Tuesday morning we were supposed to be over at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center or just UPMC at 8 a.m. to start the testing. We asked the lady at about 6 a.m. to make sure we had a cab at 7 a.m.. Well, we headed outside after breakfast and there was no cab waiting. We asked the people at the desk and it turned out that they never called. We asked them to do it and the taxi company said they would have someone right over. We waited....and waited.....and waited....no cab. After asking around, we discovered that it was because we told them our destination. None of them were coming to get us. We needed a cab to take us from the middle of downtown Pittsburg to UPMC, a trip of a few miles. There is more money to be made in trips back and forth to the airport so, I am guessing, they just plain ignored us. So we had to drive ourselves. For those of you who have never been to Pittsburgh, the traffic is absolutely crazy. It is not uncommon for a three mile trip to take thirty minutes. It is something that I am not used to coming from a small town in New Mexico. My mom was not a fan either. She got to be the lucky one to drive it. She did great though. If it were not for the traffic we would have been there with no problem. The issue was that the freeway was closed down, there were detours all over the place, and it was bumper to bumper.
After something close to a hour and a half of driving we got to UPMC, late, but we made it. As we walked in I told my mom I needed to use the bathroom before we started the testing. She showed me to the door and I headed in.
From the minute we walked inside Xxon started trying to pull me right. I had no idea why but I knew the urinal was left so I made him turn and off we went the other direction. The whole time X was turning and pullin and just acting weird. I got done and washed my hands, turned to get some paper towels on the other side of the bathroom, the direction Xxon was trying to go, and stepped on something large and squishy....Well since it was right by the paper towels I thought that maybe thats what it was. I kicked my foot and turned and headed out. I stepped on to the carpet of the hall and noticed my foot was a little slippery. This is the point I started to grow suspicious. I wondered if maybe the toilet had over flowed and I had stepped on a big pile of toilet paper.
Well we walked back to the waiting room, my thoughts racing the whole way, and sat back down. I leaned forward and smelled, very strongly, poop.
I sat back in my chair thinking that there was no way it could be true. I leaned over to my mom and said something like "I thought I stepped on some wet paper towels or something but I don't think I did. Is there something on my shoe"? Sure enough. My sweet custom Nike Shoe had poop all over it. It was smashed into all the little grooves. every little crack, and corner. It was even squishing up the sides. It was NASTY. Everyone else thought it was pretty funny though. Everyone except my mom. She took my shoe into the bathroom to try to clean it off. On her way she looked into the mens room and saw the poopy prints of my Nikes all over the place. She spend no less than 15 minutes getting all the poop she could off my shoe.
By the time she came out there were signs up saying that the bathroom was closed for cleaning. What are the odds? Why is that the first person to go in there after someone pooped on the floor was me, the blind guy, unable to protect myself. Sheesh. After my mom cleaned my shoe the best she could I put it on and the day went on sort of normal, but I could smell it, all day. We took a toothbrush to it at the hotel that night to get it really clean. Not my toothbrush. It was a free one from the counter.
Some of the people there at the UPMC tried to say it was the dog. Not so, I told them. There was no way that X had the time to do something like that. That pile would have made a small horse proud by its size and I know it would have taken X a while to do it. He never held still in there, let alone long enough to do something like that. Awful business. We still have no idea where it came from.
So after we started testing and getting things done, we find ourselves in the waiting room again, waiting on a room to free up or something. While we waited I was listening to the TV and heard that there was a land slide that morning. Turns out the reason the freeway was closed was because a lot of very large rocks fell and were blocking the lanes. They had a guy on there that had a 500lb boulder fall and land right on his hood while he was driving. He was fine, just a few cuts on his hand, but understandibly rattled. Apparently I was not the only one having an off morning.
Killig time by teaching Xxon a trick.
Later in the day almost at the end of our testing while we waited for the people we were with, my mom and I just sat and listened to the TV again. When our friends came out, one of them asked if we felt the earthquake. Neither of us had felt anything at all. As we stood there talking a breaking news alert popped up saying that DC had been hit by an earthquake.I have no idea how many miles Pittsburgh is from DC but apparently a lot of people felt the shake. I won't lie. I was a little bummed that I did not even notice the first earthquake I was in. Little disappointing. But hey, I had my fill of excitement. For the day anyway.
The next morning we headed in around 9 a.m. and ran through the obstacle course a few times. All of this testing was done the first time we (Matt and I) were there and they were having us do it all again to see how we have progressed and how our minds have adjusted to using the device. Apparently we scored higher on everything, at least that is what I heard. Good news though. Practice is key to getting anywhere with this thing. We now will have weekly talks with the folks out there and they will give us assignments to accomplish over the next six months.
After the obstacle course we headed to the airport to come home. On the flight from Chicago to San Antonio we pre boarded and got all settled. After everyone else had boarded the flight attendant came over and said that all our stuff needed to go in the overhead compartment. I asked my mom if she was talking to me. She said she didn't really know but got her purse out to give to her. The flight attendant gestured to Xxon and said "All of this needs to go up in overhead".
When I told her it was a dog she took a closer look and jumped, and everyone started laughing. She apparently thought that he was just a large fuzzy piece of luggage.
We landed in San Antonio around 10 p.m. and jumped in a cab to head home. We had no idea that the driver was a maniac. We sat down and he took off like a getaway driver after a bank robbery. He drove the whole way like that. I've never made it home so fast before. His driving was not the weirdest part though, as we sped off he popped in a CD and absolutely cranked the volume. I don't think that vans system could have gone any louder. In addition, almost all the lyrics were not in english. I am no expert but I recognize speech from the Middle East when I hear it. Again, not the weirdest part. This guys music was an awfully strange mix of Middle Eastern instruments and lyrics with American beats and even a few english hooks and chourses.
Now the only parts I understood gave a pretty clear picture of what the rest was saying. Lets just say that it was a little weird to hear it sitting next to my mom. Even though I could barely hear anything she said I could tell she was very uncomfortable. It was so weird. So after a few songs like that the song "Be my Lover" by La Bouche came on. This was the only normal song of the night. The only one I had ever even heard. After the little relief that song brought it changed over to a rap song by a bunch of Japanese guys. I know they were Japanese because they said so at the beginning. This song was also about their not so pleasant intentions with intoxicated women. It was such a weird night.
A few more pictures
So what was supposed to be a pretty normal trip turned into quite a lot of excitement. I can not help but laugh just thinking about the things that happened out there. Luckily, nobody was hurt in the quake or the land slide, my mom got lost just once, and only my pride took a little damage after walking through someones poop. What an adventure my life is.
I hope you all got a laugh out of this. This is the craziness that is my life. Thank you all for reading. Have a safe weekend and God bless!
You really do need to write a book!!!
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