Category Archives: Humorous Column

September 16, 2015 · 1:46 pm

Teaching the sophomores how to write

I was teaching a class in proper writing techniques to my sophomores this morning when the subject of my blog came up. They are such a lively, enquiring group that they are fun to teach, but when it comes to writing, they wonder what I am bothering them for. The blog may help me with this lesson.

We had a long conversation about the merits of good writing and I told them that my Mom is a very good writer as well and that’s how I learned. Trying to emphasize how important strong writing really is, the hour just slipped away like a river for us.

Sand Dunes National Park, CO

Sand Dunes National Park, CO

As I got caught up in my lesson, I gave them an entire list of things they must do if they want to learn to write well. To write well, they will need to learn to take their time, completed an outline, writing a rough draft, do a thorough edit scan and produce a final copy.

They worked very hard on the outline today, trying very hard to write a narrative piece instead of a how-to. I got many delightfully outlines on the subjects of hunting, pets, trips and food. I’m so excited to see how the papers develop.

I have spent so much time working on grammar concepts with the sophomores and now I’m going to try and show them why it matters. I’ve done all I can to teach them the parts of speech. Two years ago, I was singing, Row, row, row your boat, row, that is a verb. Verbs show action every time, unless they link a word. Teaching them the merits of sentence structure and strong spelling, it has been an interesting time, teaching the sophomores about writing.

I have made pretty much every mistake that is possible when constructing this writing and now I’m going to direct my sophomores to this blog to see if they can find them. In the meantime, I’m putting this online for anyone to see. If you would care to check out my writing mistakes, you are welcome to give it your best and perhaps, show the sophomores why their writing is so important!

Sophomores, you must find at least five writing errors…good luck to all of you!

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September 14, 2015 · 2:32 pm

Bringing Up Josie

Raising children was a complex and interesting process. As a parent, I can honestly say that I will probably never think I am done raising my children. But since I have taken on the task of raising a puppy, parenthood may seem like a picnic.

Josie on a rare occasion - chewing something she's supposed to!

Josie on a rare occasion – chewing something she’s supposed to!

The first thing I have discovered is that there is nothing so energetic as a small puppy like our Josie. This dog can take a walk around the yard at a dead run, pull everything she can find out of the garbage cans and chew it up and still have the energy to run a mile and a half on a half mile walk. She wants to play constantly and for a couple beyond their play years, this can become problematical for us.

Of course, everything she gets, she chews. So far she has eaten my address book, two books I was attempting to read, my glasses (it’s alright, though, because I have nothing to read) and every plastic canvas creation I have attempted in the last month.

We have the bathroom situation figured out. She goes outside…unless she goes inside. So far, my screaming at her when she starts to pee on the rug only means she pees faster to get me to stop screaming. She hasn’t figured out  yet why something we praise her for doing out in the grass is something she gets in trouble for if she does it a few feet away on the living room floor.

As a typical puppy, it is second nature for her to bite everything she plays with. She can start out licking your hand or foot but biting will soon follow. I read somewhere that the best way to train a dog not to bite is to roll up some paper and slap her sharply on the nose every time she bites. Josie bit my foot and I slapped her sharply and said, “No.” She sat back and considered it a moment, and then tried again. Again, I said, “No.” and slapped her with the paper. She settled down at once, lying down and looking very cute and innocent.11896253_10100576420082496_4848608320393750555_n

Satisfied with my attempt at doggie discipline, I went to get her a treat from the kitchen. I returned with the treat, only to find that she was chewing the rolled up paper to shreds. I didn’t give her the treat, but I did have to give her some points for problem solving.  The problem she hasn’t solved is how to get rid of all the paper in the house so I can’t roll up anymore!

My rugs may be taking the hardest part of bringing up the puppy. They are being constantly washed after Josie uses them for her bathroom breaks and when she’s not doing that, she is chewing them up. She especially likes the one I have under my small desk in the living room. I wasn’t too worried about the rug because she couldn’t get it out from under the desk. I found out I was wrong the day I heard the crash from the living room and Josie came running with the rug in her mouth and the wreckage from my desk tipping over strewn out behind her.

I had thought she was getting better, but today, while working in the basement, I could hear her, running madly around on the main floor. She must have heard me on the stairs, coming to check on her, because she met me at the door of the basement and flopped down on her belly to give herself a more innocent appearance. The innocent air didn’t help, however, since she had a string stuck in her teeth and hanging  from her mouth and streaming out to the rug that she was slowly unraveling.

Josie on the move!

Josie on the move!

Yes, bringing up Josie is a challenge, but I take heart from the fact that our children eventually grew up under our guidance, surely Josie will too. Right? Right? Josie, spit my shoe out of your mouth and tell me I’m right!

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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September 9, 2015 · 1:47 pm

Visitors – My reason for cleaning!

I read a poster on Facebook yesterday (well, actually, my daughter sent it to me) which said: My housekeeping schedule—Do the absolute minimum until someone is coming over, then clean like a crazy person.

I’m sure this was meant to be funny, but seriously, who doesn’t do this? Am I actually going to dust that back corner of the basement unless I have a serviceman who needs to check the furnace? I know there are people who regularly clean their woodwork and scrub their floors, I am just not one of those people.images

What I clean is dependent on who is coming. If it is a guest stopping through on the way to or from somewhere else, then the bathroom must be cleaned. Not necessarily the shower, I’m not going crazy; just the toilet and the sink and if time permits, I might even clean the mirror.

If someone is coming to look at the dishwasher, then it seems necessary to scrape the grime off the outside of it and maybe even clean the floor—you never know when something sticky might be there. The same is true of the stove and the refrigerator, but if I have to clean the oven in a hurry, then I’m going to need the shop vac.

When my parents come, that’s a bathroom, dining room, even living room going over. I frequently employ the laundry basket ploy here. I run around scooping things off of every surface into a laundry basket and shove it in a closet. You must realize that this may result in your address book ending up in the bowl you used to eat sticky melon last night, but it’s all in the cause of making the house look “kinda” clean.

I’ve even taken essence of clean advice from other people in regards to smell. If your house isn’t clean and you don’t have time or Febreze, pour a little cleaner in the corners. It does work but it’s messy. Someone else advised me to mask the smells by baking some cookies before the visitors come. If I have the energy to bake cookies, wouldn’t I have the energy to clean? I can’t take this kind of advice from someone who clearly doesn’t understand my cleaning philosophy.

I found out recently that I have passed these skills on to my daughter. We were sitting around my house both knowing we had things we needed to do, but luxuriating in the mess instead. Then, our expected company called to say they would be unexpectedly early and we both leapt to our feet. As I attempted to scrape the grime off the kitchen counters and straighten the bedding in the bedroom, my daughter managed to single-handedly remove the large living room rug from under two heavy chairs and the sofa and resign it to the outdoor deck in order to improve the look of the floors. House—semi-clean!images (1)

So, if you want to visit my house, thank you in advance. If you have small children, I’ll sweep the floor and if you’re coming for a meal, I’ll wipe off the stove and the refrigerator. If you crave a cooler place to sit on a hot day, I’ll even take a shovel to the basement. Cleaning like a crazy person before the company arrives is the only way to clean in my book!

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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September 7, 2015 · 3:30 pm

A Walk in the Gloaming

I read somewhere that some bugs are very high in cholesterol if ingested by a human being. I really hope this is not true, because I’ve been having a rather steady diet of them lately.

It’s bad enough that I keep falling asleep in my chair only to be awakened by some fly trying to crawl in my mouth. You wake up fast while trying to spit fly off your tongue but so far, I don’t think I’ve actually feasted on one.fly

The same cannot be said for bugs when I’m out walking. I know that I need to walk, but unfortunately, this time of year, I can only get in a walk in the evening, just before dark—a time that my ancestors might have termed the “gloaming.”

Unfortunately, in the gloaming, the sun is actually going down, which reduces the heat, but encourages the bugs. I walk out there with my slow step and heavy frame and I have no chance of outrunning those bugs. Therefore, I end up waving my arms around like a disjointed windmill, trying to fend them off. And there are a lot of them.

I’ve been reading stories and watching programs which predict that some animal will take over the earth from the humans. I frankly don’t worry about tigers, dogs, bears or apes. I think the earth will be overrun by bugs.

I recognize this as the ugly truth every time I take this walk in the gloaming. Every type of winged creature makes its way outside and straight for the path I’m walking.

Charlie Bug will say to Arnold Bug: “Hey, buddy wanna have a good time?”

“Sure,” exclaims Arnold, “What do you have in mind?”

“Fly on over to the Fauth walk and we can fly into the old lady’s hair, eyes, ears, etc.” Charlie leads the way.

“Sounds like fun,” shouts Arnold as they fly my way. “It’ll be so easy, especially when they don’t have any better sense than to walk in the gloaming!”

Tonight, they were in particularly good form. I ran into the side of a building while trying to wave off some particularly persistent friends of Charlie. Arnold managed to win the annoyance trophy by flying between my eye and my glasses, but I’m afraid the news was not so good for Charlie. As I was talking to my husband, Charlie flew down my throat to become a mosquito canapé. All the spitting in the world couldn’t bring poor old Charlie back.giant_gallinipper_mosquito

Hence, my hope that bugs are not high in cholesterol, because here is a human than seems bound to ingest more than her fair share. Happy gloaming, everyone—celebrate it by not walking with the mosquitoes.

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September 4, 2015 · 1:42 pm

If you bruise your foot, you’re gonna want to clean the fridge…

I’m not feeling too well as I write my post tonight.  I don’t feel sick or anything, I just kind of ache all over and in addition, I Have a nasty looking bruise on the top of my foot that is turning from greenish blue to black and blue.

I actually blame my random craving for chocolate ice cream for the whole mess.  If I hadn’t wanted chocolate ice cream, I wouldn’t have had to find a spot for the carton on the freezer.  My freezer is…well, it’s…okay, it’s a mess and full of things that are not only expendable, but also unidentifiable.

I bought a carton of ice cream, brought it home and tried to cram it in my over full refrigerator freezer.  It wouldn’t fit on the shelves, but there was the door shelf left.  Of course, because my refrigerator freezer is always overstuffed, I have broken off the bar that holds things on the door shelf, but if I put the ice cream on the shelf and then opened the door very carefully, it would be ok, right?

Not right.  You know what happened.  I whipped open the freezer door and an entire carton of frozen ice cream landed on the top of my foot.  After hoping around the kitchen, screaming and otherwise having a minor fit, I decided it was time to clean the freezer.  Half an hour later, my garbage can was full of tin-foiled-wrapped mystery objects and my fingers had a bit of freezer burn.  The good news was that my freezer was clean enough for me to fit my ice cream without making it a heat-seeking missile every time I opened the door.

While nursing my foot and trying to warm up my fingers, I noticed that the refrigerator now looked messy compared to the freezer, so I decided to clean it.  Another full garbage bag later, I had the refrigerator looking good and a finder that I had rammed into a drawer track and it was looking rather damaged.House-Cleaning

Once that was done, it only made sense to scrub the outside of the refrigerator, so it looked as good as the inside.  That cost me a bit of hair and a twisted neck when I caught my hair on the coils on the back of the refrigerator.

While I was taking aspirin for the headache that ensued, I noticed the glasses cupboard was pretty messy.  I added to my headache by banging my head on the shelf as I was cleaning the cupboard door.  That led to dropping a glass and breaking it in to the sink.  I wiped out the sink, and you guessed it, cut myself.

Finally, I limped into the living room, put bandages on my wounds and propped up my poor bruised foot.  BAND-AIDI am forced to face the awful fact that chocolate ice cream may be bad for my health – or at least my foot.  I have also decided that cleaning is too hazardous for me now, and I’ll just have to live in a dirty house for my own safety.  Come to think of it, that part is not so bad!

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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August 31, 2015 · 2:07 pm

You may be a teacher if…

My grandson begins school today. I don’t mean that my little toddler boy is going to go off with his toy backpack and play alphabet games at pre-school. I mean my big, just-turned-five-and-how-did-that-happen grandson is going to actual school.

Royce's first day!

Royce’s first day!

He has a backpack full of school supplies and a head full of last minute instructions on how to behave at school and he is off to the races.

As a grandma, I’m proud of this fact, but I’m an even prouder teacher. He is about to make some teacher’s head spin with his engineering projects and his overwhelming preference for the color orange. And that got me to thinking about what it really means in this day and this age to be a teacher.

Now I know that we are all supposed to be teachers in one educational way or another. However, those of us in the classroom trenches know that to be a teacher in the school when all of those backpack toting little darlings walk through the door is a special, awesome, hair-pulling, screaming good time.

If you can simultaneously help a child edit their writing, take roll and lunch count and get everyone on their feet for the Pledge of Allegiance on time, you may be a teacher. Multi-tasking takes on hysterical new meaning in the classroom. I have literally found the right chapter of the book for one student with one  hand while searching frantically through my desk for the stopwatch which is beeping uncontrollably with the other. And I still had a foot free to shove the wastebasket at the third kid of the morning to achieve vomitus flu in my classroom!

I hear frequently that God is not found in our public schools. I would chuckle at this misinformation if I wasn’t so busy offering up my own prayers to generate as much learning and as little damage as possible each day. That is in addition to the students who are sitting in their seats offering up sincere and genuine prayers that the teacher will believe their reason for not having homework done or will grade the test they are about to flunk on the curve. God is in the public schools, ladies and gentleman and He is probably holding His head in His hands a lot while he is there!

Teaching requires a sense of humor and it requires you to disguise that sense of humor most of the time. It you can listen to a student regale you with the tale of their Christmas vacation when Uncle Harold had too much eggnog  and landed in the tree and not crack a smile, you’re doing pretty well. If you can hold it together when little Jimmy mispronounces the word “prostrate” while reading imagery poetry, you’re doing better than most, since “lying there prostate on the ground” conjures up some hysterical imagery for me.

A teacher must be prepared to impart knowledge while fielding any number of interesting sideshows. For instance, if, in the middle of reading “Casey at the Bat,” you suddenly find yourself refereeing a battle between two students arguing over who owns the tired-looking pencil they found on the floor between their desks, you have hit one of the high points of the teaching profession. And they don’t cover in college what the proper procedure is if your post-holiday essay on “What I Got for Christmas” turns into a show-and-tell between two boys who both think the superhero undershorts they got were the best!

Yes, I am so excited about my little grandson headed off to school. 20150831_083045And I hope his teacher is prepared for all his tape-and-string concoctions and his insistence that yes, even grass can be orange in color. I have faith in her or him,  though: a teacher is the perfect person to answer the burning question on the mind of every kindergarten child—“If I eat glue, will my insides stick together????” Have a great year, all of you teachers and all of you students!

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content

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August 24, 2015 · 12:00 pm

I’m in Love with George

Before anyone says anything, I know I’m married to Roy. But for a couple of years now, there have also been two little boys in my life…and in addition, there has been a monkey named George. And quite frankly, I love them all, but George has fast become a favorite with me.

For any parent of young children, you know, of course, that the George I refer to is a cartoon monkey named Curious George. George lives with the Man with the Yellow Hat. No name is given for the Man with the Yellow Hat and that is understandable to me. If I were the roommate of a small, mischievous monkey who was clearly smarter than me, I wouldn’t give out my name either!

Royce's Curious George doll

Royce’s Curious George doll

I met George when my older grandson Royce, began watching his morning show on PBS. At first, I will admit I was pretty derisive about the monkey who inevitably caused a mess or colossal misunderstanding and the clueless banana-colored man he lived with. It didn’t take long, though, before I began to see him in a new light.

George is universally well-liked. Of all the characters he runs across in his adventures, only the crabby little dog in the lobby of his building doesn’t like him and even then, they occasionally see eye to eye on things.  George tries to help everyone, he runs errands for his roommate, helps the local businesses solve their various problems and even helps out at the country house.

Through it all, my grandson Royce and then his younger brother Arthur have watched with avid faces and childish giggles the antics of this genial little monkey.  He teaches them math, music, English (even though he only grunts) and most of all, he teaches them that the world is full of wonderful things and they are all right there for them to explore.

Royce and Arthur visit my home regularly, and when they do, we always make time for George, whose qualities of humanity are high, especially for a non-human , and  he is an excellent model of caring compassion, whoever it is. The show is a fetching combination of child-like innocence  and almost genius behavioral lessons.

Royce as Curious George for Halloween

Royce as Curious George for Halloween

Someday, my boys won’t want to watch this wonderful, lovable monkey. I will miss that so much. I will miss their grinning faces and childish laughter. I will miss the fact that Royce never goes to sleep at night without clutching the stuffed version of Curious George I gave him a year ago. But for now, I will be so grateful for the devotion my boys show to their friend, Curious George and I will be even more grateful for the positive and protective influence George has had on my sweet little boys.

So yes, I am in love with a monkey named George and regardless of what the boys eventually decide, I think I always will be.

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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August 19, 2015 · 1:48 pm

Vacation – not exactly what I wanted…

I’ve always loved the Vacation series of movies with Chevy Chase. Most especially do I love the first one, with the ever-optimistic Clark Griswold  taking his family in a new car through a series of catastrophic vacation blunders until in the end, he finally snaps and his car is a wreck.

I travel a great deal with my husband, but it is a sad fact that I could very easily be the female version of poor old Clark. I have gone through a series of mis-adventures over the years, but by far the worst was a car trip through the southwest where we fixed the car at every stop and never did get everything running smoothly. We finally landed in a very small town in Arizona, and they managed to at least get it working so it didn’t die on the road. I, however, declared that Arizona would be colder than the South Pole in winter before I ever showed up there again. I should have stuck to that declaration. This year, somehow, Roy talked me into vacationing in the southwest. That’s right, folks; Arizona—in June!

I knew we were in trouble before we had even headed south. The night before we left, there was a terrific rainstorm. It washed out the bridge we were to take south. This might have been a sign from God that we ignored. No problem though, we just drove miles out of our way through interesting places like the town of Bob. Interesting  fact—the town of Bob has a population of 11…one of them must be named Bob, right?

We finally made it to Denver after mistaking a military base for a bathroom break. The nice men at the gates with guns explained that we were wrong.  In Denver, we spent the night listening to a hail storm outside. In the morning, our very new car was sporting any number of hail dings and looked a little like a car with the measles.

However, it was vacation; we needed to carry on. Outside Durango, we observed a sign which said, “Watch for migrating wildlife.” I gave a laugh, “Now there’s an interesting sign. I wonder where they’re….” At that moment, we bagged the “migrating wildlife” with a 2013 Fusion. The deer came out of nowhere at top speed, hit the side of our car breaking the mirror and the headlight and pushing in the side front panel until we couldn’t open the driver’s door.

You should have seen the other guy...

You should have seen the other guy…

With the use of a mechanic’s jack and some sturdy tape, the car was again made drivable, but by now it looked a lot like Chevy Chase’s station wagon in Vacation. All we had missing was the wheels turning in!

We took that sad car all through the vacation with people giving it double takes all over the place. We traveled to Silverton, Colorado, where we were in a snow and sleet storm. We took it to the Grand Canyon where the fog was so thick, we couldn’t see anything but fog. And then we took it to Las Vegas, where the temperatures were a heart-stopping, knee-buckling 106 degrees! And through it all, the bent up, hail-dinged, mirror-cracked, taped-up light car seemed to keep on going.

The

The “view” at the Grand Canyon

The final straw came when we got back to Denver. We parked the car for the night on the street as we were staying with my daughter. Unfortunately, we parked it in an area meant for residents of the housing property. The following morning, the car was gone. I’m sure someone took a look at that banged up mess and supposed someone abandoned it there. We had to go 20 miles away to the tow company and pay $250 to get that semi-wreck back.

Roy swears that when he got in the car, the steering wheel grabbed him by the throat and the car snarled, “What the heck, Roy? Next year, take the other car!”

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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August 12, 2015 · 1:04 pm

Reasons I Miss the Dog

We lost our Golden Retriever, Ammie, in May. It was a real blow to my husband, who loved his hunting dog and spoiled her to the point that his family nicknamed her “The Princess.”

Ammie

Ammie

After the dog died, I comforted Roy the best I could, but I confess that in reality,  I put my feet up and relaxed because without a dog, things could be easier.

I celebrated like this for more than a week (okay, maybe a little longer) and then I realized that something was wrong. At first I couldn’t pinpoint it, but when I finally investigated, I discovered to my dismay, that it is possible that I MISS the dog!

For one thing, what do I have to torment Roy about? I can’t talk about my red-headed rival or bug him about his favoritism towards the Princess. It’s no fun to make jokes about how much he loved the dog when he just lost it. I’m not terribly sensitive to his affection for the dog, but even I can’t be that much of a jerk!

Second, I miss the dog because now I can’t blame her for the mess in the house. With dog hair and toys, she was always a good fall guy for the house being a mess. Without her, I must just face the fact that I’m a slob!

Third, I miss the dog because it means now when Roy wants to take a walk, he wants me to go along. Before, the dog was his companion, but now, it’s me. And I don’t walk as well or as fast as the dog. Nor do I like the feeling that I’m a poor replacement for the Princess!

I miss the dog because she entertained my grandsons. She would play with them, run around with them or play fetch. My oldest grandson spent his annual visit to Grandma’s house informing me that I don’t play catch (or fetch) as well as the dog did! My younger grandson found meals boring because his favorite activity has always been drop the food on the floor and laugh at how fast the dog scoops it up. Now, Grandma just whines at him for dumping food on the floor! It’s not nearly as much fun, but it works.

And that food on the floor is one of the main reasons I miss the dog.

"The Princess"

“The Princess”

I spilt some eggs on the floor a week ago. I stood there and wished the mess would clean itself up, but of course, this did not happen. There was no dog. There was no eager tongue, ready to lap the whole thing up and leave the floor cleaner than it had started.

Then, of course, there was the goat-like tendency of the dog . She would eat anything; plastic, cloth (she really liked dirty dishcloths), and various pens, pencils and particularly markers. She would eat it all and then promptly regurgitate it all over my floors. This happened on a regular basis….oh, wait a minute, I guess I don’t  miss that. Without the Princess,   I don’t have to worry about the three Ps in my house(puking, pooping, peeing). I don’t miss the dog hair everywhere either. Oh! And I don’t miss the impromptu snacks the dog had by jumping up on my counters to consume whatever she could find.

So, in fact, I don’t miss the dog as much as I thought. This could be serious. I just told Roy he could get another dog. I don’t suppose I can take it back now, huh?

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August 7, 2015 · 1:30 pm

My Nursing May Be Hazardous to your Health

For those who know me well, the following statement will not come as a surprise: My nursing skills could be fatal. You need a band-aid? I might be able to help—provided its not bleeding or icky. You need someone to tend you while you’re sick? Forget me; you’d be better off with a construction worker using a sledge and a jackhammer.

Just to give you an idea, let’s explore Roy’s last illness. He doesn’t get sick very often because he knows what kind of nursing he will get and he wants to live. But, one day he came home with a scratchy throat. lozenge-462867_1280When he was foolish enough to admit to it, I followed him around the house for a day holding out orange juice and some throat lozenges I found in the back of the medicine cabinet. The orange juice burned his sore throat and the throat lozenges expired in 2010, but he took them both just to get rid of me.

Then, the poor man developed a cough. Now, I have to admit that when it comes to other people coughing, I’m selfish.  At the first cough, I fling my hand, my sleeve or the nearest gas mask over my face. I’ve seen all those epidemic movies, you know. All those diseases that wipe out whole populations always begin with someone coughing. Roy is on his own with a cough, because I am not dying of some mutated plague that begins with him coughing!

The fever came next. He dragged himself home from work and went straight to bed. Of course, plenty of rest was what he needed. I did my nursing  job by flinging open the bedroom door every ten minutes and inquiring, “You okay?” The first time I let the cat in. She climbed on top of him and he was forced to get up and  throw her out. The second time I checked, I found a spider on the door. My shriek caused him to sit straight up in bed, convinced, I’m sure, that we were under nuclear attack at the least.

At that point, he was ungrateful enough to request that I leave him ALONE. Of course I could do that. All he had to do was ask.  I left him alone  for an hour, then tiptoed in and whispered in his ear, “You any better?” He wasn’t, especially after he jerked his head up in surprise and cracked it on my jaw. I left him for another hour, then opened the door so slowly that it made that weird, creaking noise. He turned over in bed with a sigh. “I still feel lousy,” he muttered.

“I’m so sorry, what can I get you?” I asked in my most understanding nurse’s voice.

“I would love some takeout from HuHot,” he said.

“But honey, I’d have to drive for four hours to get you take out from there,” I protested.

“Good; maybe go twice then,” he punched his pillow, pulled the blanket over his head and rolled over on his other side.

For those of you who think it couldn’t have happened that way, you’re right. I did leave out some parts, like when I brought him aspirin and water and dropped the aspirin under the bed and spilled the water on him. Then, there was the cold pack I put on his feet while he was sleeping, because they told me it would help with fever—it didn’t.

If you’re worried about Roy, though, he did recover his health. But I think it might have been in spite of my nursing efforts; not because of them. My nursing skills should probably come with one of those government hazard warnings!

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