Assignment: Write a satire of your family
My father and I are alike in that we both worry. Give us a cold, and already we’re writing our last wills and testaments – really, isn’t the achiness excessive? Isn’t that a sign of SARS or something even worse? The first time I experienced an anxiety attack, my first year of college, I thought I was dying of a heart attack. Dad went through the exact same thing thirty years prior. Our doctors are our heroes; they’re the ones who comfort us and give us medication and assure us that we’re not dying.
My mother is the exact opposite. If you pop an Ibuprofen for cramps or a headache, she’ll give you a dirty look and mutter the latest research on painkillers being bad for the stomach. For my mom, your health is determined by three things only: how much you sleep, how often you wash your hands, and partially hydrogenated soybean oil (or TransFat). Sometimes diet and exercise can push you over the edge one way or the other, but those aren’t the Big Three. My dad rolls his eyes. “ Teri, that’s not true,” he says, and then generally finds himself at a loss to elaborate, at which point my mom jumps in with, “Then how come I never get sick?”
This is true. In the past year I’ve been diagnosed with a chronic stomach condition, my brother was coughing up blood, and my dad missed a week of work because of the flu, while my mother does not, in fact, ever get sick, an anomaly none of us has ever been able to explain. While the rest of us are bedridden, having infected each other with our various viruses, she is busily surfing the ‘Net, researching what others of our favorite foods contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil. (So far, we’ve lost goldfish crackers, Triscuits, Kellogg’s granola, Milano cookies, and chicken pot pies to the cause.) It’s the worst when the three of us are sick, since we’re the only ones you can count on for sympathy.
Six years after they got married, my parents were lying in bed one night when my father experienced an explosion of sharp, stabbing pain in his left shoulder blade. “Did you forget to wash your hands?” my mom demanded as he convulsed next to her. “I noticed you went to bed a little late last night.”
She refused to go to the emergency room with him. “Kirk, you’re overreacting,” she protested, yawning. “Go back to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.” So he drove himself. A few hours later, the hospital called. “Mrs. Gilbert?” the doctor said. “It’s a good thing your husband came in when he did.” Somehow he’d contracted a heart infection and was to be hospitalized for the next few days.
In the morning, my mom woke me up and drove me to the hospital to visit him. “Remember,” she lectured, as she drove, “This is what happens if you don’t wash your hands.”
My sophomore year in college, I woke up early (in our college bubble, eight is ridiculously pre-dawn) one morning and couldn’t breathe without experiencing the distinct sensation that with each breath, an army of tiny soldiers were shooting very small – but very heavy – cannons into my chest. That’s happened before on a smaller scale, but usually you breathe until you can’t breathe deeper, and it goes away. (I ran to my parents, panicked, many times during childhood over that one. My mom’s response was always a variant of the same: “It must have been the Oreos. Those are made with TransFat, you know.”) My cousins were in town visiting, and when they took me to walk around Coronado Island, I collapsed. In an eerie father-daughter-likeness coincidence, the diagnosis was a heart infection. My father was sympathetic when I called home later that day. “I know how that is,” he said. “How are you feeling after seeing the – Teri! I’m still talking to her!” There was a rustling in the background, and then my mom came on the line. “Well, probably because you didn’t sleep!” she said. “Don’t you usually wake up in the afternoon? What time did you go to bed last night?”
A few years ago my paternal grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. This throws off my mother’s current theories, because he was known around his neighborhood for leaving evening parties if they went past nine, even if they were his own – “Getting’ late, folks, I’m off to bed, last one out lock the door after you” – and waking up at five to go on walks. We hope it’s not hereditary and that my father won’t fall prey to the disease as he ages, but if he does, he claims, he’s got something to look forward to. “I’ll forget everything she ever said about TransFat,” he confides. “I can eat all the Oreos I want.”
My mother is the exact opposite. If you pop an Ibuprofen for cramps or a headache, she’ll give you a dirty look and mutter the latest research on painkillers being bad for the stomach. For my mom, your health is determined by three things only: how much you sleep, how often you wash your hands, and partially hydrogenated soybean oil (or TransFat). Sometimes diet and exercise can push you over the edge one way or the other, but those aren’t the Big Three. My dad rolls his eyes. “ Teri, that’s not true,” he says, and then generally finds himself at a loss to elaborate, at which point my mom jumps in with, “Then how come I never get sick?”
This is true. In the past year I’ve been diagnosed with a chronic stomach condition, my brother was coughing up blood, and my dad missed a week of work because of the flu, while my mother does not, in fact, ever get sick, an anomaly none of us has ever been able to explain. While the rest of us are bedridden, having infected each other with our various viruses, she is busily surfing the ‘Net, researching what others of our favorite foods contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil. (So far, we’ve lost goldfish crackers, Triscuits, Kellogg’s granola, Milano cookies, and chicken pot pies to the cause.) It’s the worst when the three of us are sick, since we’re the only ones you can count on for sympathy.
Six years after they got married, my parents were lying in bed one night when my father experienced an explosion of sharp, stabbing pain in his left shoulder blade. “Did you forget to wash your hands?” my mom demanded as he convulsed next to her. “I noticed you went to bed a little late last night.”
She refused to go to the emergency room with him. “Kirk, you’re overreacting,” she protested, yawning. “Go back to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.” So he drove himself. A few hours later, the hospital called. “Mrs. Gilbert?” the doctor said. “It’s a good thing your husband came in when he did.” Somehow he’d contracted a heart infection and was to be hospitalized for the next few days.
In the morning, my mom woke me up and drove me to the hospital to visit him. “Remember,” she lectured, as she drove, “This is what happens if you don’t wash your hands.”
My sophomore year in college, I woke up early (in our college bubble, eight is ridiculously pre-dawn) one morning and couldn’t breathe without experiencing the distinct sensation that with each breath, an army of tiny soldiers were shooting very small – but very heavy – cannons into my chest. That’s happened before on a smaller scale, but usually you breathe until you can’t breathe deeper, and it goes away. (I ran to my parents, panicked, many times during childhood over that one. My mom’s response was always a variant of the same: “It must have been the Oreos. Those are made with TransFat, you know.”) My cousins were in town visiting, and when they took me to walk around Coronado Island, I collapsed. In an eerie father-daughter-likeness coincidence, the diagnosis was a heart infection. My father was sympathetic when I called home later that day. “I know how that is,” he said. “How are you feeling after seeing the – Teri! I’m still talking to her!” There was a rustling in the background, and then my mom came on the line. “Well, probably because you didn’t sleep!” she said. “Don’t you usually wake up in the afternoon? What time did you go to bed last night?”
A few years ago my paternal grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. This throws off my mother’s current theories, because he was known around his neighborhood for leaving evening parties if they went past nine, even if they were his own – “Getting’ late, folks, I’m off to bed, last one out lock the door after you” – and waking up at five to go on walks. We hope it’s not hereditary and that my father won’t fall prey to the disease as he ages, but if he does, he claims, he’s got something to look forward to. “I’ll forget everything she ever said about TransFat,” he confides. “I can eat all the Oreos I want.”
posted by Kelly at
10:44 AM
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