So! I came down with a slight cold this week! And guess what I suddenly remembered!
!!!
SUDAFED IS THE GREATEST CREATION EVER!
Seriously, you guys. Have you had a Sudafed lately? The real stuff, with the actual pseudoephedrine? The thing is like a miracle drug. My appetite, normally a raging monster that can sense refined sugar within two miles, has virtually disappeared. And while I still may be unable to smell anything, or even, you know, breathe that well, MAN DO I HAVE ENERGY.
I was down to only one dose when the cold set in, so a trip to the drugstore was in order. As I was showing my driver’s license to the pharmacist (you know, so they could record my name and track my Sudafed purchases and OH GEORGE ORWELL WERE YOU ON THE MONEY), I leaned toward her conspiratorially. “I don’t blame you for being careful,” I murmured, drumming my fingers on the counter while bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet. “This stuff is SO GOOD it’s no wonder people buy it to make crystal meth.”
Luckily, she had just handed me the box when I delivered that last line, so I didn’t get to see the worried look on her face, or witness how she ran out to the parking lot to copy down my license plate number. I just drove on home, one hand on the wheel while the other popped those beautiful scarlet tablets from their cozy foil-wrap enclosure. “NO MORE FOIL FOR YOU, SUDAFED!” I howled at top volume. “IT’S ALL ME NOW!”
Sadly, the cold appears to be on its way out, so I’ve only had a couple of doses today. But I knew there was still a little bit of the magic coursing through my veins this afternoon, while attending Aura’s class pool party. Another mother casually asked if Adam and I were planning to have any more kids, a query that usually produces a frenzied mishmashed reply of GOD NO NEVER AGAIN WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK. But today, hyped on the good stuff and harboring enough energy to power a reactor and potentially take care of two children, I answered, “Maybe. It might be nice.”
On second thought, perhaps Sudafed should be illegal.
Jubilation! Oh, and mom porn.
January 28, 2010
Ding dong! The cat is gone! Which old cat? The wicked cat! Ding dong! The wicked cat is gooooooooone….
I could just keep singing and singing. You know why? Because singing is what you do when you are ECSTATIC and SUPER HAPPY and OVERJOYED. Such as when you kick your first soccer goal or fall in love or hold your newborn, or when you drive your mother’s devil-spawned, evil-incarnate cat back to Rhode Island, where he can torture the catsitter for a couple of weeks while Mom continues to rehabilitate up here with us.
Of course, when Smokey Jo is at my mother’s house, he’s a different cat. I swear, I could wave the world’s most delectable leather couch in his direction, matador-style, and he wouldn’t even flex one claw. But here he tore and shredded and consistently pooped precisely two inches outside the litter box, usually while looking me straight in the eye. I would have almost admired his chutzpah if my faculties weren’t so clouded by pure, unadulterated hate and the fur he shed 23 hours a day.
Presenting the household traitor. As well as He Who Shall Not be Named.
In other happy news, my mother received a glowing report from her hip surgeon during our short foray to the Ocean State, though she pulled a muscle last week, shortly before I twisted my knee on the garage stairs. (Grace and coordination are not our strong suit. We are, however, geniuses at cribbage. It all evens out.)
We were three generations of health in that doctor’s office, let me tell you. As my mother stumped into the office on her crutches, I hobbled feebly behind her, favoring my tender knee. An hour into waiting for my mother’s name to be called, Aura began her I-have-to-pee-but-refuse-to-do-it-anywhere-but-home routine, where she kind of drags her legs to prevent errant urine from escaping. By the time we left the waiting room, I caught the other patients sneaking sympathetic glances our way, the kind you’re prone to giving when you see a family made up entirely of cripples. I briefly considered capitalizing on the general atmosphere of pity and making a play for my own bottle of Tylenol #4 with codeine, but eh. My first preschool parent-teacher conference is tomorrow and I need to be SHARP. One cannot become too lackadaisical, or drugged, when it comes to discussing her child’s deftness with fingerpaints.
Oh, yes–one more thing. I was glancing over the different search terms that have led people to this blog and was a bit taken aback. Think of how bitterly disappointed the person who searched for www.bangamommy.com must have been when he/she ended up here. (You’re curious now, aren’t you? I’ll give you a clue: It’s a .org, not a .com. Apparently mommy-banging qualifies as an organizational activity. Just so you know.)
Sick days, or why Lifetime movies are just as good as Sudafed.
January 20, 2010
Forgive me for being the world’s laziest blogger, then feel appropriately sorry for me, for I am sick. It could be worse, considering both Aura and my mother had the stomach flu this weekend. My symptoms are limited to occasional waves of nausea and body aches and a mild fever, leading me to believe that if you use two full gallons of Purell in a 48-hour period, you do reap some benefits. However, the skin on your hands then flakes off in big chunks every time you gesture, so it’s kind of a trade-off.
As I sit here, ignoring my child in the name of recovery, do you know what I am thinking about? Sick days. I can’t believe I never appreciated them in my childless days, when I lolled in bed and moaned at regular intervals and demanded that Adam get me more orange juice and more Advil and then maybe more Hostess cupcakes because I think I read somewhere that the crème filling has restorative properties. (See how it’s crème, not cream? I was a French major, so trust me on this one. That accent over the e? It’s a direct translation of “healing.” )
I haven’t had a true sick day since Aura was born, as I am sure is the case for many other parents. It doesn’t matter if I’m overcome with the world’s worst nausea. Aura still wants to paint/use scissors/color/play Elmo Bingo. You know what I want to do? I want to do exactly what I used to do when I was sick: Watch Lifetime movies. Despite being a network I regularly ridicule in my spare healthy time, Lifetime has almost as much convalescent power as vitamin C.
During pre-Aura sick days, I would lie on the couch watching it for hours, marveling at how different Tori Spelling looked in those days before she stole that Canadian woman’s husband and got her own reality show. Where else but Lifetime could I distract myself from nasal congestion by imagining what it would feel like to be an unwed teenage mother, or perhaps a career woman stalked by her lunatic ex-husband, or maybe a twentysomething plagued by an eating disorder that can be cured only by the selfless love of the next-door neighbor whom she never before noticed?
On these days, Adam would come home and greet me with something bordering on real alarm, so concerned was he about the tears streaming down my cheeks. Throwing down an armful of throat lozenges, he would rush to the couch and feel my forehead for a fever. ”No, I’m fiiiiiiine,” I’d blubber, wiping my nose with a ratty tissue and pointing at the television. “It’s just this mooooovie. [sob] Those two are the parents and they just lost their seven-year-old daughter to an incurable blood disease.”
Adam would stare at the TV, his brow furrowed as he tried to catch up. “But why do they have all that baby stuff in their house then, if the daughter was seven?”
After pausing to bite into a fresh cupcake, I’d try to explain. ”Well, just as the daughter was about to die, the mother found out she is pregnant with another child. It’s like one life was lost, but another gained.” As my tears mixed with the chocolate crumbs stuck to my feverish lips, I’d scream, “IT’S ALL JUST SO BITTERSWEET.”
And then I’d feel better. Once you cry for eight straight hours, you really have no need whatsoever for Sudafed. All your nasal passages are clear. Plus you’re so emotionally drained that you sleep right through the night.
But I can’t do that these days. What am I going to do, turn on Lifetime with Aura in the room? I don’t even know how I’d begin to explain incest, never mind the fact that Lifetime Wife Hall of Famer Meredith Baxter-Birney is suddenly a lesbian. The very thought of it is exhausting.
You know, being sick sucks.
