Pain: Part Three

What is it about not feeling pain that makes me lose consciousness...? It's bizarre. The first time I told myself it was just a fluke. But when two, three, and four happened a couple weeks ago, I was properly humbled. So here are my terrible, embarrassing stories. :)

ONE.

A year ago I went to have a couple of moles checked out. The derm PA said, eh, no big deal, but do you want them removed anyway? I said, hey, why the heck not? (I figured even if they scarred it wouldn't be any bigger or more unsightly than the moles. And those things bugged. Always itching and bleeding and stuff!) So, with Seth sitting in a chair nearby, they went forward with this little surgery. Injections. I'm fine. Slicing. I'm fine. "Ok, I'm just going to cauterize this now." [Sound of rhythmic sizzling.] I'm . . . ffff . . . . BOOM.

I'm GONE.

Never felt a thing. Never realized I was psyched out. (Was I psyched out?) Thought I was totally fine.

I wake up to the nurse reassuring a wide-eyed Seth that his Mom was ok, "she just went to sleep for a little while." Poor thing! And poor me! It took a good twenty minutes to not feel that cold, clammy, nauseated, I-want-to-die feeling.

TWO.

Last week I went to get new glasses. Note to self and to the masses: Don't let good insurance dissuade you from going to JCPenney, Walmart, or LensCrafters to get your eyes checked. :) I went to a for-real place—the UCSD Shiley Eye Center—and had no clue what kind of torture chamber they'd release me to. To think I showed up hoping they wouldn't do the puff of air in my eyes! HA! Child's play! I'll take the puff any day, knowing what I know now....

So they test my eyes. Figure out my prescription. Excellent. I'd love to leave now, thank you.

But no! Suddenly, without warning, she says: "I'm going to test your eye pressure now. These are some numbing drops. They'll sting a little." Before I can protest, she's hovering over me, prying open my eyes like a torture artist, dripping little yellow drops of death at me.

Gross.

I'm really creeped out by this. Numbing drops? I don't want my eyes to be numb! That's creepy.

THEN, she assaults me with this machine that comes toward me, toward me, toward me. Closer to my eye.... AGAINST my eye...!!! Holy cow! It's pushing my eyeball!!!

"Ok. And now the other eye...."

I'm beyond creeped out now.

Wow, I'm really dealing with this like a champ, I say to myself. I'm not even trembling or crying for my mommy, or curling up into fetal position chanting my demands to be released.... Such a stud. (Truth was, I couldn't really feel a thing with those numbing drops.)

It ends. I sigh to myself relief that it's over now.

I look up to see my torturer hovering over me again. "We're just going to dilate your eyes now." [Drip. Drip.]

And . . .

I'm GONE.

Haha! Seriously. Two drops in my eyes, and that infernal clamor in the ears that says you officially cannot talk yourself into staying conscious buzzed all the way through me. And I started to dream about sitting around with some people talking about happy things.

Here's the strangest thing about fainting (anyone else with me on this?): I dreamt a slow, easy, low-key dream about a scenario that lasted a good half-hour or more, but when I woke up she said I'd been out about two seconds. Bizarre!

She left me to dilate reclined in the torture-chair, checking on me every few minutes. And a half hour later, I felt totally back to normal again.

My torture artist comes back with some kind of mirrored light. She directs me to look various places while she reflects light into my dilated eyes. One. [Ugh.... I don't feel so good.] Two. [Oh gosh, the ringing is back.] Three. This time I don't look, I put my face down, and just as I'm thinking, "oh please, not again! This is ridiculous!!" . . .

I'm GONE.

Again!

An hour-of-dreaming later (really only a few seconds) I come to, but just barely, and this time I have to try in my delirious state to talk myself out of puking. I'm successful. I also start dreaming up revenge for my torturer which, luckily for her, I was too ill to go forward with. ;-)

I feel cold and clammy all from my ears through my toes. My bones want to puke. All I want to do is curl up in bed and, I swear, sleep for two years.

I start to dream about being in my bed and realize she's saying something to me. The fogginess of her words, and the way in which I come upon them halfway through makes me half-realize (a half-realization is all my brain could muster at that point :)) that I had actually lost consciousness a third time. I think. I'm not entirely sure.

It's all pretty foggy. :)

As I start to very, very slowww...ly feel a bit better, she starts plying me with crackers and water. Because, in a torture chamber, that's all you can count on for food: crackers and water. Am I right? :) She expresses concern that I'm hypoglycemic. I'm too tired to say, "Lady, didn't you go to medical school? I know as well as you do—or should—that 'low blood sugar' among non-insulin-shooters doesn't really exist." I just laugh inside and eat some cracker. Oh yes. I can feel my mythically low blood sugar popping right back up.

Then she postulates, "Maybe it's White Coat Syndrome," to which I replied, "Well, my husband's a doctor, so let's hope it's not that!" She thought that was the funniest thing she'd heard in years. :)

My torturer finally leaves the room and I try—oh how I try!—to send Matt a text message. But I can't see! Haha! I'm typing, typing . . . . And thinking with much internal laughter, "how pathetic! I can't stay conscious! And I can't even type an SOS to Matt! I'm dyin' over here!!"

The text didn't go through. Figures. (Can you expect a Torture Operation to have cell phone reception?) When it came through an hour too late, it looked like this: Save me i keep passing out'misery.

Hahahaha!! We had a good laugh over it. I only wish he had gotten that while he sat at the computer filling out application forms and thinking I should be getting home from my uneventful eye appointment any second. Haha! Oh man. It kills me.

When I'm finally feeling like I can stand up again—in spite of my bones still wanting to puke, and my numb, dilated eyes making my head want to explode through my sockets—she comes back to . . . finish the job. You kidding me? What is wrong with her? Is she really that concerned that I might have some hidden glaucoma she had missed? My goodness. Let me free! Let me free!!

I survived. I picked out my glasses. In my determination to never, ever, not ever get my eyes checked again, I spent what felt like a gazillion dollars on nice frames and lenses when an hour before I had planned on spending about nothing. :) I felt pretty good about that.

THREE.

Remember the moles? One of them turned out to not be entirely removed and has also scarred more than I like. Since it's still itchy as well as unsightly, I had a plastic surgeon finish the job the other day. (Doesn't it sound marvelously scintillating to say, "I got plastic surgery"? Haha!) I didn't think I'd be psyched out, but man! I just don't know myself anymore!!

I jokingly considered asking him to not numb anything since I apparently only lose consciousness from not feeling pain, while I'm a stoic with superhuman powers when it comes to feeling torture. But Matt had a better solution . . . .

I took Sudafed ahead of time to reduce my vagal response.

And . . . ?

It worked like a charm! :) Let's hope this madness has ended. Eesh!

Fun Seth Quotes Lately

It's one of my great sorrows that of the 30 times a day I think, "You've GOT to remember that one to tell Matt later!," I only actually remember Seth's goodie quotes every once in a while. Here are some of my recent favorites before I forget. I wish I could remember them all!

Returning from Sea World with my parents, asking repeatedly how much longer until they would get back to his house (he had a new lunchbox he couldn't wait to show me :)), he finally sighed and said softly: 

[sigh] It's just so hard for a little boy to wait for his momma....

After trying to convince himself he's a big boy now:
I can't DO it.... I can't be big like my dad. I just don't know how to get taller...!

A bedtime negotiation between Seth and Matt:
—It's time to go to bed.
—How about, in tennnnn.... minutes...?
—Sure, you can stay up for ten minutes, but then there won't be any time for stories. OR...you can go to bed right now and have three stories.
—How about.... Five minutes and two stories. [hahaha!!]

Morning conversation between me and Seth:
—What do you want for breakfast?
—How about.... Waffles! [For about the tenth meal-request in a row!]
—Wow, you really love waffles, don't you?
—[clearly disappointed in me] MOM, I don't LOVE waffles. I LIKE waffles. You can't love waffles....

After proudly, excitedly handing me a part from a VCR he dismantled a couple weeks earlier:
Look! [Grinning wildly.] I got a capacitor for you, Momma!

[Haha! So that's what it was...? I really would have had no idea!]

A few days later:
Ah! Here's a little, tiny hard-drive for you, Mom! It's real cool!

And tonight:
—Do you know what this is called, Mom?
—A wrench?
—Yep. A wrench! Do you know what kind of wrench it is?
—Um.... No. [There are different kinds of wrenches?]
—It's . . . a . . . HEX wrench. And THIS is a . . . another hex wrench. Wait, let me get my drill bit....

Protein and Calories.

One of my greatest skills as a mother (mind-numbingly amazing!):

I can get two large eggs on only two pieces of french toast.

I have this sneaking hunch this talent of mine is keeping our son alive.... :)

Typography.

Number One worst thing about the problem of old-school typers teaching new-school typers to still do the typewriter-era double-space-after-a-period:

ACK!! The extra space can spill to the next line and the wonderful justified margin is ruined! Ruined!

I thought I'd be clever and find text about this issue to illustrate the implications. The full text from the crop above is most enjoyable:

Modern proportional fonts have what's known as a "kerning table" that contains the optimum spacing for every possible combination of adjacent characters (including spaces). When authors create new fonts, they spend a lot of time compiling this information according to the actual shapes of their fonts' characters. When you stick in an extra space after a sentence, you defeat this wonderful capability the font's author worked so hard to include. But take heart: You've already made the far-more-challenging leap from typewriter to computer. (Well, I assume you have, if you're reading this.) Learning to drop that anachronistic extra keystroke is child's play by comparison. I know you can do it! –Ander

Well said Ander. As a professional typographer and type designer with over 35 years experience, I consider placing two spaces after periods to be an anachronistic typewriter convention perpetuated by high school teachers who don't know better. I suspect that the reason most people are taught to use two spaces in school is because their teachers were taught the same thing by their teachers (who probably used typewriters), who were taught by their teachers, and so on.

When personal computers finally brought real fonts and the capability to compose type to the masses, teachers and students who learned typing on typewriters failed to distinguish between the two. These people were suddenly introduced to real typography, but lacked training in the conventions associated with it. As a result double spaces, underlined text, double hyphens, straight quote marks, non-use of en and em dashes [another thing I love to see used appropriately! Or even used at all. En dashes and em dashes!! Woo hoo!], apostrophes instead of prime marks, poor kerning, inappropriate leading, three periods instead of an ellipsis glyph, and almost every other sign of bad typography became common.

Fortunately, this ignorance of standard typographic conventions has not spilled over into professional publishing. Pick up any magazine, book, newspaper or professionally published and edited material of any kind, and look for two spaces after the periods — you won't find them, they're not there, they don't exist. Professional typographers, designers, copy editors and printers just don't use use them and never have. In fact, they routinely remove them during the copy editing process in much the same way that errors in punctuation and grammar are corrected.

I'm (unfortunately) old enough to have caught the tail end of hot metal typesetting. In those days there was a style in use at some type houses of inserting a space and an additional "thin space" after a sentence. The use of this extra thin space wasn't common and was often dependent upon the font. I never remember an instance where someone thought it appropriate to put two spaces (or even a space and a half) after a period.

It's interesting that there are so many who lament the demise of the period followed by two spaces — not realizing that it is a convention that never existed, except in the old typewriter world. — Maylett 23:01, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Perfect.

I always loved the Charlie Brown Christmas Special when I was a kid. And I had such a fun time watching it with Seth for the first time the other day. I had to smile—and, I'll admit, actually got a tad bit emotional (hehe)—when Seth exemplified the whole point of the story by just being the beautiful, radiant child that all kids are. When Charlie and Linus go to pick out a tree, he was wowed by all the beautiful "aluminum" trees in lots of colors—huge grin on his face. But when they found the tree—the famous "Charlie Brown tree"—Seth beamed. "That's a NICE tree! I LIKE that tree, Mom."

Sniff. :)

I love children. It's no wonder that Jesus Christ has told us to be like them—and that in the midst of important people and matters, He goes to them. They're beautiful. I love, too, that the Savior of the world came as a child—a baby. He was God on Earth—Immanuel. But He couldn't have come in any more glorious a way....

Beard Control for Babies

This story is a year old, but it's still a goodie. :)

When we went to Salt Lake for Bri and Janelle's wedding last December, we got to stay with our fabulous friends Kristin and John. I showed up first, since Matt's schedule was unrelenting.

Seth woke up early in the morning (he was 2 1/2 at the time...) and I thought, oh good, he'll be so tired that he'll sleep on the plane! (I think we had gotten him up at 5:00 or 5:30 for the first flight out. And—another story—we slept through our alarm and rushed to the airport in pajamas! Ack!).

Of course, he didn't sleep on the plane. ...Should have known, Auburn. Should have known. (How can a curious mind sleep when there are so many interesting things going on?)

By the time we got to Salt Lake and were picked up and taken to the hotel where Matt's family was staying, it was still morning and Seth was already clearly insane. At breakfast, he ended up wandering around the restaurant in circles all perplexed, arms outstretched, numbly chanting: "What am I looking for? What am I looking for?" Haha!

When I stole away for a nap later, he just wanted to play with Grandma and Grandpa.

When we braved the snow and ice all day, he stayed awake.

When we went to Matt's grandparents' house later that night for dinner with everyone, he ran around playing with cousins.

So then we go to Kristin's house.... It's late—very late—and he's a complete disaster. His body is giving out on him, his eyes look dreadful.... The kid is beyond exhausted.... I get him ready for bed right away and think, ah yes, he'll go to sleep no problem.

Well, after a little bit of him NOT going to sleep (and finding their art pastels! AAAHHHH!!), all was finally silent, and I thought, yes! And Kristin and I sat only a few feet away from the room to chat for the night. Matt was scheduled to come in but weather delays everywhere but San Diego were keeping him grounded in San Diego (I kept getting text messages from him—why would anyone leave here?! What am I doing?! Hehe). So we're waiting to get the word that someone can finally go pick him up in the middle of the night.

I can't remember what alerted me to the fact that Seth had actually been awake the whole time. I think he actually knocked on the door or something. Kristin and I shared a look of doom, and I went to see if he really could possibly be awake....

And at 1:30 in the morning, twenty hours after Seth had been awakened four hours too early with ne'er a wink of catch-up sleep, this is what we see....

Hahaha!

Never, ever, ever put your child to bed in the same room as your luggage.

My wallet was empty. My make-up had been explored. And, the horrifying part.... He had found all my drugs. The white things you see all over the floor are the contents of a Costco-sized bottle of Claritin (about 300 pills).

(Hopefully you can see these fine. I'm not sure why the videos get darker once they're on the blog....)

I peppered Seth with questions to try to figure if he actually ate any, and I was pretty satisfied that he hadn't....

Until I saw something like this...! [Dum-dum-dumdum!]

Little holes all punched out.... Haha! Beard Control pills. (I've been taking them for forever—since I was first diagnosed with PCOS. My primary motivation in taking them is to not grow a beard. Haha! Very important. So, yes.... Beard Control pills.) The idea of him finding this fascinating punch-hole contraption and working his way through it really amused me. But it also had doom written all over it since I knew exactly how many pills there had been. After scouring every nook and cranny for loose pills, we realized with certainty that he had eaten several. I think it was seven or nine. Seven beard control pills for a 2-year-old! Which, even more alarming, also meant countless claritin pills. Who could tell how many? Could have been fifty or a hundred for all we knew...!

Matt was on a plane by then, about to land, and I called every few seconds until I finally got a hold of him. Pictures of hospital beds were running through my head.... During a wedding! On a trip we only had a few hours for! Luckily, Matt is a wealth of information—saving us an ER visit. Also luckily, beard control and claritin in mass quantities aren't the worst thing ever to a 2-year-old.... Dodged that bullet. (I was glad he hadn't found a way into some of the other drugs! Tylenol?! I can't breathe just thinking about it. Someone was looking out for us....)

By far my favorite thing was that he used my eyeliner. Appropriately. Hahaha!! When I opened the door, he was in the process of putting more on—around and around and around his eyes, trying to get it in just the right place.

He had also put lip gloss on his lips. :) I love trying to imagine the things going on his mind as he discovered one thing after another in my bag.

My other favorite thing was how wired he was for the wedding—still sleep-deprived, and also high on an obscene amount of claritin. (Not to mention whatever a bunch of estrogen might do to a little guy.... Hehe.)

This picture, I think, says it all:

Haha! Yes, that's every other cousin sitting for the picture. Every one. Haha! (Where did this last year go? Look at him!)

Happy Anniversary to Brian and Janelle!!

Part Two

Pain: what I almost inflicted on a 6-year-old boy. Grrr.... Now I know what my mom means about the "Mother Bear" in you flaring up.

But, the best part of this story is not what I did (or wanted to do...), but what Seth did!

So we were at a park. I was sitting on a bench watching Seth play on the play structure a little ways off—he had made some new friends and they were having a great time. Suddenly I see some punk 6-year-old (or so...) sitting at the top of the twisty slide, pushing a littler kid down. I'm not sure if he thought her terror was funny, or if he just didn't notice the terror and thought going down a slide is surely fun...? I also thought it was probably his sister.... 

At any rate, when Seth made his way over, the kid hauls off and shoves him down the slide. Seth flops all around while he twists down, unable to keep his balance, and landed hard on his butt in the sand. He was clearly a little traumatized by this unexpected assault.

I keep sitting there, waiting to see what he'll do first.

He gets off the slide. He marches under it so he can be on the side where he can look up and see this kid's face. And he points a finger at him and says very, very forcefully:

DON'T!

DO THAT!

AGAIN!

PLEASE!

Waving his finger on each word.

Haha! And, I'm telling you . . . . This mother heart sighed a little sigh! And I thought, this kid's gonna be ALRIGHT.... Way to stand up for yourself, kid! He didn't exact his revenge. He didn't start bawling for his mom. He didn't run away, too scared to go back....

In fact, a couple minutes later, he went to go down the slide again, with the kid still staking out the push-people-down spot!

Seth starts to shimmy past him—the kid sitting down was only a little shorter than Seth was standing up, and he was also occupying most of the space.... He puts his hand on the kid's shoulder (hahaha! that killed me!) and says: "Now don't push me down. ...ALRIGHT?"

[This is my heart swelling with awe.]

And Seth actually sits down to try again, with this guy right at his back.

[Pitter-patter my mother heart.]

And this KID!!!

The kid PUSHED him AGAIN!!

[The pitter-patter was over!]

I was off of that bench SO fast...! It was really kind of funny, because I didn't even notice myself decide to get up. By the time I was thinking to myself, "that little PUNK!" I was already halfway across the sand. Stomping. And mad. And ready to bop that kid on his punky little head. 

My fury alarmed me. Hehe. (Somewhere inside—somewhere under the rage—I really laughed over it, too. :))

About 3/4ths of the way there, I realized that bopping the kid or throwing him down the slide was not going to be acceptable, and I literally stood there taking a couple deep breaths before I talked to the kid. I said something like, "Excuse me, he asked you to please not push him down again, and you really need to do what he asked. He doesn't want you to push him down the slide. He TOLD you this, you LITTLE PUNK!!" No, I didn't really say that last part. ;-)

[At which point his grunge-biker dad (this surprised me... :)) came over and shouted, "BOY! You keep your hands off of people!!" And I thought, whoa.... I sure hope he doesn't actually get bopped.]

So, anyway, I adore this story. I was surprised at the fiery rage that flared all through me in about a billionth of a moment. And Seth surprised me with his awesome, awesome finger-wagging, standing up for himself in a direct but polite enough way: "DON'T! DO THAT. AGAIN. PLEASE!" And his willingness to try again, put his hand on the kid's shoulder and say, "now don't push me, alright?" There are so many things to love about the whole exchange.... :) I just love this little guy. He's a fascinating and beautiful person to me. :)

Pain: Part One

People keep asking about my INFERNAL HEADACHE, and sometimes it comes out as, "do you have a headache today?" It catches me off-guard every time, and I always think "umm... well, of course I do... but it's not THE headache. Just a headache. And when—when, I ask you?!—does a person not have a headache? Huh... do you think... maybe... this person sometimes doesn't have a headache, and that's why they could ask this? Huh . . . ."

When I met with my neurologist, he kept asking me to rate my headache on the pain scale*. When the drugs and dosages were working awesomely, I remember telling him, "I feel great! I'd say the headache is only a 3." And he said, "Ah, well that's an improvement.... But we really need to get you to zero." I was totally dumbfounded. Seriously? Zero? Who ever feels zero headache? Zero?! I was totally happy with a three and, actually, I never went back to follow-up.... ;-)

It occurred to me that I had had this discussion clear back in high school: that if I really thought about it, I would always have to say I have a headache, but I just ignore it most of the time and don't really notice. It also occurred to me that ever since my 3-year recurrent Mono (slash CFIDS...?) ordeal in college, in addition to always being tired, I always seem to be in pain. I almost never really think about it, but when I do I can't help but wonder . . . how much of a FREAK am I? Is this normal? 

And you know what seems freakishly abnormal to me? That someone might wake up every day and live their life . . . comfortably . . . . Comfortably? What the heck? Does the human condition allow for this? I'm curious....

Question Number One: Are there some of you out there who sometimes DON'T have any headache at all? 

Question Number Two: If there ARE, are there others of you who are like me, and if you really thought about it would have to ALWAYS say yes to the question, "do you have a headache right now?"

Question Number Three: Is there such a thing—you?—as a person generally living with no discomfort? You just go about your day, and you feel . . . comfortable . . . ? I find this hard to believe. But when people ask me things like, "do you have a headache today?" it makes me wonder.... :)

In short, am I a complete freak?! :) This is the big-picture question. Hehe.

Here are some things I've noticed cause me pain. I'm dying to know if the general response from you readers will be that: A) I'm a freak or dying or something; or B) you can relate to SOME of these things; or even C) you can relate to SEVERAL or all of these things. 

Let me know! Comment! I'm dying of curiosity!

• When I cross my legs, within about one minute, both my knees are screaming with pain.

• When I put my hands in my pockets, my knuckles ache from being bent up against the fabric.

• I wake up a hundred times a night because the places where the bed, or the pillow, or even my own arm or ankle or something are against me are all hurting. It doesn't matter how good the mattress is....

• If I take a sleep aid or something and don't wake up a hundred times a night, I'll sleep in the same position too long and wake up in excruciating, paralyzing, incredible pain! I mean, really.... I can't describe how intense it is. (This is still occasionally worth it to sleep a little better for a little while.... :))

• When I hold a phone, my wrist and ear ache. I keep switching sides, but after about ten minutes that doesn't really help anymore....

• When I take a purse somewhere, even if it's the lightest purse in the world and it sits on my shoulder totally naturally so I don't have to change my posture to carry it, the area where the strap sits gets terribly, terribly sore. Enough so that I will cut my shopping trip short and wish I could have a nap or something. Seriously, it hurts! (Anyone else? A light, good purse?)

• Wearing jeans (which I do every day :)) makes my hip bones hurt where the material presses against them. And, no, my jeans are not too small. (In fact, they're a little too big.)

• Whenever I get blood drawn, most of my arm aches for a couple days. It always makes me feel like a total loser. :)

• Sometimes . . . . This is so ridiculous. Sometimes I wake up because the duvet is resting on my fingers, and the pressure is really making them hurt. Insane.

• Prayer is vital to me—but on my knees with my head bowed and arms folded is so distractingly uncomfortable that if I want real communion for more than about a minute, I often just trust God won't care that I'm laying in bed (or in the shower) talking with Him.

• My legs always hurt. Like I'm training or something.... Except I'm not. (Unless riding a stationary bike five miles a day takes years to train up for. :-| I don't think so....)

• Sitting down, anywhere, any way, any time, is fire on a gazillion joints and muscles. Like right now!

• Oh, and I take two long showers a day just to not feel destroyed. :) This part is great. :)

Anyone? Anyone? And have any of you been told you have Fibromyalgia, and if you have, is this list wholly, partly, or hardly familiar...?

Yes, I take vitamins. Yes, I exercise. Yes, I occasionally try Tylenol or Ibuprofen—Ibuprofen never works, Tylenol sometimes helps a little.

* Pain scale is going to be another scintillating subject in this series. I'm very excited about it. And, in case you're wondering if my pain tolerance is just poor, and also to clarify just how bad the INFERNAL HEADACHE has been, I might make my super-human pain tolerance another post. We'll see.... :) It's actually quite fascinating. :)

Lamest fight song EVER :)

I am a Utah Man, sir, and I live across the green,
Our gang it is the jolliest that you have ever seen.
Our coeds are the fairest and each one's a shining star,
Our yell, you'll hear it ringing through the mountains near and far!

DAVY!

DAVY CROCKETT!

King of the Wild Frontier....

[Haha! How long before Utah fans will finally notice their lame song is a rip-off of another famously lame song...? It'll probably take them just as long as it'll take BYU fans to realize their hymn fight song has way, way, WAY too many verses. We could probably start it on the "rah-rah" part and be right about average.... :)]

The Amazing Race *SPOILER ALERT*

Were any other Amazing Race junkies as bummed as we were to see the Globetrotters eliminated last week...? Best team EVER! The tears just won't stop flowing over here....

Especially because, MAN, it was such an easy task! And they weren't the only ones to struggle with it, either.... So they have five letters—FIVE—that they need to unscramble into some sort of word. They're in Prague. They don't know if the word is Czech or English or what, but I do think they had "Kafka" as a clue at some point.

The five letters are: Z F N R A

Never mind that within about two seconds you should be able to deduce that A is the middle letter, and in another two seconds figure out that the two pairs of consonants that make the most sense together are FR and NZ. Even if you have to make a list of every single possible combination, this takes, at most, five minutes...? I made the following list in three. And I put in bold letters any one that maybe, maybe could possibly be a word.... You'll see I was most generous with this.... :)

FARNZ

FARZN

FAZNR

FAZRN

FANZR

FANRZ

FNARZ

FNAZR

FNRZA

FNRAZ

FNZAR

FNZRA

FRANZ
FRAZN
FRNAZ
FRNZA
FRZAN
FRZNA

FZARN

FZANR

FZRAN

FZRNA

FZNAR

FZNRA

ZFARN

ZFANR

ZFRNA

ZFRAN

ZFNRA

ZFNAR

ZAFRN

ZAFNR

ZANFR

ZANRF

ZARNF

ZARFN

ZRANF

ZRAFN

ZRNAF

ZRNFA

ZRFAN

ZRFNA

ZNAFR

ZNARF

ZNFAR

ZNFRA

ZNRAF

ZNRFA

NFARZ

NFAZR

NFZRA

NFZAR

NFRZA

NFRZA

NAZRF

NAZFR

NAFRZ

NAFZR

NARZF

NARFZ

NZARF

NZAFR

NZFRA

NZFAR

NZRFA

NZRAF

NRAZF

NRAFZ

NRZFA

NRZAF

NRFZA

NRFAZ

RFAZN

RFANZ

RFZNA

RFZAN

RFNAZ

RFNZA

RAZFN

RAZNF

RAFNZ

RAFZN

RANZF

RANFZ

RZAFN

RZANF

RZFNA

RZFAN

RZNAF

RZNFA

RNAZF

RNAFZ

RNZFA

RNZAF

RNFZA

RNFZA

ARZFN

ARZNF

ARNZF

ARNFZ

ARFZN

ARFNZ

AZRFN

AZRNF

AZFRN

AZFNR

AZNFR

AZNRF

ANFRZ

ANFZR

ANRFZ

ANRZF

ANZFR

ANZRF

AFZRN

AFZNR

AFRZN

AFRNZ

AFNZR

AFNRZ

By my very liberal count, there are 11 possibilities. And only one when you consider that as soon as you write down FRANZ, it should be obvious! But people spent hours on this! Poor things....

And poor us, most of all, who lost Big Easy and Flight Time, the best contestants ever, ever, ever. Tears, tears.

Blame Kafka! Boo! :)