November 16, 2010
It is 5.20 am.
The dogs have been out and fed.
I've had breakfast and am drinking my coffee.
I cancelled my classes for today.
I rarely cancel classes.
Only when I'm so sick I can't imagine how I'll make it through the next five minutes, let alone the entire day.
That deafening roar of joy you'll hear before 10.00 am and then again before 1.00 pm will be my students once they realize that class is cancelled for today.
Only.
So, if you're reading this, don't get your hopes up for Thursday.
I'll be there even if Stephen has to put my bed on wheels.
I hate being sick.
Some people may look on being sick as a time to rest, relax, spend time focusing on themselves.
Not me.
I obsess about how much being sick will put me behind in my classes, my marking, my writing, my editing.
Worry about getting the kids to school, meal preparation, treating the latest adolescent trauma, treating the latest Stephen trauma. . .
Agonize over if the dogs have been out, if they've been fed, and do they have water?
Stephen has to keep pumping me full of over the counter stuff that will make me sleep just to ensure that I remain unconscious long enough to begin feeling better.
Meredyth is faring no better.
I prepared a care package for her yesterday: grapes, clementines, Lipton chicken noodle soup, juice boxes, chicken breasts, and a pound of butter.
I know my child.
Even so, when Stephen was ferrying Keith to his night class, and making his restorative run to the grocery store, I called her to see if she needed anything else.
And being Mer, she did.
Cough drops.
And. . . . .
. . . .personal lady products.
That's what Em calls them.
I balked when she told me this and wondering how I was going to approach Stephen about finding and then purchasing this particular item.
On more than one occasion, I have witnessed men trying to negotiate their way through the vast array of personal lady products.
Standing in front of what seems like minute variations of the exact same thing, they look down at their list, with the name of the product in bold printing, and a picture drawn to lessen confusion, looking as if they are trying to translate Latin.
And if the fact that a man is standing in front of a wall of women's products isn't enough of a tip off, the glistening sweat on the brow, and the picking up and putting down of the goods-no-man-should-ever-have-to-face-or-think-about-let-alone-have-to-purchase is a sure sign of complete and utter confusion.
If men needed personal lady products, there would be one kind, one brand, one size.
That's it.
None of this scented and unscented, plastic or cardboard, regular or super absorbent to the point where the wearers must consume liquid continuously for fear of dehydrating, 20 pack, 40 pack, multi-pack, maxi, the diaper for women, or mini, tampax or kotex or exact or always.
Just one.
When confronted with the sweating, nervous, confused man facing the wall of women's products, it is very important that you move slowly.
Carefully.
You want to avoid spooking them.
Because if they run off, they're going to have to either come back or face the woman needing the product.
And I suspect that the facing the wall is much easier than facing the woman.
Once I have established contact with the skittish man, and he warily accepts that I am friend and not foe, I will ask, gently, if I can help him with anything.
"I need this" he will say, pointing to the bold printing and the picture.
If they are too traumatized to speak, they just thrust the paper at me.
In seconds, I locate the requested product and hand it to him.
Relief floods their being.
Quickly followed by embarrasment.
And then there will be a hurried thanks, while they are running to the cashier to get outside in the fresh air.
Once home, I suspect these men lock themselves in their man cave until they have sufficiently recouperated.
But I have no empirical evidence to support this.
Stephen didn't seem to have any problem with Mer's request for her favourite brand of personal lady products.
Had all my synapses been firing, and not dulled and worn down from marking intro papers, I would have realized this.
How many times have we perused through the health and beauty aisles of the Superstore, procuring shampoos and conditioners, razors and shaving cream, hand creams and butt creams, toothbrushes and toothpaste, only to have Stephen exclaim, in his outside voice:
"DAWNE ARDITH DO YOU NEED ANY PADS OR THOSE LINER THINGS?"
How I ever came to the conclusion he may be nervous about personal lady products, I'll never know.
So today will be a difficult day for me.
I'll ask Stephen or Keith or Em to rifle through the piles on my desk for peices of paper I have to have in order to be able to work at home today.
And be annoyed when they can't find them, wondering what's wrong with them that they can't find a couple of peices of paper.
The infernal and seemingly never ending pile of intro papers will be finished, and I will yell a weak, but nonetheless joyous Hallellujah! when the last graded has been entered.
But for now, me and my sick self are going to attempt, again, to try and sleep.
Perchance to dream.
Preferably about Christoph Waltz.
Title Lyric: Its Menstruation by Malcolm Higgins
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