Grandma and the ill wind

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

By Galloping Grandma

My husband was ill last week. Not super ill like bird flu, the black plague, red death or purple pustules. But ill. That he is still on this Earth has nothing to do with medical miracles and more to do with my long-suffering patience and steady nerves. If there is anything limper, sadder, more pitiful and pale on the face of the Earth than a man who is sick, I have yet to find it.

My husband came down with a fever and the creeping calamities one afternoon, launching us on a week trapped in a pest house. For five days, he lay on the bed, taking his temperature every hour and moaning feebly. There is nothing more romantic than someone heaving up his guts at 3 a.m., but what I really enjoy is being regaled every hour with an update of his current condition.

Now I have had plenty of current conditions myself, but they are usually answered with cries of, “You’re not sick,” “You’re making it up,” “You’ll be all right,” and my favorite, “Could you go to the grocery store before they perform the Last Rites?”

Being infested with germs makes most men act like 5-year-olds. Now, if they really were 5 instead of acting like it, I could run to Kmart and get some crayons and coloring books and they could amuse themselves. As this was not possible, I was left with two options: Either lock him in his room and set it on fire or smother him with a pillow. I opted for the latter, as no jury would ever convict me, but friends convinced me otherwise.

I find myself thinking of that Ray Bradbury story, the one about the woman who took to her bed with a virus, and when her family finally looked in on here, she had turned into a giant mushroom. I should be so lucky.

As you may have guessed, I am not Florence Nightingale. I think I remember something about “sickness and health” when I got married, but that was a long time ago and I could be wrong. When you are young and cute, it never occurs to you that the hotty you are drooling over will someday just be drooling. My husband should know by now that when illness strikes, I will just shut his pale and sickly hide in the bedroom until he turns into a mushroom or gets well, which ever comes first.

Incidentally, and on another subject, I have a postscript to the Flipside column in last week’s Planet: It referred to a person who had discovered a long lost Vermeer painting, “Girl with a Hula Hoop.” Well, the very same thing happened to Lamar Fungo in my hometown of Corn Cob, Iowa. Lamar discovered a never-before seen “Last Supper” by Michelangelo. True, it was painted on black velvet instead of plaster, and the 12 Apostles were all dogs, Judas being a rottweiler, but there was no mistaking the Master’s hand.

Lamar took it to “Antiques Roadshow,” but they seemed unconvinced, pointing out that it was made in Hong Kong, not Florence, Italy. Undaunted, Lamar searched the painting furiously for clues and then called “The Da Vinci Code” people, but they said they had enough clues and hung up.

Recently, while digging through the dumpster behind Clyde’s Italian Grotto, Lamar found another treasure, an unknown “Mona Lisa” painted on the side of a spaghetti crate. He put it on eBay, but nobody wanted to buy it. But they were interested in his piece of toast that looked like Monte Hall. There’s just no accounting for taste, is there?

Grandma is still out roaming the country doing God-only-knows-what. In her absence, we’re stuck with re-runs. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear something from her.
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Grandma and the ill wind | Planet JH News Article: Galloping Grandma

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