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clairedmaddox · 5 years

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Wasting Time

The following is an excerpt from The Lund Loop Newsletter. To learn more click here.

It was an interesting week.

Sunday was Father’s Day and I didn’t get in a fight with my wife. That’s a major accomplishment because it seems like right before every holiday – both major and minor – we get into an argument.

The blame is mostly mine for not being mindful of the stress these holidays give her, and thus treading lightly in the 24 to 48 hours before they begin.

I made the same mistake (again) this year on Mother’s Day – though I was oblivious to it at first.

Rising early, I got everything set up to celebrate the day, but by 11:00am, my wife had not come downstairs. A text inquiring if she was up yet went unanswered, so I decided to run out and do a few errands.

Being a heroic husband, I texted again around noon to see if she wanted me to pick her up something for lunch.

Ding!

“No, thanks” was the response.

Whew, I thought. I’m in the clear.

But I wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

Ding!

“By the way, I’m mad at you.”

That was followed by a series of “dings”, each indicating that a new one-line text had come through, none of which were very flattering towards me.

“I’ll give her a minute to cool down,” I said to myself. But a few minutes later, the dings were still coming in hot and heavy.

It reminded me of playing slots in Vegas and hitting 7 – 7 – plum – cherry – 7. It’s a winner but not listed on the payout chart, so you don’t know how much you’ll get or when it will stop.

At five texts I thought about defending myself, but before I could think of something to say, we were at ten texts, and at that point, even I knew better.

After strategizing a bit, I decided to reply with “I hear what you’re saying.”

But before I could hit “send” my wife must have seen the three floating dots indicating I was writing because she preempted me with “don’t even start texting right now.”

Backspace, backspace, backspace…

At fifteen I thought it’d be safe to use the emoji version of “I hear you,” and begin giving every fifth text the thumbs up symbol.

Suffice to say, there was a lot of venting going on, and though I was fully prepared to let it run its course, she could have at least taken some etiquette from Twitter and let me know how long the textstorm was going to last.

“1/432 You’re an asshole.”

But on this Father’s Day, I (finally) learned my lesson. Though it is my day – in theory – I tiptoed around the days leading up to it and made sure I didn’t do, say, or even think anything that would get me in trouble.

Tuesday found me wrapping up another year of my kid’s scholastic career. It’s always a painful day for me.

My father liked to work with his hands and always had a project going on. When he died, he was in the middle of building an old-fashioned children’s sled -which was rather odd as we lived in Southern California and there were no children in the house.

His process was meticulous.

The garage workbench was the nexus of the project. It was there where he kept the plans, tools, and materials needed to build the sled, as well as the custom-made hardware, decals, and ornamentation, each stored and labeled in their own specific pullout drawer.

Each piece had significance. Each piece had import. And losing just one of them – even a single stainless-steel screw – could stop the project in its tracks.

But the moment he died, the project – and the pieces that made it up – lost their meaning.

The hand-carved runners. The polished blades. The rose and thistle stenciling. Every part of the sled suffered a terminal loss of what made it important.

A small death brought on by a larger one.

Fully aware of the dramatics the statement carries, the end of the school year is a small death of sorts for me.

The backpacks and lunch boxes so deliberated over just nine months prior are cast aside, tattered and torn.

The required folders for each subject, decorated with doodles of boredom and superheroes of inspiration, have no more part to play.

The science project we stayed up until midnight to finish, the lines for the school play we memorized, and the 36 grammar and spelling packets we stressed about weekly no longer mean a thing.

And my kids could care less, so it’s up to me to sift through the ephemera from their final day to determine what things – if any – I should save.

Lecture notes, quizzes, and homework assignments are easy – trash, trash, and trash.

It’s a toss-up with the art projects, term papers, and report cards, things they might look back on with fondness – or at least curiosity – 20 years from now, but then again, may not give a damn about.

I used my best judgment and saved about 2/3rds, while the rest went into the trash.

But the backpacks and lunch boxes aren’t as clear cut.

In my mind, I envision mounting them chronologically – trophy hunter style – along a highly lacquered piece of oak, with appropriate grade level and teacher’s names on brass plaques under each.

I will then present these totems – with great pride and tears in my eyes – to my children at their respective wedding receptions.

To which they will, if I’m lucky, respond with a gentle hug and “there, there” pat on the back, while winking at the crowd behind me. But more likely, will just stare in shocked embarrassment, then give the DJ a frantic head nod, meaning, “quick, play some Bruno Mars so we can get out on the dance floor.”

So, I put them in the “we’ll see” pile.

Finally, I come to the gut punch pieces. The “Why I Love My Mom/Dad” type pieces. The easy pieces.

When I turned 20 my mother kicked me out of the house – rightly so as I was an insufferable A-hole. But when I left, boxes of my belongings – packed by her – came as well.

In those boxes were years of art projects, term papers, and report cards, but also “Why I Love My Mom” projects. To this day I can’t figure out why? Why didn’t she want to keep those for herself?

I made them for her.

When it comes to my kids there’s no question about those types of items – I want them all. And so, I hoard every single one of them.

Friday found me lying in a dimly lit room as a technician moved warm gel around my abdomen with an ultrasound wand.

No, I’m not pregnant.

Two weeks ago, I went in for my annual physical. For the most part, everything checked out okay.

But when the labs came back, there were some minor issues.

My cholesterol was slightly above normal. This is a semi-regular occurrence since turning 40 and means I’ve been too sedentary. I start riding my bike, running on the treadmill, and limit my Double-Double intake to once every other week, and like clockwork it goes back down into the normal range.

I also had slightly elevated liver enzymes. And when I say “slightly,” I mean “slightly.”

Google “normal liver enzyme range” and you’ll universally get a range of between 10 and 40. However, for some reason, my doctor/labs say 10 to 35 is the normal range – and I came back at 38. Last year I was at 37.

To me, this was not very worrisome. Lot’s of things can raise your enzyme count. Alcohol. Check. Prescription medication. Check. Tylenol. Check. Let’s just say, it was no mystery to me as to why my levels might be slightly elevated. But my doctor suggested an abdominal ultrasound.

I’ve got great insurance, so why not?

Lying on the table, I tried my best to avoid playing “game the technician,” but it was unavoidable.

The rules of the game state that the technician will know exactly what they are looking at on the screen. Kidney stone, swallowed car keys, stage IV cancer, they can discern them at a glance.

And so, I watch the technician for telltale signs.

A furl of the brow. A twitch of the eye. The almost imperceivably quick frown which says, “WHOA! THIS MUTHER FUCKER HAS CANCER.”

But my tech had a poker face and wasn’t giving away any clues.

No problem. I have a fallback plan.

She was taking a lot of time on my right side. And one spot – just under my ribs – seemed to have a particular interest for her.

Back she went to that same spot, over, and over again.

“SHIT, SHIT, SHIT…SHE’S FOUND SOMETHING,” I screamed to myself.

Okay, calm down, I thought. You don’t know how this is done. Maybe this is part of the standard procedure?

Desperation breeds genius, and in a stroke of revelation I came up with a plan. If she spends the same amount of time scanning my left side as my right side, then everything is normal.

The right side had taken about 5 minutes, so when she started on the left side I began counting.

“Okay, we’re done,” she said.

It had only been two minutes.

“FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, I’M DYING. I’M A DEAD MAN!”

The report came back fine. Everything is fine.

But laying on that table it occurred to me that everything could change in a moment. You go along in your life thinking everything is great, then you get hit by a car, your child gets ill, or they find a tumor on your liver.

And it also occurred to me that if that happened, I’d be so mad at myself for having wasted time arguing with my wife, or stressing out about keeping worn out backpacks, or worrying about getting sick while I was healthy.

As I said, it was an interesting week.

Wasting Time published first on your-t1-blog-url

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