Anything you can do...

Have you ever dealt with people like this before? That no matter what you say, they try to one-up you? I can't tell you how often I've encountered conversations like this:

Person: "Hey, how are you?"
Me: "Oh pretty good, I've been kind of sick though."
Person: "Well, I was so sick yesterday MY temperature was 106!"

Person: "You look sad, is everything okay?"
Me: "Yeah, just a rough weekend. We got in a car accident."
Person: "Well you should have had MY weekend! First, we got caught in traffic and missed the concert we paid $50 to go to, then my kid got sick and threw up everywhere, then our dog died."

Person: "Why'd you cancel your trip to Disneyland?"
Me: "My surgery cost a lot of money and we're still paying for some of the medical bills. So we can't justify going on a trip right now."
Person: "Well at least you don't have a husband like mine! WE spend a lot more than YOU do on medical stuff!"

Okay, so I exaggerated a bit on the person's responses. But seriously! Why do people feel the need to prove that their life is worse than yours, their trials are harder, and their heartbreaks are more intense? I am particularly referring to my last example. Somebody, who will remain nameless and I know they don't read this blog so I'm not worried about it, actually said this to me not too long ago. All I could think was: "How do you have any clue how much it has cost us?!" And "I never claimed my bills were worse than yours! I was simply answering a question that you asked me!" I'm sorry to vent but it drives me crazy when people make claims that their trials are worse than my own. We all have completely different lives and situations! What seems really hard for one person might be a breeze for someone else. But you have no idea how hard it is for them because you are not living in their shoes.

This conversation with the unnamed person actually occurred awhile back, but it came to mind again today. Our appeal with the insurance company didn't go through =( so long story short, I was asked by HR to create a spreadsheet with all the bills from my surgery and figure out how much out of pocket we have spent. As in, how much money Matt and I have directly spent ourselves on my medical bills since this whole thing started back in April. The amount shocked even us! Matt almost passed out when I told him the numbers! All I can say is we have spent (and still owe) enough money to pay for Matt to go to school for 4 semesters!! Now I feel like singing to this person:

YES I CAN! YES I CAN! YES I CAN!