This is Sick

Illness at home is a matter of wife and spouse.

Every wife dreads it when her husband says, “Honey, I think I’m coming down with something.”

That is enough to put fear in the strongest wife, and elicit an urge to take a month long vacation in the Bahamas.  A sick husband is worse than any other ill member of the family. 

“Where are the tissues?” 

Wife hands him the box that always sits on the side table in the living room. 

“Could you make me some soup?”

 Wife stops paying bills and makes some soup.  “Here, Dear, this will help.”In her mind that becomes a prayer, “Please, God, before I do something drastic.”

“I think I might have a fever.”   Wife takes his temperature.

These questions and statements are all preprogrammed into the male well before birth.  In fact it might just be attached to the male gene in his DNA. 

He flops down on the couch, leaves used tissues lying all around, and then moves on to another overstuffed chair, and then another until he has contaminated  every overstuffed chair  in the house. The thermometer is a permanent fixture in his mouth as he takes his temperature every ten minutes and reports it to anyone listening. “I think I’m getting worse. It’s higher than it was.” 

“You just had a cup of hot soup, Dear.”

He opens the windows in the middle of winter.  Ten minutes later he says, “I’m cold.”

Wife covers him with a blanket and shuts the window. 

She goes into the kitchen and he discards the blanket and follows.

“What are you doing?” He looks bleary eyed at her.

“Dishes.  Want to help?”

“No I might give it to someone.”

He drapes himself across the counters and tables, making sure to touch and thus contaminate every surface in the house. 

The wife follows him around with her arms full of handi-wipes, airspray, and other disinfectants.  He wants hugs, kisses and other kinds of affection.  He is concerned he will die tomorrow at the latest.

Three days later he drags himself out of bed and heads reluctantly off to the office.   The wife then spends the entire day disinfecting every surface in the house, and putting everything he has touched into the washing machine. 

He comes home later that night, feeling much better.  The wife sneezes as he comes in. 

“Are you coming down with something?”  He asks it as if it were a total surprise.

“It just a little cold.  I’ll live.”

“Oh good.  I thought maybe it was serious.”  He says as he heads in to dinner.

Falling leaves, National  Novel Writers Month, all the gateways to winter. Today while I was supposed to be writing I took time to blow the leaves off the driveway.  No small feat as it takes me an hour for our long driveway.   The leaves, all yellow and brown and green, some bigger than a dinner plate, the fleshy part sticking to the pavement, remind me that this is the season that Dad loved more than any other.  I never knew what spurred his love of fall, but he always said that this was his favorite season. 

For my National Novel  Writers Month project I have chosen to write about Dad.  Where do I start?  He was such a rock in my existence, a pillar of basalt colored by gray banded agates, red garnets, Ellensburg Blue agate, petrified wood, fish fossils and oh so many other colors.  There was no end to his influence.  

Dad left us to be with his Maker and Mom last June and neither my sister nor I can believe he is gone.  Last week we celebrated Mom and Dad’s anniversary on November 12.  My sister and her husband and my husband and I all ate dinner together and toasted them. 

Today as I blew the leaves off the driveway, freeing them from being plastered to the black pavement I thought of him, how he is free to be without the pain, confinement , confusion or loneliness of his last years.  I am thankful for him.  And then I thought about how he freed me to be myself.   The rain that came down just as I finished joined my tears and washed away toward the ocean we both love.  Thanks, Dad.  I miss you. 

Election day.  Wow already?  Seriously, I am so tired of seeing political ads  that it’s almost a relief to see the regular old commercials. At least we know what to expect from them.  Indecency, off color topics hinted at, very personal products, all part of ordinary television life. 

 I once saw an ad for a product made with real strawberries.  Really?  What I want to know is what kind of strawberries are not real?  Does that mean they are blackberries, or raspberries?  Maybe they are pieces of colored sawdust.  Who knows but it does make me wonder.

Another sign that got me wondering was the store that advertised ammunition and Corny Bits breakfast cereal for sale.  I began wondering how I could put those two things together.  I mean, is the ammunition laden with food particles, or is it the other way around?  Maybe the cereal is full of gas producing products that create ammunition within the body.  Thus the breakfast table battle cry could become, “Pass the Corny Bits and look out for the ammunition.” Or “I had Corny Bits last night for a snack so stand back.  I’m full of ammunition.”  The phrase, “Oh shoot!” could take on a whole new meaning.

Then there’s the ad that says, “When the mood strikes, will you be ready?”  The mood has already struck.  I’m ready to scream.  Is nothing sacred anymore?  I guess not.  Wives apparently spend their lives flipping your switches and then being disappointed if the light bulb is burned out.  My suggestion?  Fix the grounding wire or a meal. 

I’d like to rewrite some of those ads.  Here’s a small sample:  Where will you be when the mood strikes?  Let us help.  Come on in to the Home Warehouse where we’ll nail down the problem and help you erect a structure that can’t be blown away.  If it doesn’t fall down in five hours we will send out our insurance company and they will sing a jingle to you about your underwear.  Then it will fall down and you will be again ready to erect the same structure when the mood strikes.  Our wide variety of hammers will make sure it strikes.  Your wife can help too. Have her fix the Corny Bits with real strawberries and pass the ammunition.   

That’s the extent of my tirade on commercials.  Starting today, watch for the regular ads to return with their little quirks.  Come back next week to see what I have found to point out.