I talk to my mom fairly regularly, but sometimes time will pass.
Sometimes, more than a little time.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Kris. It’s Mom.”
“Annoying.”
“What?”
“Mom, I haven’t heard from you in like two months.”
“Ummm . . . I called a whole bunch of times, but I just kept getting your machine.”
“On which you left messages?”
“What? No . . . you know I hate leaving messages. I did leave one the other day. Just one. Your greeting on your cell phone is all bossy. I don’t even know who that woman is, and I don’t want to talk to her.”
“Whatever, Mom. Also? You so did not call here and hang up repeatedly, because I would have records of those attempted calls. So you are a big fat liar.”
“I hate technology.”
“Whatever. Not like my feelings are hurt or anything.”
“Stop that. You could have called me.”
“Yeah, but I was feeling all uncommunicative for a while, and then Cassidy called to give me shit about how I wasn’t returning her calls SHUT UP DO NOT SAY I AM JUST LIKE YOU I AM NOT JUST LIKE YOU and then Cassidy went down there to visit you guys with her family and she didn’t call me during her visit or after she got home and so I know she’s pissed at me for not calling her and I just sensed that you were all talking about me and saying rude things and so I do not even need to call and be pleasant on the phone when you are all a bunch of assholes.”
“So basically, you are just like me.”
“Shut up.”
“Honestly, Kris? I read your blog every day, and it feels like we are talking. I know what’s going on with the girls, and I know what’s going on with you, and I feel like we are talking. You are a gifted writer, you know.”
“OK, thank you for that, but you are full of bullshit.”
My mom laughs and then sighs, “OK, well things have been busy down here. Stuff going on at the ranch, regular life, your sister Cassidy coming to visit, and then they thought I had a heart attack.”
“Wait . . . WHAT?”
“I didn’t have a heart attack; they just thought it might be a heart attack.”
“When was this?”
“Right before your sister came down.”
“TWO MONTHS AGO? You didn’t think maybe you should pick up the phone and call me? Nobody calls me? Now I really am pissed.”
“Don’t be mad. There was nothing to tell, as it turned out. What’s the point in calling to tell you what didn’t happen?”
“So tell me now.”
“Alright, so you know I hate going to the doctor. I never go to the doctor. But my shoulder was bothering me and it wasn’t getting better. Figured I pulled something or pinched a nerve working at the ranch, but it hurt a lot. So I drove from the ranch to Kaiser and told them about how my shoulder hurt.”
“You drove yourself?”
“Yeah, but I told them that someone had driven me who was waiting in the parking lot for me just so they wouldn’t think I was an idiot and also so they didn’t get any ideas.”
“Ideas about . . .”
“Keeping me. I wanted them to know I had an impatient driver waiting in the parking lot, and I needed to get going.”
“So then . . .”
“Well, something about how I described the pain in my shoulder just made everyone’s eyes light up like it was Christmas morning, and they all started rushing around like crazy talking about how I might be having a heart attack.”
“Geez.”
“So then I’m thinking, maybe I am having a heart attack, and so probably insisting on driving myself over to the hospital is a bad idea. One of the nurses asked me if I wanted someone to talk to the person waiting for me in the parking lot.”
“Hee hee!”
“So then I explained politely how that wasn’t necessary, because I had lied about having someone drive me. They looked at me oddly then, but I focused on not dying of a heart attack and just smiled blandly at her. Plus, I had taken off my glasses at that point, which made everything all blurry, and honestly added to the whole maybe I am having a heart attack feeling.”
“You are so odd, Mom.”
“Next thing I know, I am being whisked off to the hospital in an ambulance.”
“But you didn’t actually have a heart attack?”
“Nope. They ran a bunch of tests and said I probably wasn’t having a heart attack after all. They couldn’t be certain and I needed to come back to have a stress-test done, but probably I wasn’t having a heart attack.”
“Whew.”
“They sent some guy in then who said I had pinched a nerve in my shoulder which HELLO is what I told them when I came in but anyway he did an adjustment on my shoulder, and I don’t know what he did exactly, but my shoulder is all better. Adjustment is not a very medical term . . . how am I supposed to know what to ask for the next time this happens? I’m just supposed to ask for an adjustment? That’s idiotic.”
“I think that’s what they call it, Mom.”
“So Dan meets me at the hospital, and he is just running around like a loon talking about How are we going to pay for this, Rosemary? What were you thinking, Rosemary? Which was honestly rather annoying because I so did not ask to be diagnosed with a possible heart attack and so what did he want me to do just come back home and count out our spare change to be sure I had enough money not to die?”
“He was just stressed.”
“Whatever. So eventually, they let me go, but now my car is way the hell on the other side of town and so Dan drives me over there to pick up the car.”
“OK.”
“It’s dark now, and I realize I haven’t eaten, and so Dan asks if I want to stop and get something on the way back home. How about Carl’s Jr he says and I agree that sounds good.”
“See? He was looking out for you.”
“OK, but Kris? You know I hate to drive at night. The lights annoy me. So I am exhausted and stressed and worried I might still be having a heart attack, and I am slightly disoriented and very hungry. It’s nighttime and I hate driving at night, and I am not at all sure how to get from Kaiser back to our house. I figure I will just follow Dan.”
“Sounds good.”
“So I am following him, and damned if he does not pull into a Carl’s Jr. like three seconds after we leave Kaiser, and I’m all WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU I DON’T WANT TO STOP HERE GET CLOSER TO OUR HOUSE BEFORE WE STOP TO EAT but he just pulls in like he doesn’t care what I want at all and so I say to myself FUCK THIS, and I just drive away.”
“To be fair, he was in another car and could not hear you screaming at him.”
“Whatever. And then I got lost.”
“Snort!”
“I somehow turned into one of those new housing communities that are like rat mazes from hell, and I simply could not find my way out. I don’t even know how much time I spent driving aimlessly about while Dan ate dinner at Carl’s Jr.”
“I’m sure he was worried about you.”
“Whatever. Who stops at the very first Carl’s Jr they see? WHO DOES THAT?”
“So did you go back for the stress test?”
“Yes. Yes, I did. A very nice woman called me on the phone the next day to point out that it appeared I did not have a regular doctor and to ask me if there was a sort of doctor I preferred.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked her to find me an old, fat, balding smoker.”
“No, you did not!”
“Yes, I did. I hate young perky obscenely healthy doctors. I want a doctor who knows what it is to live a life and make some bad choices along the way.”
“So what did the woman say?”
“She asked me if I preferred male or female, and I said that it didn’t matter, and she said she would do the best she could. She tried to get me to schedule the stress test for the following day, but I put her off because I had to go shopping.”
“Shopping?”
“I wear boots to work at the ranch, and I work at the ranch every day. That’s where I spend most of my time. My shoe collection has dwindled over the years to just . . . big heavy boots. Didn’t seem like boots were the best footwear choice if they were going to make me run on a treadmill.”
“Got it.”
“I mean, I could have done the treadmill in my boots, but I had already taken enough mocking from the ambulance paramedics over my fashion choices, so I wanted to do this right.”
“The paramedics mocked you?”
“They so did. So I went to the thrift store, and I bought some lovely orange gym shoes.”
“You bought thrift-store gym shoes for your stress test? They were ORANGE?”
“Not a lot of color choices at the thrift store, Kris. They fit nicely. I did get a couple of long stares directed at my feet at the hospital when I went to take the test, but I am pretty sure those were stares of envy. I looked pretty amazing.”
“So?”
“Turns out my heart is fine.”
“And your doctor?”
“He was lovely . . . fat and old and balding, just like I requested. I didn’t ask about the smoking, but I am confident he’s a smoker.”
“That’s hilarious!”
“Of course, he did start up with that nonsense doctors always do about how I needed to come in for this and I needed to come in for that and I needed to do this and I needed to do that. I ignored him.”
“I hate when doctors get bossy.”
“Exactly! Mind your own business, I say! Although I did let him give me a pneumonia shot, just so he could say he had done his job.”
“Mom, you had pneumonia a few years ago . . . Isn’t the pneumonia vaccine a one-time thing? How did you not get a pneumonia shot then?”
“Hush.”
“Mom, you make me worry about you.”
“This is why I don’t call and tell you that I am in the hospital with a maybe heart attack that turns out not to be a heart attack at all. Stress is bad for you.”
Sigh.
My mom is just about to hang up, “You need to call your sister, Kris.”
Annoying.
***A note here to say that I took no notes of my conversation with my mother at the time, and so if I have misstated anything, those errors are totally on me. I asked my mother if I could write of our conversation, but she did not read the final story for accuracy. My version is just that . . . my version. Kris
