Suck: An Introduction
Well hi there! Happy new year. Unless of course you follow the Chinese calendar, in which case, forget I said anything.
Christmas happened recently, which meant, typically, that it was High Drama Season in the Foster family. There were some notable occurrences of dysfunction perpetrated by members of my extended family, but I’m not at liberty to discuss those because if I did, my mother would fly directly out of this computer screen to gouge out my eyes.
The … erm … highlight (if you want to call it that) of the drama began on Christmas Eve, when my mother received a phone call from my grandmother, who announced that she’d just fallen down her basement stairs. Mom looked at me and said, "Your grandmother fell down the cellar st …," by which point I had already put on my coat and grabbed the car keys.
Before I continue, though, I really must share something: I was telling this story to someone at work, and when I got to the part where Grandma fell down the stairs, this certain person said, "Oh. You mean your other grandma," thereby verifying that I was referring to a grandmother other than the one who recently sashayed off to the Great Evermore, and I had to jam my entire right leg down my throat to prevent myself from replying, "No, no. It was the dead one who fell down the steps. Imagine our surprise."
I arrived at my grandmother’s house 10 minutes later to find her prone on the couch, holding a bag of Ore-Ida frozen French fries against her right knee. Didn’t she have any ice, I wanted to know. No ice, she replied. She doesn’t "use" ice, so why make ice? She shrugged dismissively as I began inspecting her for damage.
The right knee was bruised and swollen, the left leg was lacerated in several different places, her lip was bruised, her ribs were sore, and she had some swelling on her left eye which indicated to me that a major shiner was imminent. I went to the kitchen to find something frozen for her to put on her aching side and came back with a bag of succotash. The woman doesn’t have ICE, but she sure as shit has succotash.
After I had assembled soap, water, clean cloth, and triple-antibiotic ointment, I sat down on the floor and began wiping away blood and cleaning the impressive assortment of scrapes, cuts, and puncture wounds she’d sustained. The poignancy of the moment wasn’t lost on me. Here I was cleaning her wounds the way she used to clean mine. I stopped the thought before it turned into a blurry Lifetime TV moment. I was in no mood for a reverie.
"How in the bloody hell did you fall down the stairs?" I demanded. Grandma replied that she was standing at the top of the stairs and was reaching down to pick up a roll of aluminum foil that was on the landing. Why, you may ask, was the aluminum foil on the landing? Because that’s where she keeps it! That’s why! I opened my mouth to argue the complete foolishness inherent in keeping aluminum foil on the basement stairs when it clearly belongs in the kitchen, then decided against it. Have you ever succeeded in arguing logic with an 86-year-old Lithuanian woman? You have? Can I interest you in a career in the exciting field of cat-herding?
I got on the phone to Eric, my cousin, the doctuh, who’s in his first year as an emergency room resident at a hospital in Philadelphia. I told him she was complaining of rib pain; should I take her to the hospital? He suggested I place my fingers at the epicenter of the painful area she indicated and then press as hard as I could on her ribcage to see if I heard any "crackling or popping." That way, he said cheerfully, we’d know whether she had any broken ribs.
Let me explain something: There’s a damned good reason why I’m not a medical doctor. Put simply, internal human processes make me ill. I can’t even watch fake blood on TV without diving behind the sofa. As someone who has enough endocrine and psychological conditions to warrant the swallowing of 10 prescription pills per day, I am constantly sitting in a lab somewhere at the behest of some doctor who wants to check my blood for antibodies and levels and weevils and whatnot, and even though this has occurred at least 15 times per year since 2002, I still have to look the other way when the lab tech sticks the needle in.
"Eric, you know me. If something pops, I’ll pass out."
Eric laughed -- he who once returned my phone call saying, "Hey, sorry I missed you before. I looked down and saw it was you on my cell, but I couldn’t answer ‘cause I was up to my elbows in some guy’s chest cavity," -- and told me to suck it up.
I did as ordered, feeling all the blood drain from my head as I assaulted my Grandmother. "Where does it hurt? Here? Okay, apparently I need to STAB you there." And then pressed like hell on the indicated area while she howled in pain. Great fun, really.
Reasonably satisfied that she didn’t require emergency medical attention, and really not wanting to subject her to a hospital stay over Christmas, I loaded her in to the car and drove her back to my parents’ house, where my mother spent most of the three following days sighing melodramatically and reminding me every half-hour that she hated Christmas and couldn’t wait for the new year, because 2005 had really fucking sucked.
I couldn’t argue with her.
Two days after Christmas, my grandmother went to a doctor who took x-rays and said, "Hey! Looky there! A whole bunch of bones in your face are broken! And oh look! You have several broken ribs on the right side of your body! By the way. The broken face bone thing? Yeah, you’re going to need a bunch of surgery to fix that."
She got through the surgery without a problem and is currently recuperating at my parents’ house, where my mother is attempting to stuff food down her throat and threatening every 12 minutes to move permanently to Maui.
So yes. That was the last ball of gooey nonsense that 2005 threw at us. And while I am somewhat reticent to criticize 2005 because I’m afraid that if I do, 2005 will get pissed and talk to its friend 2006, and then 2006 will be like, "Oh, you think that was bad, motherfucker? Just wait," I’m going to say this: 2005 fucking sucked.
So, for the next seven days, I’ll be running a series of daily entries here at Six-Layer Kate entitled "2005 Fucking Sucked." Join me, won’t you? I’d love for you to read about the entertaining, unending parade of clusterfuck that caused the worst nervous break I’d ever experienced in my life. See you tomorrow!
posted by Kate at 2:04 PM link/comments
