Daily Diatribes

I am going to blog something here. Even if it’s senseless rambling, incoherent babbling or just plain idiotic tripe, I am going to publish something. It’s not like I haven’t started several blogs, but I get sidetracked by my life. I’m kind of busy these days.
This week I am subbing in a 9th grade algebra class. I love the kids, but I hate subbing in a math class. Just looking at the problems makes me feel stupid. I don’t like math because it’s arbitrary. If 2x + 3x = 5x*13.325/18 carry the 2, then x=48 in a perfect world, if it’s Tuesday, the moon is full and Brett Favre is retired. Supposedly there are some rules, but I’ve never seen any evidence of that. As soon as you memorize a rule, then they add 13 exceptions to it. I’ll take English or History any day of the week because I can BS my way out of a paper bag. There’s no BS in math.

Today I had to administer a test to the little darlings. Giving a test in February is a bad idea. It’s cold and flu season. All the kids have the sniffles. And when the classroom gets really quiet, which it’s prone to do in testing conditions proctored by a peri-menopausal mother of three, the sniffles become magnified. Imagine twenty teenagers sniffing intermittently and you’ve just described a day in hell. God forbid anyone should do anything extreme like BLOW their nose. No, it’s preferable to just keep sucking the snot back up every 37 seconds. Five minutes into the test and I feel like running from the room shrieking. I fantasize about going up to each child individually with a tissue, pinching its little nose shut and forcing it to blow. There seems to be a stigma in high school associated with blowing the nose, so I will just treat them like toddlers and they will have no choice but to evacuate the contents of their nostrils and STOP SNIFFING!!!

I did listen carefully to see if I could discern any kind of pattern. I thought there was a good possibility they were transmitting the answers to one another via morse code. “sniff sniff…sniff sniff sniff….sniff….sniff sniff sniff sniff….sniff….sniff sniff sniff sniff….sniff sniff….” could translate into “the answer to number 7 is eighteen.” We just assume they are using their advanced knowledge of electronics to cheat. The children of the millenium should be able to program their calculators in such a way that all the necessary formulas are at hand. But perhaps they are sophisticated enough to realize teachers would detect that, so they’ve gone back to good old fashioned morse code. Who would EVER suspect them of SNIFFING the answers to one another??? It’s actually pretty brilliant when you think about it.

Right, so enough about algebra. I am trying to write this blog and write a paper on “The Assumption of Negative Identity in Cornelia Funke’s ‘The Thief Lord’” and I’m deeply afraid I’m going to inadvertantly spend a paragraph of my paper discussing the algebraic connotations of sniffling snot. So I am going to sign off and hope that I can come up with a more defnitive blog at a later date. Time to go and give a test to my next bunch of snifflers!!!

There is something in my attic and it’s been tapping relentlessly for the last thirty minutes. I am teetering on the verge of an intense psychotic rage because this noise is SO DAMN ANNOYING!!! At first, I thought the dog was scratching itself. It’s that rhythmic “I’ve got a flea” kind of thumping that dogs do. But I accounted for all the animals and none of them are scratching. And I realized it was coming from….UPSTAIRS!! (cue the eerie music)

I am cursed with a very vivid imagination. For an entire year, when I was the goddess’s age, I wouldn’t touch the floor of my bedroom because I was CONVINCED that Jaws was underneath my bed. Why Jaws would choose to live under my bed in our apartment on a military base outside of Washington D.C escapes me now, but at the tender age of 8, it made perfect sense. Where else WOULD Jaws be, other than under my bed, waiting to eat me? At that time, I hadn’t even seen the movie, but I knew about it. Just knowing about it was enough. To leave my bedroom, I would perform this complicated maneuver where I stood on the bed, leaped across the room to a floor rug and bounded off that and and out the door. Floor rugs are safety zones in shark infested bedrooms; everybody knows this to be true.

That same year I was also convinced the demon baby from the movie “It’s Alive” was hiding in a sewer, waiting for me to walk by so it could leap out and eat me. Does anyone remember this movie? The baby rips its way out of the womb and kills everybody in the delivery room, then begins looking for other victims. Again, I didn’t actually see the movie, but the trailers, shown between ‘Fantasy Island’ and ‘The Love Boat’, were enough to scare the bejeebers out of me. I walked to school every day, and it was the worst walk of my life. If my older brother ditched me, which he frequently did, I was left alone to scan the sewers and pray the baby wouldn’t shoot out of one of them and rip out my throat. As I recall, that was a particularly bad year for my imagination. I suspect, looking back, it was probably because my Dad was finally home from Vietnam and our family was trying to adjust. Whatever the cause, I was scared of EVERYTHING!

Unfortunately, the vivid imagination persists. And, thanks to that imagination, I know the noise from upstairs is probably a horde of demons waiting for the perfect moment to shoot down the stairs to whisk me off to Hell. I know this because my house is built over a portal to Hell. Nancy and I discovered it last spring. We were sitting on the steps one day, waiting for the bus, and we noticed that up in the eaves of my house, wasps were clustered thickly, buzzing around maniacally. Everyone knows the presence of wasps indicates Satanic activity. Therefore Nancy and I concluded the house, which she lived in before me, was built over a direct access to Hell. Nancy and I no longer speak as I am currently in the process of suing her for failing to disclose that her house was built over a portal to Hell. It’s bad enough the master bedroom closets are too small, but I can work around that. Portal to Hell, however, is another thing altogether. It would have been nice to know that the Prince of Darkness resided in the upper story BEFORE I signed the contract.

Portal to Hell brings me to my next fear, which is the house from “The Amityville Horror”. That book scared me so badly in Seventh grade that I checked it out of the library three times and read it. I was obsessed with that book. And if you’ve ever read it, you would know that the house not only had the scariest windows ever built, it was also constructed over….a PORTAL TO HELL!! Which is why the occupants had such a hard time with flies. Everyone knows flies are the devil’s work. That’s just common sense.

There is also an odor in my house, and it is the odor of human feces. For months after reading “The Amityville Horror”, I constantly sniffed the air fearfully. In the book, right before a demon visit, the residents would smell feces, so I was hyper-vigilant for the odor of poo. At the first hint of poo, I would snatch up a cross and a Bible because no damned demon was going to catch me unaware. Since there were three kids using one bathroom, my demon banishing tools got a lot of use. So smelling poo now only confirmed for me that a demon horde was upon me and it was only a matter of when, not if, I was going to be slaughtered by demons. Until I visited the powder room and discovered that one of my lovely offspring had left a floater. So I checked that one off my mental list of “How to Confirm the Presence of Satan in Your Home”: smell of human feces is…well….human feces. I blasted the powder room with caramel room spray after I flushed. Now my house smells like creamy caramel poopy.

Right, so anyway, there is a thumping noise from above. When faced with a thumping noise that is possibly of diabolical origin, one has no choice but to go upstairs and verify the source of the noise. I whistled for Lulu, my trusty canine companion and we made our way upstairs. Sure enough, as I ascended, the noise increased in volume. The tapping was frantic and relentless; perhaps the demon was caught on a stack of old Southern Living magazines? Lulu growled menacingly; I hoped the demons were not omniscient because Lulu sounds scary but has the IQ of your average brick. She’s big but dumb.

Shivering with trepidation, I approached the attic door. The noise increased in volume: thump THUMP thumpety thump THUMP thump…. I opened the door and flicked the light switch. Nothing. The light bulb had burned out. Increasingly, I felt like the heroine of a low-budget, direct-to-video horror movie. I made my way up the stairs in the dark but I couldn’t see anything. Lulu bounded up ahead of me, wagging her tail. The thumping was loud and persistent, but nothing flew across the room to mutilate me. My throat was intact. Apparently, the presence was non-demonic.

I went back downstairs and did what any self-respecting woman would do. I called my husband at work and demanded he come home immediately and get rid of whatever animal was inhabiting our attic. He sighed huffily at me and told me it would have to wait because he had a dog under anesthesia. Oh, right, like I’ve never heard THAT excuse before! I told him he better come home at lunch time to deal with it or not bother coming home at all. Big jerk. However, the noise has now stopped. Apparently my visit to the attic with my big scary dog convinced whatever it was to vacate the premises. All is quiet now. Probably it was only a squirrel. Or maybe the demons are lurking stealthily, waiting for me to appear again so they rip into my underbelly with their razor-sharp claws. I think I’ll go to the library today and check out “The Amityville Horror”, so I can refresh my memory on how to deal with a house built over a portal to Hell.

This week I am feeling my age. It’s cold and I want to huddle indoors by the fire and watch “Murder She Wrote” reruns. My oh my, that Angela Lansbury is spunky!!! I do not want to go traipse around a college campus with my book bag. I am too old and worn out for college.
I had to turn in a paper yesterday. Only I didn’t turn in a ‘paper’. Instead, I uploaded it to a website and it was electronically transferred into the hands of my professor. The whole process seems very sketchy to me. And it reminds me of just what a fossil I am. In class yesterday, I voiced my concerns to the professor, who looks young enough to be my great grandson.
“Are you going to let us know if you DON’T get our papers?” I asked. “Because I’m a little leery of the whole email thing.” I laughed a bit and said “When I went to college the first time, I wrote my papers on a TYPEWRITER!!”
His eyes got big and he said “Oh WOW!!” And the bad thing is that I don’t think he was being sarcastic. I think he was really, truly honored to be in the same room with someone who had operated one of those mystical machines he had only encountered in literature. I was a piece of history come to life! I wanted to stand up and shout “YES DAMMIT, I AM OLD!! I KNOW WHAT CARBON PAPER IS!! I PLAYED RECORD ALBUMS ON A RECORD PLAYER!! I HAVE UNDERWEAR IN MY DRAWER THAT IS PROBABLY OLDER THAN MOST OF YOU!! I PLAYED WITH THE DINOSAURS WHO LIVED OUTSIDE OUR CAVE!!!!!”
And suddenly I realized just how out of place I was in that classroom full of undergraduates. I had already berated the girl next to me for thinking that a fruit rollup was an adequate substitute for fruit. “Look at these ingredients,” I told her. “Corn syrup, crystallized corn syrup, sugar AND RED DYE NUMBER 40!!! You might as well eat a piece of sugar coated cellophane!! Next time get an apple!!!” I stopped short of telling her the increased fiber would help her bowels move more efficiently. Thank God I have some restraint!!!
There is a boy who sits in front of me and his hair is too long. I want to bring some scissors and cut it all off so I can see his face. I also want to bring some nail clippers so he can cut his fingernails. I want to force feed him broccoli and calf liver because he looks a little too pale for my liking. My mothering instincts kick into overdrive every time I walk through the door and I want to tell everyone in the class to button up their jackets before they go outside or they’ll catch a cold. I am losing my mind!!!
Here is proof that I am losing it. Sunday night, Napoleon was looking for his antibiotics. He is a boy and he cannot find ANYTHING!! He asked me to come help and I said “no, because I’ll come in and they’ll be sitting there in plain sight and then I’ll have to beat you.” He kept searching and after fifteen minutes of listening to slamming, muttering and cursing, I finally got up to help. And discovered that, in fact, I had taken the pill bottle and put it away in the spice cabinet. If he would have just looked there in the first place, it would have saved him a lot of angst. Doesn’t EVERYONE keep their antibiotics with the paprika?
I probably need to quit school and quit working because the few brain cells I have left are being taxed by those genius children I birthed. I’m so very needed at home. Yesterday, I was getting ready for class when Napoleon called. “Mom,” he said, “I forgot my pants.” This disturbed me greatly. Was he in the process of being arrested for indecent exposure?
“What the hell do you mean you forgot your pants?” I asked in my Carol Brady voice.
“My pants for choir,” he said. “I thought they were on the hanger with the jacket but they’re not.” Naturally. So, instead of putting on makeup to minimize my ancientness, I had to drop everything and take my son his pants.
Every time I go to class, the phone rings and it’s some child bugging me with some piece of minutiae that can’t POSSIBLY wait until I get home. When my children have a problem, it’s up to me to solve it NOW. Not their father….me!! The goddess called yesterday during my English class. Since she is home alone for thirty minutes in the afternoon, I have to answer it. Naturally she was calling to ask me if 49 divided by 7 was 7. “Yes,” I hissed.
“But when I put 7 divided by 49 in the calculator that’s not the answer I got!!!” All I can say is thank God she is blonde and pretty because she will not be cruising through life on her advanced intellectual skills. “Type in 49 then divide THAT by 7,” I hissed. “Oh,” she said. I hung up. And banged my head against the table a lot when the boy professor asked me “are you working math problems in my class?”
“Sorry,” I said, “I had to help my nine year old with her homework.” This seemed to confirm for him my status as a bona fide ancient hag. He didn’t bother me again. But when he walked by to hand back our quizzes, I jumped to my feet and brushed the chalk dust off his back. I just couldn’t help myself; what if he was in a car accident wearing a dirty shirt?

Possibly I am pushing it by calling myself a genius. But it sounded a lot better than calling myself a paranoid, delusional hypochondriac, even though that is probably the truer statement. Hey, it’s my blog, I’ll call myself whatever I want!!

Long time readers are familiar with my brand of hypochondria. It revolves around the notion that at any moment, my children are going to keel over and die without warning. Therefore, I am constantly monitoring my offspring for symptoms of dengue fever, hanta virus, listeriosis, coccidia, Lassa fever, epilepsy, Capgras syndrome, sarcoidosis, irritable bowel syndrome, and the ever popular, but no less deadly, leukemia. It has been a joke between Renee and I, long before our relationship blossomed from doctor/patient to doctor/crazed friend who now has your cell phone number, that my children are suffering from chronic, undiagnosed, leukemia.

One memorable April Fool’s Day, I came to the office with MA and told Renee I was pregnant again. She retaliated by looking at MA’s chart and telling me she had leukemia. After they got my heart started again and put the crash cart away, she realized she was dealing with an above average hypochondriac. I like to put my whole heart into whatever I do!! But I don’t like to think of it as hypochondria. I prefer to think of it as VIGILANCE!! I don’t like surprises, especially in the form of death or of the dismemberment of a family member. In keeping with the Boy Scout motto, I want to be prepared. So I am always trying to anticipate their demise, or, better yet, diagnose their fatal disease before they actually succumb to it. I hold advanced degrees from the University of WebMD and also from MayoClinic online. I am rivalled only by Dr. House in terms of my diagnostic abilities!!

Last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I became convinced the goddess has osteosarcoma. This is because she has a small bump on the back of her knee. For a normal person, the mind might go:
Hmmm….look….a small bump on the back of my child’s knee….must be a bug bite.
Here’s how my mind works:
Hmmmm….OH MY GOD…. A BUMP ON THE BACK OF MY CHILD’S KNEE…..What are the differential diagnoses???? I need to medicate it now!!! Someone charge the paddles!!!!!!!!! She’s going to DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Frightening, I know. Trust me, it’s even worse if you live inside the head with all the voices. Right, so a few weeks ago, when I noticed this bump on her knee, my first diagnosis was a staph infection. I treated it with prescription ointment (because naturally I have a stockpile of that stuff!!) and it didn’t get better, but it didn’t get worse. She quit complaining about it and I forgot about it. I suffer from transient hypochondria, complicated by ADD.

Last night, it occurred to me to take another look at the bump. It looked the same. I touched it and mentally charted “a firm nodule located anterior to the distal region subcutaneously luxated in the patellar area” or, in non medical terms, a knot on the back of her knee. I made Stalin look at it and he was appallingly blase about the possiblity of the goddess succumbing to ’smallbumpitis’ and expiring on our bed. He told me to quit worrying about it and sent her off to bed. Cold hearted Jerk!! Reluctantly, I took his advice and put it out of my mind.

But as I drifted off last night, the bump popped into my head and I immediately recognized that it could only be osteosarcoma, a cancerous bone tumor found in young people and young dogs. I tried to hide the knowledge from myself, but it was too late. My Flight or Fight Response had been activated and I was on Full Red Alert. “How could I have overlooked such an obvious diagnosis?” I berated myself repeatedly. How many precious minutes had I shaved from her life by missing a differential??? Dr. House would have never missed something so obvious!!

Here’s another thing about my mental condition: the rational part of me is lucid and aware that the irrational part of me is acting like a complete ninny. That voice tries mightily to smother the other voices but it’s no good. Once I have a cancer diagnosis in my head, I’m like a dog with a bone…and a cancerous bone at that!! Pretty soon, I had no choice but to get out of bed, trudge wearily to the computer, and pull up the WebMD site.

Actually, I googled boils first. This was a mistake because boils are disgusting. The pictures that came up are absolutely indescribable. I am a good diagnostician, but I don’t want to look at icky things. (I absolutely HATE the ads for the craniofacial foundation in my People magazine. I’m telling you, nothing wigs me out more than turning the page and staring into the horribly disfigured face of some poor child in India. It’s very disconcerting to turn the page, expecting to read the rest of the article about Brittany Spears and finding instead that you are staring into the gaping nasal orifices of some poor child.) I don’t do well with visuals. So the boils completely repulsed me; plus, the goddess obviously did not have a boil.

With great trepidation, I googled “osteosarcoma”. Within seconds, I was reassured that the goddess was not suffering from osteosarcoma. And boy, was I glad she didn’t have it because it’s very nasty cancer. A little more research revealed to me that the goddess was, in fact, suffering from….a bump on the leg. There is absolutely no telling what it might be, other than….a bump on the leg. It wasn’t a boil, it wasn’t cancer….whatever it might be, the important part of the story is that it was now after midnight and I was wide awake!! My child was not dying, nor was I sleeping. So I spent the next hour surfing Facebook, posted a reasonably high score on Bejeweled Blitz and finally fell into a deep, untroubled sleep around 1:30 a.m. So what’s the moral of the story boys and girls?? That it’s probably time to increase my psych meds and sever my internet connection!!