We Brits are known for our manners. We like to be polite. Please, thank you, sorry to trouble you etc. For that reason I suspect my pancreas is not British. For the first 4 years of my life it was perfectly polite. I didn’t hear a peep from it, not an ounce of trouble. Then all of a sudden it goes AWOL. It didn’t ask permission to take some time off, or even have the common courtesy to give notice when it resigned. It just walked off the job. That’s a little irritating. It leaves me feeling like the pancreas has the upper hand round here. It decides it’s had enough and I get to spend the rest of my life doing its job for it.
I’m not good at being told what to do, or being forced into doing things but my pancreas has effectively backed me into a corner. I either pick up its role or I die, now there’s blackmail for you.
Before my pancreas starts feeling too smug though, I need to make it clear that it doesn’t hold all the cards in this game. The one thing it can’t control is my attitude. I’m free to decide how I deal with diabetes and how it affects my life. I can let it control everything I do, let it ruin my life and make me a miserable old crone. Or I can grab it by the scruff of the neck, drag it into the corner and give it a damn good talking too. I can learn everything there is to know about my diabetes, using that knowledge to beat it into submission. I can even use it as an opportunity to meet lots of lovely (and sometimes slightly strange) new friends online.
So dear pancreas, you may have made the first move, but I will win the war. You’re a mere weakling when compared to the brain, and that brain has chosen to deal with your rude little sidekick diabetes in a positive manner. That said, if you did want to apologise and come back to work I would of course be very British about it, graciously accept your apology and we’d say no more about it.
Wow. I can almost hear the tramp of marching feet! 😀 I’ll be sending reinforcements shortyl!
Are you sure a ‘damned good talking to’ would be enough @Alison? Possibly a little physical retribution is in order? A smidgen of corporal punishment maybe? If I were you I’d don the thigh high leather boots and the shiny leather Basque and give it some serious domination! Hmmmm… I’m sure I wouldn’t look as good in them as you would though chick! Pmsl! 😛
I don’t think a talking to or playing a few dominatricks is what those AWOLling B-cells are in need of – poor things require psychiatric counselling (and to revisit the baptismal font): ever since being christened “B”, they’ve felt second-best…or so says a “rude”, “strange”, “miserable old crone” (I’ve clearly been infected by their inferiority, too ;))
From diabetes to hardcore dominatrices (or whatever the plural of dominatrix is) in less than three comments – only on Shoot Up…!
@Teloz I have to admit I didn’t see the natural link from a rude pancreas to a shiny basque but I should have known you would.
I may need the help of your lovely wife @Tim, I have no idea where I would hide my pump in said basque and boots.
@ckoei I will make a generous offer to my Beta cells – should they return to work I will happilly rechristen them Alpha cells. I’ll even buy them a christening cake.
Sorry, my first thought was ‘Maybe pancreases work (or not) for British Leyland’…(TRANSLATION for non-Brits and young people – a British car manufacturer whose workers spent longer on strike than in work during the 70s)
@Annette I’d never seen my pancreas as a union activist but perhaps that is the problem. We should start negotiations immediately with the National Union of Pancreases. If they don’t return to work we’ll withdrawn benefits such as free housing immediately.
So nice to see that someone can see beyond the smut 😉
In that case is my pump a dirty scab by helping the striking beta cells?
Its not helping them, its replacing them. So yes, its a stinkin’ non union dirty blackleg scab. 😉
I don’t see why my lateral link to shiny black leather is any less valid than your anthropomorphising of your Beta cells @Alison, though I have to say my mental picture of you in said uniform was quite startling. Anyway, at least I wasn’t so crass as to mention more… erm… intimate undergarments. 😉
PS: Anthropomorphisation and undergarments in one post, it’s enough to give me goosebumps! 🙂
@Tim & @Annette In defence of so called scab pumps, the beta cells were given every opportunity to work but simply flounced off without any attempt at negotiation or mediation. As a body owner I have an obligation to protect the welfare of my other, hard working organs against such selfish beta cell action and as such I will personally escort the pump over the picket line.
@Teloz While I would never wish complications on you, I do think that we should never meet while you have good eyesight, otherwise the gap between your fantasy images and reality may be too disappointing for your heart to take. 😉
Beta-blaming is pointless – it’s not as if they’re doing some Leylandish lounging-about-in-numbers at home…most of them have fell victim to ethnic cleansing by the Immune Police*, so rather sack those hard-handed “peace-keepers” who did the actual beta-bashing (and also arrest all telltale citizens who incriminated the poor pancreatic Bs in the first place).
*hope the buggers can’t read – they’re bound to take revenge on yet another hormone-secreting organ…
@Ckoei Fair point about the beta bashing but please don’t antagonise the immume police, I’m paying them enough protection money as it is, its safer all round if we let the beta cells take the blame for this.
I really can’t badmouth beta cells @Alison, but where your bad-ass beta cells have withdrawn their labour I’ve worked my poor little suckers to death, turning my pancreas into a biological Belsen. I guess it’s karma.
@Ckoei, I hate to tell you this, but I heard rumours that your kidneys had left a message for the Immune Police on Crimestoppers, 😉
@Alison, without wishing to become too personal or be accused of patronisation or sexism, I’m quite sure that if you decided to don the duds of a dominatrix, you would carry it off with aplomb, and stir the emotions of any self respecting submissive. Please don’t denigrate yourself! 🙂
@alison: You callous corruptress, you deserve to be βereft! 😉
@teloz: It’s mere rumours – my kidneys are extremely pissed off that you should think them capable of narking (and they know they’ll be walking down the nephropath{y} if they ever tried to do so…>:( )
Someone is responsible. There will be all round extra-ordinary renditions, water-boarding, wholesale ignorance of human rights and general playing fast and loose with the geneva convention until someone confesses.
@axomoxia – sounds like a damned good plan, dagnabit!