A couple of weekends ago, on a Saturday, while riding my road bike (not a motorcycle, mind you, just a regular old road bike) I decided to crash into a completely stationary gate. I’ll spare you the decision process and momentary inattentiveness that lead to this occurrence, so we can move the right along.
But, let me just say that during my college years, when alcohol was more of a constant companion rather than the distant relative that it’s turned into these days, I had my fair share of gates & doors and toilet seats that jumped up out of nowhere and smacked me around. Oh, I gave as good as I got, believe you me, but let me just say here and now the concept of Mike falling down and going boom, isn’t unheard of.
But I digress.
After a trip to the ER and a CAT scan (yes, children, your father actually does have a brain, see it shows it right here), I was diagnosed with a close head injury (concussion) and sent home.
While we were at the hospital, my wife, God bless her, decided to update her status on Facebook with what was going on. Awesome. So before the world around me has stopped spinning, she’s carrying on status updates with all of her friends about my stupidity.
I understand with some couples, that when the guy is sick, he turns into a complete baby. I, on the other hand, don’t do this. I try my best not to complain, because frankly, nobody cares. But, in this situation, even though I was joking around and trying to make light of the situation, maybe you could put down the smart phone and focus on me for a while?
Anyway.
We get home a little while later and there’s the usual hubbub going on when this stuff happens. People stop over, people call, etc. etc. Now, I had every intention of calling my mom & updating her (she doesn’t use Facebook), but time slipped away and I forgot. Let’s just blame it on the brain injury, shall we? One day led to another and I forgot that I hadn’t called and talked with her. Lucky for me, the rest of the family, who had seen all the updates let her know what was going on.
I talked with her today. During the conversation, she said that she had been meaning to call, but she’d been so wrapped up in her own medical dramas, that she didn’t call. Now, my mother, God bless her, pretty much has everything a person could potentially have that isn’t lethal. Open the Merk Manual and chances are she has it. Maybe it’s a cry for attention from the former family counselor (ironic, isn’t it?) or maybe she really does have all these lingering maladies. All I know is that every conversation we have now, half of it is her updating me on her progression though the medical system with whatever the latest & greatest issue she has is.
So when she told me that she was too wrapped up in her own drama, it kind of pissed me off. It’s par for the course with her, unfortunately, on a number of issues, which I guess shouldn’t surprise me.
Yes, I am one of those people that can continually hope for the best out of people and still be disappointed when they let me down, again. I know, at 47 years old, I shouldn’t need a reassuring call from my mom, and trust me, I don’t. But when she just laid it right out there like she did, it was a real WTF Mom moment.
So, thanks for listening, cold & impersonal interwebs. You’ve been a big help.
