Drunk times in Finland

In my desire to immerse myself in authentic Finnish culture, I went out drinking with Irene. We went to the famous gay karoake bar, "Mann's Street" where Malcolm said we could spot some mens. So, we went inside after taking the obligatory tourist photos of the bar's famous entry way. After unsuccessfully trying to instruct the inebriated bartender in the art of mixed drinks, we ordered a couple of bottled somthing or others and sat down to an evening of bad karoake and disturbingly quiet dancing queens (as I discovered, the Finns are known for their silent composure except when entirely shit-faced).

We set our bear traps and one by one, they ambled into my range of sight--large, sexy men with flat tops, goatees, and thick arms. It was lovely until up from the shadows slithered a straw haired strap of brown leather named Villay. His pick up line, translated from drunken Finnish was, "I see you in magazine somewhere? Young and hung, yes?" Irene's ingrained politeness doomed us to listening to Villay's attempts to impress us with his broken English--"Tablay, fingerrrrrrr, Obama," and so on. So at once, Irene became my girlfriend, the cell phone rang, "beep boop beep, Yes, Villay, my ring tone does come from my mouth!" and our house caught on fire, prompting us to run out the door into the 11pm sunlight.

Undeterred, we returned to the bar the following week, on a Monday night, as it was unlikely that Villay would return, unless he was a total lush-----which of course, he was. "My frrrrrriends!!" he shouted! But I had a plan--you see, on the ride to the bar, I threatened to slash Irene's tires if she so much as breathed a word of Finnish. "Poor Villay," I said, "English only, my frrrriend." And so Villay, too drunk to remember last week's conversation in his native tongue, tried to teach us Finnish. Oh damn. "Kahlia-- beer. Kassi--hand." So the cell phone rang, Irene and I awkwardly touched hands, and the house caught on fire once more. And so we left, to do our drinking at home like decent folks.

Roaches on Wheels

As some of you know, I'm applying to a graduate therapy program and am completing observation hours. So most of the clients are kids and a few are adults who aged out of the program but still recieve limited therapy. So, about 4 hours into my observations, I noticed a dark black roach scuttling across the floor. Okay, so it happens. But then I saw two, then three and by this time the entire staff was shrieking and standing their desks. About five seconds later, an adult client rolled in with her electric wheelchair.

Are you making the connection here? A quadriplegic who eats, sleeps, and presumably uses the bathroom in her wheelchair, massive roach infestation, and shrieking therapists. So the bravest therapist was dispatched to peel the client out of the chair, help her shower and change, while another therapist and I "drove" the chair outside and fumigated it with four or five cans of roach spray. Those things were just flying around and threatening us with their antennae. We lost count of dead roaches at about 50. Barf.

Now, humor this question a moment:
How is it that a person with a full time, live-in caregiver is driving around in a roach motel (roach trailer?)? How can a quadriplegic with full mental abilities but no way to talk maintain any kind of dignity knowing that her skin is crawling with roaches? I need to keep laughing before I start crying.