Monthly Archives: November 2023

Jackie Wells-Fauth

It’s sad when we have to part with old friends. You know, in that moment of separation, that you will miss the times you spent with them, all the joy they’ve given you. That is, unless what you are parting with is a skin growth that has dogged and annoyed you for a minimum of ten years. Today, I parted with that old friend, and I was never happier.

One of the first questions the doctor asked me when I showed her this thing (hereafter referred to as TAG—for skin tag) was just how long had I had it. That was a tricky question, because TAG located itself on my hip, and my fat rings above it have always hidden it from my immediate view. And, since I don’t examine myself in the mirror (I just can’t) I failed to be aware of its existence until it started giving me problems when I wore my jeans. The first protest came about ten years ago, so we’ve been together a while.

The doctor’s next question was: How much has TAG grown over the past ten years? Well, you know, had I known that this question was going to be important, I would have gotten one of those growth charts and marked down TAG’s progress over the years and hung it on the kitchen doorway. Since, at first, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, and since then, I tried very hard to just ignore it, I have no concept of if, or by how much, it has grown.

The next step of the doctor was probably the weirdest: she took pictures—of TAG—while he was still attached. She had perfectly good reasons for this procedure, but until she did that, it never occurred to me that TAG might have a future as a model. But the doctor assured me that TAG’s only chances for a future would be in a specimen dish in the lab…without any more pictures.

At last, it was time for TAG and me to part ways. It was emotional, but only because I had to have shots to numb the area and I hate shots. The actual separation was over in a matter of minutes—lots of blood, but no tears. Because TAG is going to leave such a hole in my life, three stitches were necessary. I told the doctor to be very careful with those…I didn’t want her to scar me and ruin my chances as a stripper. She didn’t seem overly concerned and she took no more pictures, which doesn’t bode well for my chances in the field of entertainment.

So now, I am back home and TAG is on the way to a lab where they can determine how such a hideous little thing had the nerve to attach itself to me. I have several theories, but I think the most likely is that I was kidnapped by aliens and TAG was the spy they attached to me so he could gather information for the inevitable alien invasion. I guess we put a stop to that!

My hip is kind of sore and I can’t seem to remember that I had that tiny bit of surgery there because I keep hitting it, turning the wrong way and bending straight over it. I worked with my drama kids this afternoon and discovered that apparently I have a tendency to stand like Captain Janeway on the bridge of the starship Voyager—with my arms and legs akimbo and my hands on my hips. Every time I tried that today, and it was a lot, the Captain had to give a little whimper and find another place to put the hands!

I know that once my stitches heal and the soreness leaves, that I will not miss TAG at all. No more careful donning of my jeans or hitting it with the bath brush. As for now, I think it is important, after ten years, that at this parting of ways, I finally say to TAG, “Good riddance!”

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Couples are supposed to spend more time together, right? I mean, a healthy, solid marriage is built on mutual respect and time spent in each other’s company. Or so I always believed.

Today, I put that theory to the test and it didn’t fare so well. I went with my husband on one of his local hunting excursions and we came back from that and almost headed for the divorce courts. And why, you might ask? I’ll tell you, it’s because when he drives out to go hunting, he calls the rutted, pitted messes he is driving on roads or maybe “section lines”. I call them the highway from hell, and that should in no way indicate for you that there is anything remotely like a highway anywhere near where we are driving.

He always takes the pickup on these pheasant tracking excursions, and apparently if you have the pickup, you can drive through anything. And while the pickup does fine on paved roads and even gravel or dirt, I don’t happen to trust it to navigate grass tracks barely touched by farm equipment, let alone a pickup.

It started out fine. We got in the vehicle and went driving down a fairly wide, paved road with hardly any chunks out of it. On that road we were able to play “chicken” with a pheasant—not  easy to do. The pheasant refused to fly away and just kept walking towards us…I thought for a moment we were going to bag it with the pickup! Eventually, with a cackle, it flew into the air and bang! Roy had ‘em.

“Splendid,” I praised as he came back to me. “Now that you have your pheasant, we can go home.”

“That’s only one,” he answered. “I’m not done. I haven’t got my limit.”

“Your limit? What is your limit?”

“I can get three pheasants in any hunt, that’s my limit. And I haven’t reached it yet.”

As we got back in the pickup and headed down a somewhat narrow, gravel road, I contemplated telling him about MY limit, but I had just watched him shoot a pheasant that refused to back down…I wasn’t going to take any chances!

After a few minutes of spitting up gravel and dust, we turned onto a narrow, dirt road. Now, I was raised on a farm…I know when we have reached the end of the road and when we got to the end of the dirt and the start of grass, I knew we were through.

“Well, too bad, we’ll have to turn around,” I said, trying not to chortle.

“Turn around? What do you mean? The road is up ahead.”

What he optimistically called a road looked more like two tire tracks across a football field, but a football field that was full of potholes and littered with bales of hay which served more as blocks than guides. As we bumped along, the pickup tilted because on one side, the wheels were deep in a rut and on the other side, the wheels were driving at a precarious angle on some high grass.

At last, without running into a single pheasant, we came to a gully in the tire tracks which could only have been crossed with a ferry.

“What a shame!” I said. “We will have to turn around and bump our way back on this section line superhighway. We can’t get over that.”

I was wrong. He put the pickup in reverse, bumped across a couple more tracks, and, squeezing between the scratchy bale and the vicious barbed wire fence, he managed to detour around the hole. Oh, yay!

We finally came to a point in the section line which was fenced off for cattle. We stopped, Roy did some hunting, and I did a little exploring and discovered that to one side of us was a fine dirt road, which looked like the European Autobahn compared to the section line we were on.

“Well, at least there is a road to this side that is an actual road,” I said, pointing to be helpful.

“Oh no,” was the emphatic answer. “If we turn around and go back (past the gully, remember), there is another section line to drive. I hope that big mudhole has dried up.”

Yup, in the future, I think our marriage will stand a better chance if we spend less driving and hunting time together!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Now, for those of you who have never suffered with insomnia—the inability to sleep—this particular entry in my writings will affect you very little—enjoy your nap. For the vast majority, however, who have suffered from at least occasional insomnia, I may be able to strike a cord.

Insomnia has been my companion since childhood. I can remember getting up in the middle of the night and going outside to walk so I wouldn’t disturb others with my sleeplessness. This, of course, created its own set of issues as I lived on a farm and some of those walks were dangerous in total darkness, while others just involved the annoyance of stepping in a hole or in some animal’s droppings. Usually, however, youth and fresh air solved the problem and I went back to my bed and slept.

The trend of sleeplessness grew more prominent when my girls were born. Every mother out there can tell you that deep sleep (that REM kind) is difficult to achieve, when you are listening with your half-asleep ears, for every grunt, groan or breath of a small child. We train ourselves to sleep lightly so that we are ever-present for our little ones, but the joke is on us: when the little ones don’t need that vigilance anymore, we are still trained not to sleep!

Beyond that, there is a little fun activity called “brain mania” which attacks at night. I can go for months without worrying about what there is in my freezer or whether the neighbors are going to replace the loose tile on the roof, but let me get into bed on a weary evening and suddenly, that is all my brain can think about, in addition to how much shopping I have left for Christmas (in July) or whether I should trim my hair or cut it at my next appointment. If future plans can’t occupy my brain, I can always go backwards and wonder if I should have bought those pears when they spoil so fast or whether the odd look on my husband’s face means I said something wrong. A little tip here: if you have that problem, your partner will not appreciate your waking them up at 2:00 in the morning to ask them if they are offended. At 2:00 in the morning, the answer is YES!

Insomnia has caused me to take up things like jig-saw puzzles. I work on them at 3 in the morning through blood-shot eyes and then, when the sun is up, I go back and re-arrange all the pieces I shoved into the wrong spots. I write in the middle of the night a lot, but when I read most of it in the shine of the morning light, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I still don’t know what I meant by such notes as: “Napoleon was misunderstood,” or “check out light switches.” Sleep deprivation doesn’t necessarily promote clarity of thought, especially at midnight!

I watch a lot of television on sleepless nights, but if you have ever perused the television schedule for the middle of the night, you will find it is not appealing. This is when they binge-play such fascinating programs as “Night-Stalker” about the supernatural and “The Best of Naked Housewives” which makes Night-Stalker look good! Mostly, there are paid programs on in the middle of the night, but I’ve never been tempted to buy the age-defying face creams or the jewelry made from Alaskan pines. The down side, of course, is this programing doesn’t make me go to sleep either.

Now, before anyone suggests home remedies, just let me tell you that I have tried pineapple juice, hot vinegar, noise-blocking sounds, hot milk (who ever thought of that anyway?), exercise before bed, meditation before bed, no food past 8 o’clock, a heavy snack at 10:00 and so on. As for over the counter sleep aids, I believe I may have a bottle of every single one of them. My medicine cabinet looks like a yard sale for night-time aides and they all have one thing in common—they don’t work!

The sad fact is, that the only cure for my insomnia may be a sharp blow to the head with something hard and I’ve never been desperate enough to try—but give me a few more sleepless nights and we shall see. Happy sleeping, everyone!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Now, anyone who knows me, knows I am no friend to the telephone. I actually spent a year in therapy and most of it involved my difficulties with the phone. So when I pick on the use of the phone, you must consider my natural prejudices to the darn thing, but seriously, am I the only one who thinks the phone is taking over our lives? Forget other artificial intelligence, just look at that thing that seems to be attached to everyone’s hand today!

I liked the phones of yesteryear. They hung on the wall; you couldn’t take them any further than the cord would stretch and the only thing they did was make it possible for you to communicate with the outside world—one person at a time.  They knew their place and it was comfortable. You couldn’t put them in your pockets or get a weather report on them or discover how far you walked that day. I was very satisfied with this.

Today, the telephone has shrunk in size, but grown gargantuan in use. If I have this right, the phones in our shirt pockets have the ability to: provide internet access, make videos, take all types of pictures, give a weather report, comment on our fitness activities, open the garage doors and turn on and off the lights, babysit and entertain the children, report on who is at the front door, monitor our health, serve as our secretary by reminding us of our schedule and oh, yes, serve as an actual TELEPHONE! And I know, since I am a non-technological marvel, that for many people, I have not even scratched the surface.

And why do I object to all of these many talents of today’s “mobile device”? Well, for one thing, I can’t begin to use all of the dizzying “apps” that are available: I once had a medical office worker complain that she tried to leave a voice message for me, but my voice messages were full. I didn’t even know I HAD voice messages on my phone, let alone have any clue how to access them!

Beyond that, I find that as a reasonable, non-threatening-appearing human being with some entertainment value, I cannot socially compete with the phone. I find myself trying to make conversation with the people near me, only to look around and discover everyone is on their phone. No doubt conversing through text about what a bore I am, talking about the latest funny joke I heard on the television—yes, television; that was the entertainment addiction before the smart phone.

It is impossible to have a conversation that doesn’t get interrupted by at least a half dozen “fact-checks”: “I’m pretty sure that flood happened in 1973, but that really isn’t the point of my story”. Before I can get all of that out of my mouth, three people have checked it out and the flood was actually in 1975—and everyone, including me, has completely lost interest in the point of my story by then! Conversation has been reduced to snippets shared from the internet on our phones and a good weather forecast can be brought up minute by minute, while simultaneously tracking where we are every minute of the day.

Unfortunately, the non-amusing part of these devices is the fact that they are causing accidents on the road and interruption of bodily functions—such as sleeping. Beyond that, we face the ever present danger of someone hacking the phone, losing the phone or having the phone destroyed—like when someone’s trying to get your attention and the only way they can find to do that is to snatch the phone, throw it onto the driveway and back the car over it repeatedly. This can produce a great deal of satisfaction—or so I am told.

Now, I know that the modern telephone is a technological wonder—personally, I wonder how to use the darn thing—but as a human being who was born when computers were still so big they filled entire rooms, I have trouble adjusting to the world being contained in the palm of my hand and people giving me that sad, superior little smile when they look at my set of encyclopedias and pronounce them “quaint.” So, since all of us go our own way, I will continue to fact check with my World Book Encyclopedias and attempt to hack into my own phone. Anybody out there know how to check Voice-Mail?