Color me brilliant (or not)

Some of you know me and have a fair idea of my level of intelligence.  I feel as if I'm at least moderately articulate and have a passing knowledge and handle on the English language.  I'm a decent cook and I know a bit about things mechanical.  I have a college degree and have worked in a few highly technical jobs that require more than minimal brain power.  This being said I have to admit that I am, at least tonight, the most supremely stupid numbskull on the face of the planet.

You see, I'm diabetic.  In fact, I'm insulin dependent, which means that my body does not produce enough insulin to function in the way that those of you who are not diabetic take for granted.  I take two kinds of insulin.  One is a long acting one that give me a base line level of coverage so that when I'm between meals, my body can still use the glucose that courses through my veins.  I take this once a day just before bed.  I take 48 units of this.  The other insulin is a highly volatile and potentially dangerous med that acts very quickly and can blow your blood sugars so low that it can literally induce a diabetic coma if improperly used.  I'm supposed to take 16 to 18 units of this at each meal.  The long acting type comes in a bottle marked with a pleasant pastel lavender top.  The other comes in a dark red topped bottle.

I work odd shifts (two mornings and three evenings).  On my evening shifts I like to take my long acting insulin before leaving work.  This is mostly because I'm also a very forgetful idiot.  I would forget to put my pants on if I didn't have my wife to say "Uh Mark?  Don't you think it would be more professional if you wore clothes to work?"  See?  She's so smart. 

Tonight I clocked out and got out my med bag like I always do and loaded up a shot of 48 units of insulin.  I pulled up my shirt and inserted the needle into my woefully pudgy midriff and as I'm injecting the last few units I happen to look over and notice the color of the top on the bottle of insulin I'm dosing myself with.  It's dark red.  "Not good, dumbass," I think being the introspectively forgiving person that I am.

So, here I am at 1:30 in the morning, sipping chocolate milk, eating pieces of a divine tasting roast I put in the slow cooker before going to work and nibbling on Pringles (which, by the way, taste just like the French fries that a long gone hamburger chain called Sandy's used to make in my childhood).  What I'd rather be doing is snuggling with my wife as we fall asleep or better yet, partaking in certain adult activities with her that I can't do because physical exertion right now would make my blood sugars go even lower. Since I have to continue to monitor my blood sugars for the next couple of hours, I thought I'd pass a little of the time by letting all of you who bother to read this know just how monumentally stupid I am.

The thing about this that makes me look even more stupid is that this isn't the first time, I've done this.  The last time was about a year ago and my wife and I were absolutely terrified about what might happen.  We called and woke up my doctor (something I'm sure he will never forgive me for).   He used a few choice words I'm pretty sure he didn't learn in Sunday school to describe me as he let us know that as long as I kept checking my blood sugars and made sure I had enough food in me to cover the insulin, I would be all right.  So I'm not really very worried about what's to come, I'm just throwing my leg out of joint kicking myself in the posterior.

And the alarm is set to go off at 6:38 in the morning so we can get the girls up and ready for school.  Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.