Dear Madam of wonderful listening skills, I am here to talk to you again.

It is mid morning, I think it is a Wednesday. I have a story that was scary and of no fun, potentially serious, but true to the "body shop" world, down right hilarious! As you can imagine, working 6 days a week, owning your own business during a ression, etc, etc, can be stressful. I took my 12 hour firearms safety class on saturday and had no time to rest and wind down on Sunday. Monday AM, my estimator, Greg was out so it was just Abby and I in the front.

I was doing an estimate for an elderly gentleman for his Mercedes s series, and by the way, if you have one, be careful, the headlight oem cost was $2,200.00! So anyway, I am almost done and SUDDENLY, I am doubled over with chest paint, sweat, paint up my neck to my ears and am slurring my words. Having taken a CPR class, I knew what that meant. Abby was at the front counter doing an estimate on her computer, kinda unaware of what I was feeling. I was trying to hurry and ended up just printing his estimate and handing it to him. I went into my office and grabbed a baby asprin from my purse, (something I learned to carry after the CPR class) and took it. I paged my son, Hugh to come up front, as Abby was with a customer. I could not get the pain to stop by changing positions.

What I was not aware of, due to my sudden condition, was that the customer I was doing the estimate for had removed his clothes during the end of the estimate! Abby told me later she could not believe I had allowed that and was ignoring it. I was totally not aware!

Hugh came pretty quickly to the front, in time to see a man walking out in white boxers, black sox and no shirt on. He walked in my office, a little stunned, and asked me what was wrong. I wispered, I think I may be having a heart attack, He said, because that guy flashed you? I am what? Hugh is what?? He thought I was kidding because of the semi nude dude, I was not aware of the semi nude dude, so He was completely confused. I just said again call 911. He did and of course, we could hear sirens while he was on the phone. Even when the paramedics were there, Hugh was still confused about the boxer shorts guy and asked the parametic if that casued my problem. Medic guy said, "WHAT!" He said we have to ask your Mom that.

They hooked me up in my office and the ekg was ok, but there were some blips, do not know the name of them, at 10-15 second intervals that indicated potentially something had happened or there was stress on the heart. The paramedics promised if I went to the hosp, get checked out, I would be back to work in two hours. Well, I stayed two days. Did many tests, and my heart is as tough as my dads. (he is 86 and parties and has more fun than I do!) My mother has heart history, so that was part of why they kept me.

Having passed all tests, the verdict is I need to worry less, work less, eat better and sleep more. Oh My Lovely Lord, don't we all!!!

PS, now I have to put a sign on my door, "please do not disrobe during your estimate, Thank you, Management"