Drop It Already

I really need to carry either a notepad or a tape recorder with me at all times. Several ideas, either for stories or posts, crossed my mind then washed down the stream. But that's alright mama, any way you do. My philosophy has always been, if I did it once, I can do it again.

Saturday morning started badly. My wife asked me how I liked the pancakes, and I did the unholiest of unholies and told the truth. Why not? Usually she is spot on. And besides, what if this was a test? It happens. But not this time. This time she really thought they rocked. So I stomped through a couple chores, gathering the garbage for the dump, mowing the pool area to bag the shavings, muttering all the while. This is usually my reaction to marital fights--extreme housework. She knows it too. If she wants something done, all she has to do is cop an attitude with me and away I go.

Anyway, she apologized to me later, right when I was thinking about doing the same. That always feels good. There is a fine line between ingratitude and constructive criticism. Alright ladies, let me have it.

My sixer stumbled into our room Saturday night holding his belly, keeled over and crying. The location of his pain scared us half to death. One thought froze our hearts--appendix. We propped his knees and probed the area, but he wouldn't let us touch. When we mentioned the emergency room, his pain did not miraculously disappear, but his complaining did. We gave him Tylenol and he fell asleep. The phone doctor told us to press the spot. If he wakes up, take him to emergency.

A half hour later he was in the back seat and I had a bag packed with toothbrushes, snacks and waters. It was just past midnight, and not a soul was parked in the hospital lot. Emergency was empty but for a single moaning grandma surrounded by family and nurses. The doctor made me feel better at once. The appendix, he said, is on the right side. Your son's pain is on the left.

Listen, he said. He placed two fingers flat against my son's liver and rapped against them with two fingers of the other hand. A dull thud. He moved to the stomach and rapped again. Hollow. Now over the afflicted area. Somewhere between dull and hollow. On the compass that would read dull by dull hollow. His intestines are full. An x-ray ruled out blockage. Little man has been holding it too long.

I told poop jokes all the way home.