Vocab Friday: 21

This morning I had 4 hours all to myself, without The Babe tugging at my pant leg to read “Hokey Pokey Elmo” for the 500th time or smacking me upside the head with her sippy cup (yes, that really happened). Unfortunately, those 4 hours were spent at the lab, getting A LOT of blood drawn, peeing into cups, and drinking one big mug of glucose-spiking tea. All on an empty stomach.

Not quite the break I was looking for, but I guess the wretched gestational diabetes test had to be done for the sake of Cletus (the Fetus). So off I went this morning to a lab recommended by some of Husband’s colleagues. Now let me remind you that doing this kind of stuff in France was scary enough with the language barrier, and I spoke French. I don’t speak one single word of German. I can’t even remember half the vocab I’m promoting here.

But oddly enough I don’t have nearly as much paralyzing fear about communicating here as I did in France. So I walked right into that lab and figured out that I was supposed to take a number and wait. See! No German? No problem! Except that my number was “21.” And I can’t count past 3.

No bother. I approached the desk and asked the receptionist  how the number system worked. I told her I didn’t have an appointment. She reassured me that all I had to do was listen for my number to be called. Then I leaned in closer, brandishing my little blue slip of paper with “21” on it. “And how exactly do you say this number in German?”

She looked at me like I had six heads and then laughed. “Einundzwanzig.“

Einundzwanzig! I said danke and took a seat in the waiting area, chanting einundzwanzig einundzwanzig einundzwanzig so I could remember how it sounded. Then I got distracted by an odd magazine sitting next to me called “Shoe Manic,” which you’d think would be all about shoes but didn’t have one single piece of footwear on the cover. And then I panicked because in the 4 seconds that I wasn’t chanting “21” in German I forgot how to say my number. Zweiundeinzig? Einzigzwanund? Einenzaftig? Wiener Schnitzel?

About that time the nice lady next to me nudged my elbow and pointed to the paper number sitting on my knee. And then I heard the nurse actually saying Frau Villson. I was up.

Thankfully the nurse spoke English once we were inside the exam room. But I had to sit there for two more hours, and get called in to have blood taken twice more, all while hopped up on an evil concoction that makes you feel like you just mainlined chocolate syrup. So please for a minute imagine me sitting there, too cracked out to even read my book, slouched over in a chair quietly chanting einundzwanzig so I wouldn’t miss my turn again.

I wish I could say that was my lowest point in Vienna, but there’s still a baby to be born here. Which pretty much guarantees that I will sink to even lower levels of idiocy. Maybe I should start studying up on my numbers? And perhaps the names of my nether region parts?