It Doesn't Pay to be Sick

It's Monday and for most of us this means we are off celebrating the holiday. Yes, I was thankful to have this long glorious weekend off but unfortunately I am still sick. Normally I look forward to having a Monday off. This is one of the rare days when the babies are at the nursery and their parents are at work, and I'm home alone...not resting.The first thing I attempted to was find a doctor's office that would be open. Yeah, right. Which leads me to make the decision whether or not to go to work tomorrow. I'm not as near death as I thought I was on Saturday but even I'm smart enough to know that somethings on my body just don't feel right. The fact that my head hurts all over when I touch it tells me that I need an antibotic. It's probably really congested and its making my teeth hurt. Anyone who knows me knows that I can take anything except a toothache. It also has my right ear hurting, my face feels puffy and I have a cold sore. Now that I've totall grossed myself out now I can say I spent my entire morning searching for my Carmex instead of resting. It would have been a lot easier just to send someone to the drug store but since I don't drive and no one is home I searched. In the process of searching, I cleared the mail off of my dresser and started cleaning out some purses. Ladies, why do we have so many purses? Geeze. It gave me a chance to gather up my reciepts and put them in gold envelopes for tax time. This was totally depressing to see how much money I spent in 2009. I have WalMart receipts coming out of the yazoo. My grocery bills have gone from about $400 a month to around a $1,000 a month. I don't know about you guys but I am not made of money and I don't have a money tree in the backyard to shake since Hurricane Katrina decided to uproot it and put it through my roof.
My telephone kept ringing off the hook. It was one of my daughter-in-laws. You would think she would leave a message but no. So I answered like a fool and she was calling to tell me that she was in town for the Martin Luther King parade and my grand-daughter wanted to see me. Normally I would have been happy as a clam since I don't get to see her that often. The conversation went like this:
"Your baby wants to see you."
"She can't. I might have the flu."
"But she's going to cry."
"She could get the flu."
"She has a cold anyway.""It could be the swine flu.""Put on a mask."Then the conversation ended. It pissed me off to no extent. I don't know what's wrong with this generation of young adults? I don't have H1N1 but what if I did. Two hours later she called to tell me that my granddaughter said she will wait until I'm feeling better. Speaking of ungrateful kids. The ones that live in my house were so unconcerned that I was sick that no one checked on me. I could be laying in my room dead from rigormortis and they wouldn't know about it until they needed money. I had to come out a couple of times yesterday to get ice and the next thing I knew it I was babysitting. The two grandchildren are already sick, and I'm guessing that I probably caught some baby cootie bug from them anyway. Saturday night they went off to visit their other grandmother (the one that buys them candy and designer clothes, and the one who has a life). Their father disappeared into the back garage to watch the Saints football game with his friends, their mother went off to work, and my youngest son and his son slept most of the day. Talk about a life. In fact the first time I saw my daughter-in-law since Thursday night was yesterday morning and we live in the same house. She mentioned something to me about her knee hurting. I've been coughing up a lung for a couple of days so she think I care about her knee. When she came home last night she was upset because her husband put the kids down for a late nap. First of all, I had to answer the door while holding her big whopper of a baby girl in my arms because she got out of the bed and wanted me. As usual she had that cell phone attached to her ear and I wondered where her keys to the door were."Your son is so damn crazy. Those kids are just going to be up all night and they have to go to school tomorrow.""You're been at work all evening and you haven't been here pulling your hair out trying to keep up with them."I think I offened her. I didn't care. Not only did I have her two but also my other 3 year old grandson. These kids can't hold anything in their hands without wasting it. They fight and argue and they can tear up hell. Yes I love them but they aren't mine. To the children of the 80's and 90's: just because your parents are still alive doesn't mean they are your built-in babysitters.Anyway in the process of dying I donned my mask, cooked dinner and mopped the kitchen and den that was sticky with macaroni, juice and whatever else they manage to spill. Babies don't care that you're sick either. Well, one of the three year olds decided to roll his truck up and down my body Saturday while I lie prone on my bed with chills. "Come play Maw Maw.""Can't. Maw Maw is sick.""You're not sick.""When was the last time you saw Maw Maw in bed in the daytime?"It took a minute or two to register. So he rolled the plastic truck over my body and head. "This should make you feel better.""What makes you think this is going to make me feel better?" I asked.He just gave me that delightful devilish smiles that is going to make some young woman swoon one day. "I'm ready to eat," he said. "I want some macaroni."It was better than Spagettio's. So I got up and fixed the macaroni. When I got back into my room he was fast asleep. It would have been adorable except for the fact that I felt faint like I was about to pass out because I was still so weak. Of course I can laugh about it now. I spent most of my young adult life writing humorous tales about raising my children, and as you can see things are still as insane as ever in my household. This blog is about all the writing I got done even though I've been home all by myself. For a writer its not what you write, its the fact that you write. So if blogging about my dysfunctional family fills my quota...so be it.
Imari Jade