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Wash Your Hands, Mama
Wash Your Hands, Mama
Da Man told me this afternoon that now I had something to blog about, which was his way of giving me a push to do so. I have no excuses or reasons for not blogging, at least not obvious ones; I simply haven’t done it. Just like there is no reason why I have chosen to do tonight; I simply am doing it.
The fact that I am running a fucking infirmary may have something to do with it. Having just finished watching “Private Practice,” I am a bit teary eyed and down in the mouth. Wanting to cry. But that show usually does that to me. And that, my friends, is weird within itself because I don’t cry.
Anyway, the doc tells me the other night to think about what it’s like to have a GI virus. Ha. I tell him that I hadn’t barfed in seven years without baby in my belly. “Wash your hands, mama,” he says.
Wash my fucking hands? As if that will help.
Tuesday afternoon I had volunteered to be bus aide. Mak had to ride with me because everyone I used to be able to rely on was gone, doing things, having lives. So I took her with me. She was fine. I was fine. Everything was fine.
And then she blew chunks all over the bus just as the teacher was heading to the bus with the twenty or so kids. And I, always the doer verus always the thinker, was trying to catch the big chunks in my hands. “Wash your hands, mama,” he says.
Mom was thankfully able to be reached to come and get us from the school. Who knew the barfing on the bus was just the beginning of a week filled with wet farts and blown chunks?
Mak’s stomach finally settled down after about seven hours of oozing fluids from every hole in her head barring her ears. And then, just as I was heading to bed at 1:45 a.m., Grace meets me in the doorway, holding her belly and crying. Yep, you guessed it. It was her turn. “Wash your hands, mama,” he says.
Seeing as how it is quickly approaching Friday, you see how my week has gone. I realized at 7:05 tonight that my class had started. And while I should have been sitting around a table, listening to the teacher’s seemingly infinite knowledge on how to become a published author, I was changing the third smeared diaper in the span of twenty minutes. But the doc we saw today told me that it is typical for a GI virus to stay in the intestines for 3-5 days. I’m thinking I should be seeing the light at the end of the dripping, oozing tunnel by Sunday. “Wash your hands, mama,” he says.
In the meantime, I am giving my all to not falling to my knees. I left a meeting yesterday before it ever began because while everyone else was wearing jackets and long sleeves, I was sweating profusely and trying to ignore the pains in my stomach, telling the gnawing pains that I would not shart (Shit and fart). That’s some kind of mantra, eh. “I will not shart myself. I will not shart myself.” I came home and slept all afternoon. And then Da Man had to go to work so I had to wake up. At least I was given a small reprieve.
But I should head to the blog-worthy story that began this post….
Da Man was on his way to run an errand for me this morning. He called and told me to call Animal Control because there was a raccoon sitting on the adjoining street, huddled up against a dumpster. I called the fuzz to find out the number for Animal Control and found out that the cops were the ones to check out the raccoon situation. I was told by the dispatcher that should the cops deem the coon sick, they would destroy it. And I knew what that meant. It meant the coon would be shot.
I watched for over an hour and when the police still hadn’t driven by, I called Animal Control. I was told that there are so many raccoons living in our town now (and I’m still wondering where the hell they are and why no one in my family has managed to see them after being told they were quite common and overpopulated) they have to come out during the day and forage for food because they aren’t able to get ahold of any at night. “Sounds to me like that raccoon finally got smart and starting eating during the day” was the way it was said to me.
So, with that conversation under my hat, I half expected the police to whiz by, notice the raccoon and radio in that the mission had been completed. And then I saw my truck pull up beside the dumpster. And the coon walked right up to my truck.
Da Man called from the cell and told me to call them back because there was something wrong with the raccoon. I had noticed this, too, because during my many trips down the hall to gaze out the window while waiting to see the police, I had seen cars stop and look at the coon.
I called the cops again and was told that they had been sent to the opposite side of town. After assuring the dispatcher that Da Man would sit and wait for the fuzz, I answered another call.
As I was talking on the phone, I glanced out the window and saw the cruiser pull up beside Da Man. I watched as the cop made his way to the raccoon. I saw him kick it. I watched as his hand quickly fell to his side and then reappeared with a gun in it. I ended the phone conversation and stood there, gawking out my window, trying to wrap my head around the “BANG”. I watched in horror as the raccoon began writhing, tail flopping, head bobbing up and down. And then I realized I was crying as the cop returned his gun to his hip and headed to the cruiser.
I watched him douse the carcass in lime and then tried to catch my breath as he picked the carcass up by the tail and headed to the dumpster with it. He climbed back into the cruiser, my truck began the trip home, and I stood there staring out the window with my hand over my mouth and tears streaming down my cheeks. The only thing going through my mind was that I had just been responsible for the taking of a life. Had I have kept my damned mouth shut, the coon would still be alive.
Da Man walked through the door and stopped short to stare at me. He didn’t know what to say to the big blubbering idiot blocking his way down the hall. So he said, “Ah, baby,” and wrapped his arms around me. I barely listened as he rattled off the facts as I knew them: kids would be walking by that coon on their way home from school and what if he would have attacked one of them? What if he would have hurt someone’s cat or dog that had been walking by?
I knew those things to be true. In fact, I had used those very facts an hour earlier to justify my call to the police dispatcher. But it didn’t matter because I, for the first time in my life, had watched something be shot. And it fucked me up.
I kept thinking that something else should have been done by me to save that coon’s life because things aren’t supposed to die, especially like that, because of something I did. I had sat on mom’s couch two nights earlier and justified my calling the ER doc back because Mak’s asshole was shooting things out that I didn’t know was possible to be shot out of a baby’s asshole, and I had to know there was nothing else I could do. “Wash your hands, mama,” he says.
And granted, the raccoon, had it been well, wouldn’t have hung around when people showed up, especially on a city street. And it would’ve defended itself in some way when the cop shoved it with its foot instead of rolling over on its back; the raccoon was sick.
I just hated the fact that I had been the one to put the whole fucked up scene in motion.
And I kept thinking that had Grace known I had something to do with the violent death of a raccoon today, she would have disowned me right on the spot. She’s already pissed at me because I “let Makayla get her sick.” As if that was my choosing. “Wash your hands, mama,” he says.
Just like everyone in my life is harping on me to get those papers back that the sperm donor had sent to me so I can start getting some financial help with raising Grace. I suppose I’ll get tired of the whole putting it off thing and just mail the papers, although I have spoken with the agency responsible and been told that since she’s an American and he is not on her birth certificate it will be a big ball of red tape bullshit. And I keep thinking about him telling me that I should send the papers to him to sign so he can be put on her birth certificate. The same papers that I had handed to him in person almost five years ago and he refused to sign. And I don’t even know if it’s simple, sending him the birth certificate info five years after her birth. Does it work like that?
Exhale. “Wash your hands, mama,” he says.
I suppose I should prepare for the dutiful conversation with Da Man when he pulls in from work in about ten minutes. And then I should head to bed. Maybe this pounding headache will go away with a good night’s sleep. Oh, wait, scratch that. Maybe I’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep. The relief from the headache would be a nice bonus.
See, things haven’t changed much. I still climb mountains. Ha. And I still have a bizarre reaction to things. So it’s like my posts haven’t been absent at all.
posted on Feb 12, 2009 8:50 PM ()
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