I really don’t think I was a difficult child. I don’t remember that I was. I recall being a compliant, timid, rather fearful child but I suspect that came from the unpredictable atmosphere of our home. I don’t remember getting into trouble very much. I mean there was the occasional fight with a friend. I stole an Oscar Meyer Weenie Mobile charm once. Okay, and I made a boy cry by saying mean things about his mother. I didn’t know his mother. But I could imagine.
Regardless, as compared with my peer group I don’t think I was really all that bad.
Somehow it seems like I’m being punished for being a bad child. What other explanation can there be for having to deal with my mother?
For weeks my mother has badgered me about taking her to the doctor. When I asked why she needed to go she didn’t have a definitive answer. She just thought she should. Now, I understand the value in an annual physical exam but since she had just been to the doctor four months ago, I wasn’t sure why she needed to go again.
She really, really likes going to the doctor. Why she really, really likes this, I am not sure. But she does. Except she doesn’t like going to the doctor here in Colorado as much as she liked going to the doctor in Michigan. When I asked why, she said the doctor in Michigan held her hand. Um, okay. Now if my doctor were to hold my hand I’d probably miss everything being said because I’d be thinking, “Why the hell are you holding my hand???!!” But, hey, we all have our quirks.
I am not really sure why illness is so important to my mother but I suspect it always has been. When we were growing up, no one in my family was allowed to get sick. Except my mother. No one was allowed to show emotion either but that is a different therapy session altogether. She was frequently in bed and ill, even if it wasn’t readily apparent what she had. We weren’t deemed sick unless we vomited or had a fever. Preferably both. Even then my mother was so inconvenienced by it that we considered just going to school with a bucket and a wet cloth.
Somehow being ill has served a purpose in her life. Recently she has been telling me that the doctor here doesn’t do blood work often enough. Without a reasonable cause I can’t imagine why anyone would need a blood draw more than once a year but my mother maintains that she needs her blood tested every two or three months. To look for what? She doesn’t know. She just thinks it should happen.
Nothing weird about that.
Anyway, after several conversations, phone calls, emails and unrelenting demands to see the doctor I agreed to take her. I called her to tell her what time I’d pick her up for her appointment and she told me she was sick. Eureka! A trip to the doctor when you are actually ill! To me it seemed like quite a boon!
When I arrived at her apartment, however, she informed me that she was too sick to go to the doctor. Yep, that is what she said. Too sick to go to the doctor.
And that was that.
I called the doctor’s office to inform them that I was cancelling my mother’s appointment because she was too sick to go to the doctor. We’d have to make another appointment. Let’s hope she isn’t too well next time. Fortunately the receptionist laughed with me, at the absurdity of the situation.
So, I’d like to just say, for the record, that I’m really very sorry to whateverhisnamewas for making him cry. I’m sure his mother wasn’t all those things I said she was. I think I got her confused with MY mother. And if he could just forgive me now I’d sure appreciate it.
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