MOMMIEEEEEEEEEE

I am sick sick sick. Which is kind of funny, because I was never once sick while living in NE IN. It was a joke that maybe only I got. When ever I wanted off early (which you always had to plead your case to the Big Guy) I'd just include that I have never had a sick day unlike my fellow co-workers who were sick all the time.

Some type of twisted irony is about.

I may have to go to an emergency treatment center tomorrow if I still do not feel better. I think I have walking pneumonia. Maybe a strep throat. We'll see.

As I lay in bed unable to sleep and watching endless CNN and KET programs dozing in and out of sleep I wished for my Mommy and the good old days.

If we were ill, feigned or real, we were confined to our bed room and in bed. This was yesteryear, when no room had a tv. computer or anything remotely entertaining except for the radio and books.

The menu for the invalid never varied, chicken noodle soup, crackers, and hot tea served with sugar and milk. Ginger ale for upset stomach. This was delivered to you on a tray, brought to you by a sibling or if it was a school day, your Mother. You'd sit up, prop pillows behind you, tuck your book away and balance the precarious tray on your lap.

If you were really sick, the fever kind, you had a bowl of ice water and alcohol beside the bed and a wash rag soaked and wrung out, placed across your forehead. To this day, nothing is as soothing to me as this old remedy to lower body temperature.

Doctors actually came to your house back then!! Old Doc Parrott, who was old when I was a kid, was the last of his kind. He looked like a parrott. He would come up to the bedroom, take his stethoscope out of his bag and listen to your chest, tap around on your back, check your eyes and ears and then announce your diagnosis.

He missed my brothers once, who had appendicitis, Doc Parrot called it a stomach virus. My brother ended going through a very rough time with that mis-diagnosis!

It was around that time Old Doc Parrrot retired.

When you stayed home from school, you were never alone. My sisters were much younger and constantly under foot when I was in High School. Yet, they made good servants taking care of my every need. Refilling my ginger ale, the ice-alcohol bowl, or just climbing in bed with me for company as I read fan magazines aloud to them.

I want my Mommieeeeeeeeeeee.