Gettin' Ready

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Okay, so I realize that I'm still in North America and I'm still in Colorado, in "Denver," and that none of this is very interesting or travel blog worthy. But I leave for India in approximately two weeks, and so I consider myself worthy of writing in this travel blog.

Now, an explanation for my blog's name, Olive Face. Well it all began one evening when I was a sophomore in college and I happened to be having a routine insult war with my then-room mate--and one of my favorite people ever--Melissa. You know, typical school night, sitting back-to-back in our room, each on our respective computers, typing mock-insults to each other via AIM. I'd call her a flea-infested jockstrap fungus and she'd call me a writhing sack of worm-loving ingrown toenail clippings and I'd call her a barnacle-wrapped donkey mucous kidney stone, and so on and so on...and our insults just kept getting weirder and weirder, and making less and less sense, until at last she called me something to the effect of a "pickle-eating, onion masturbating olive-face." I don't think that was the exact insult, but it gets the point across. And of course, Olive Face, as an insult, makes very little sense. But Olive Face as a nickname makes a LOT of damn sense. So it stuck. I became olive face to her. If she had to wake me up for class in the morning, she'd quietly tiptoe to my bed, gently lean over and whisper in my ear, "OLIVE FACE, it's 7:05, it's time to get up." Or else she'd whisper, "WHORE-BAG, it's 8:30, it's time to get up." Worked like a charm. So that's where Olive Face comes from.

So, moving on to my India trip. Yes, on the scale of How-Terrified-I-am_About-Leaving, I
place somewhere between "moderately terrified" and "certain that death is near." I keep telling everyone, when they ask me what I'm going to do next year, that I will be heading off to India to die. Everyone, of course, thinks that this is morbid. Well maybe it is. But I'm just trying to prepare myself for the worst. That way, nothing will surprise me. If my last few moments of life find me laying in a ditch, trying to hallucinate my way out of a miserable malarial death-fever, I can at least say to myself, "Well this isn't so bad. I was expecting this." And then if I don't die in India, I will consider it a great treat. Like getting an ice cream cone, or a Christmas present. So you see, I'm actually a lot smarter and less morbid than people tend to think.

I have, nevertheless, been spending a considerable amount of time in preparation, trying to prevent any sort of future death that might arise. The other day I went to the doctor's office to get a refill on a prescription, and also to ask the doctor about medications that I will need in India. My dad came with me because he's a crazy pharmacist, and he feels the same way about the Doctor's office that I feel about Starbucks. He loves it. If he can just wheedle a single prescription out of the doctor...well, it's as auspicious an occasion as being in line at Starbucks when the stupid barista messes up the person-in-front-of-you's drink and gives it away for free. So of course, he's in the little doctor room with me, and he starts asking all these questions before I can even get a word in edgewise. He asks for the typhoid vaccine, that seems like a good idea. He gets the doctor to prescribe 60 malaria pills, then pressures her up to 180. I, personally, hate pills. I would rather lay in bed with a migraine for four weeks than adulterate my body with evil, helpful, manufactured medicine. So this whole time I'm sitting in my little patient chair, a skeptical non-participant, thinking about how I will trade my special American pills for handmade Indian goods. (JUST KIDDING.......) And then the doctor keeps giving my dad even more ideas, with every innocuous comment she makes. For example...

Doctor, who has been to India once before, says, "I actually had altitude sickness while I was in India, which surprised me."
DAD: "Oh wow, I didn't even think of that. Don't you think we should maybe give her something for that?"
DOCTOR: "Well, I don't know, if you--"
DAD: "Let's give her thirty of whatever you took."
DOCTOR: "You mean thirty of the blah-blah-blah-amyophan?"
DAD: "Yeah. Actually, let's go ahead and make it sixty, just to be safe." As if he's a fat man supersizing his meal at the McDonald's drive-through window.

Doctor cooperatively commences typing his request into her computer. She keeps deferring to my dad's opinion, for some reason, and I end up with at least eight heavy-duty prescriptions, all of which interact with each other or cancel each other out or intensify each other inside of my body if I take them together. Typhoid vaccine whose job it is to introduce bacteria, Z-pack whose job it is to destroy all bacteria in its path, altitude sickness medicine which causes diarrhea and vomiting, gut medicine which cures intense vomiting and diarrhea...Great. I'll be a walking television ad for every medicine that's ever been made. And then Doctor tries to finish the prescription order and she's hunched over her computer, reading an error message and mumbling to herself, "hmm...unable to process order...blah interacts with blah and causes liver damage when taken with blah...hmm...I"m just going to override this error message." Fantastic idea.

So anyway, I am thoroughly prepared. I have a giant paper sack, filled with prescription medicines, sitting on my living room floor--surrounded by an entourage of antibacterial creams, bug repellents, hundred-dollar water filter systems, band-aids, flashlights, safety pins, and laxatives. Lots of laxatives. Can never have too many laxatives when traveling to India. I can't help but feel like I'm cheating, showing up in this third-world country with all of my first-world gear. I mean, these people have been digesting tapeworms since they were infants, and here I come with my hundred-dollar water filter.

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