him instead.

2. In perhaps the worst burn of my life, I was fried to a crisp after another family outing up at Mirror Lake in the Uintas. In truth, I was totally asking for it. I never though about getting burnt until I was dry heaving in my parents' car on the way back home from the pain. Again, I was met with another super fat lip and again, there was another boy I was desperately trying to impress. Since we worked together, he emailed me and said: Meet me in the break room. He wanted to talk Harry Potter as the final book had just come out. We chatted about the book and I kept a hand in front of my mouth. This was also my first time experimenting with the curly in my hair. I made it as curly and country star big as possible so as to detract any attention from my lip. It actually worked...for a while.

1. After, ahem, entertaining a gentleman caller one night, I woke up with a nasty patch of cold sores on the corner of my mouth. As this particular fellow was not LDS, Kaylin was quick to point out, "Do you find it ironic that you, a Mormon, probably gave herpes to a non-Mormon?"