the man, part 3

I'm thinking I should have turned the comments off on the posts I did about Jack and Cicely. 9 people commented on his and only one on hers.

Then again, neither one of them would read their posts so it's not like they'd even notice.

Whatever.

Last Wednesday the man came home early from work. It was about 3pm and I was folding laundry in the basement whilst watching tv. Okay actually, truthfully, I was watching tv with a hamper of laundry sitting beside me. This is not the point.

I heard the door open and I panicked because I was sure all the doors were locked up tight. As much as I love all the kids in school all day, I will admit I don't always entirely feel safe. I make sure the place is locked up like Fort Knox.

Okay, so the door opens upstairs and someone enters and I am madly raking my brain as to what I can find in the basement to use as a lethal weapon should it come to that. I say lethal because my plan would be to kill, not maim.

You should probably know that.

I have my eye on a drumstick from Rock Band and so I yell up the stairs, "You better be my husband and not some creepy mad man whose come here to do me bodily harm!"

The potential creepy mad man returns my enquiry with "yes, I am your husband. Your sick husband."

Instantly my mind goes to Oh bother. A sick husband? Who wants one of those?

He limps down the stairs and crashes onto the couch while letting this very sentence slip from his mouth, "I'm sick. You need to take care of me."

I swallowed a laugh/snort/gag sound and asked him if we had met.

"Hi, my name is Catherine. I don't take care of sick people."

When we were first married he used to get sick all the time. It always started with a sore throat and went into a sniffle and a cough with some aches and chills. It was pathetic and a giant waste of time.

At some point, in that first year, I made it very clear unto him that I don't do sick. I don't coddle. I don't hover. I don't answer to a bell.

I suck it up and he needed to suck it up too. I wasn't his mommy.

He stopped getting sick.

So basically, what I'm trying to get at is that I have this whole psychosomatic theory of if your mind is healthy then so will your body be.

It works, try it.

The awesome thing about this theory is that I very rarely get sick. Like once a decade, maybe. The problem with this theory is that when I do get sick it is akin to dying. I haven't been sick since I was 8 months pregnant with Amelia. I had 'walking pneumonia' at Christmas and I was SICK. That was December of 2005.

That's right, I haven't even so much as had an itchy throat since then because I hated it so much so I vowed never to get sick again.

Healthy mind. Or threatened mind. What's the difference really?

The man didn't take care of me then, when I was carrying his 9 pound baby in my belly, with borderline pneumonia, so what makes him think I would take care of him now with this pathetic little barfy flu he had going on?

I said "go to bed." But basically what I meant was "get away from me."

He went to bed. He barfed a couple more times and then started to get better. He even got out of bed. How sick could he be?

The next morning, when the alarm went off at 6:20 I thought to myself I'm only going to drive Cicely to seminary if he says he can't do it. Don't offer.

He rolled out of bed. Sat up.

"How are you feeling?" Okay, I'm not totally heartless.

"Better. But weak." Ohhhh the drama.

"Okay, well have a good day. Don't over do it."

And he left.

If you are wondering, which I know you are, how much noise this man makes when he is throwing up just look at the size of the propane tank attached to our barbeque.




He does nothing small. Go big or go home.....even when it comes to throwing up.

And he wonders where my fear of the BBQ comes from.