Mom, Take a Chill Pill!

“Maggie’s rabies shots are due!” mom said frantically over the phone early this afternoon. “I don’t know if I can take her today.  I just looked at her pet care calendar and noticed they were due yesterday.”

“We don’t have to go right now,” I said exasperated by my mother’s insistence on immediacy.

“We have to get her shots though,” mom said fretting.

“Let’s go next week,” I said trying to soothe the situation. Like my father, I am very prone to procrastination. “Maggie will be okay.  Rabies shots are a recent thing as far as the history of dogs are concerned.”

I really didn’t want to fool with that today as well.  I’ve been extremely sleepy all day to the point I have slept most of the day and had the most brilliant and vibrant and wonderful dreams.  Manly and masculine dreams.  Sometimes the immediate surge of Risperdal into my bloodstream can have that effect on me.

“What if she gets rabies?” mom asked sounding pitiful and pained.

“MOM!” I exclaimed once again exasperated. “She can’t even get out of the fence. She’s not going to get rabies.”

I realized I sounded just like my father.  These kinds of conversations go on every night when my father arrives home from work.  Dad says he can’t even get in the garage good before the frets, worries, and questions start.

Mom hung up the phone and I left to drive over to get my diet Cokes.  Mom heard me pull up and said she looked out the window to find me.  She was standing at the door with Mick’s old leash as I walked up the back steps.  Mick was our dog when I was a child.

“Let’s take her now,” mom said now dressed with makeup on after sleeping all day.

I blew just like my grandmother would always do when she was exasperated at my mother.  Dad would have loved it and laughed.  He would have called me Leta. 

“I drive you and your father crazy, don’t I?” mom then asked me with a worried and furrowed brow.

“Well, you can be a tad bit trying at times,” I said as I smiled good heartedly. “But dad and I would be in bad shape without you.  Maggie would never get her shots if it were up to us.  We would just forget.”

We drove over and put Maggie in the car.  I drank three of my diet Cokes on the way to the Veterinarian’s.  I needed the boost badly.  I was seriously dragging my feet.  Poor Maggie was shaking like a leaf through the whole experience.  I held her most of the time not letting her out of my arms. 

“Aren’t you glad we got that done?” mom turned to me and said as I was driving us home.

I smiled and said yes.  Mom had gotten on a high after sleeping all day.  She was going strong now. 

“Now, we need to go get your oil changed,” mom said reaching in her purse to start writing a check.

I didn’t argue.  I took Maggie home and told mom it had only been about a month since George helped me with my last oil change.

“But you’ve been driving to Lagrange every day for AA,” mom said. “It would give me some piece of mind if we just went ahead and did it.”

I stood outside AMAC and smoked cigarette after cigarette as they changed my oil and rotated my tires.  Mom sat in the waiting room talking on her cell phone.  She is still trying to find out if Social Security will pay for my glasses.  The appointment is Friday. 

“Rotate the spare, too,” I told the technician as he got in my car.

“I’m on it,” he said with a smile and then pulled my car into the service bay.

It only took about twenty minutes and we were on the way again.  I had almost pulled into mom’s driveway when she exclaimed, “LET’S GO GET AN  ICE CREAM!”

I smiled so broadly.  You should have seen it.  She sounded just like a child.  Mom was REALLY going strong this afternoon.  She usually sleeps all the time.  I think she was just glad to be out of the house.  I drove us down to Wendy’s and we both got chocolate Frostys.   That was my day with mom.  I am glad to be home and computering again.  I will probably be in the bed by seven.