I don't know if anyone remembers my last semester in college or not. Right around finals time, I had so much stress on my shoulders, as I put my most difficult classes off until then. As a result, I happened to acquire a case of shingles.

I knew right away what I had, because other people in my family had it previously, and I'd known other people who had it. It started with a rather deep itching feeling, then progressed to blistering, then on to excruciating, throbbing pain. The blisters only showed up on the right side of my body, and went from the middle of my lower back, around the right side, at a downward angle to my inner right thigh. The rash was in a narrow strip, and never crossed over to the left side of my body.

I went to the doctor, explained the symptoms to him, and he right away proclaimed, "You have Scabies." He wrote me a perscription for some medicine that was $40 per pill. The only place I was able to get the perscription filled was a pharmacy right in the downtown part of the city that I was attending college in. I ended up getting 2 pills, spending a little less than $80 on it, and was really angry with my doctor.

Before I took the medicine, I researched both Scabies and Shingles, and compared the two to what I had. Again, I saw that I had Shingles, and believed my doctor to be a crackpot. Since I spent the money, though, I went ahead and took the first dose of the medicine. It didn't do what it was perscribed to, and the shingles lasted for about a week. The blisters didn't heal up for a long while though, and I probably still have a couple weak areas on my skin from it.

Anyhow, back to how this relates to work...

A couple of the guys are on the good behavior work release program with the county corrections sytem. Basically, they got in trouble and are serving time for it, but they're allowed to leave to go to work, so they can pay their bills and have a bit of a life, whereas the rest of the inmates can't.

Well, 4 of the guys in the same building, who don't work at the shop, were reported as having Scabies. Because of the way it spreads, the place is on quarantine until they can get a doctor in to administer some ointment for it, plus another 14 hours. So basically, nobody is allowed to leave until the end of the quarantine, regardless of having scheduled employment or not.

This puts us in a bit of a pickle at the shop. One of the other guys was supposed to work with those two guys tomorrow, while I enjoyed my scheduled day off. Since there needs to be at least 2 people at the shop at all times, I have to go in to work in place of the other two guys. When I found out what the deal was, I knew right away that I needed to go to work tomorrow, so that's not really an issue. However, the fact that I'm having to deal with this stupid parasite again just flat out pisses me off.

At any rate, I need to get myself to bed now. So much for having plans for my day off. So much for getting laundry done and getting my bedroom cleaned up.