Consequences

...wrote this on September 18, 2012, for Prompt Club. Still effective.

The alarm clock disturbed her dream.  She groaned.  Why did the best dreams always occur in the six minutes between snooze buttons?   McSteamy had just bent his head down to hers.  His breath was warm on her face and his lips were almost touching hers when the buzzing alarm intruded. 

Crap. 

She barely had her eyes open as she made her side of the bed and shuffled down the stairs to where her pitiful slice of heaven existed; the coffee pot and the pack of Salem Slim Light 100’s she left in front of the coffee pot the night before.  She stroked the pack of cigarettes.  “Hello, darlings.” She let out a dry, sad chuckle at her own joke.  She shouldn’t feel this crappy in the mornings at just 50 years old. 

Joan poured the coffee that had automatically made itself sometime between the second and third snooze buttons, added cream and then grabbed the ashtray off the counter. 

She sat down with her two vices and lit the first of many cigarettes for the day and inhaled deeply, the acrid smoke nestling into her lungs and making her cough up what her husband would have referred to as lung butter.  She got up and spat it into the garbage can, careful not to look at the sputum. 

She missed her husband. 

Of course, if she wanted to see him again, all she had to do was quit smoking. 

** 

Months earlier, they both had been sitting at this very kitchen table, having the age old fight over smoking. 

Bert had seethed.  “What is it going to take to get you to quit smoking?  Do you have any idea what you’re doing to your body?  I quit twenty years ago.  If I can quit, anyone can.” 

Joan rolled her eyes.  “Don’t be so friggin dramatic, Bert.  I’ll quit when I quit.”  She avoided his eyes, remembering a few days ago when she had coughed blood.  It had actually scared her into not smoking for almost a whole hour.   

Bert rolled his eyes and spoke as if to a child.  “Yes, but I quit.  For you.  But you seem to want to smoke every single cigarette ever made.  When do WE matter?”  At that, Bert had reached over and covered her little dainty hand with his burly one while he looked into her eyes.   

“Joan, I married you for a reason.  And that was to spend my life with you.  I don’t want to see it cut short by these damn things.”  He shook his head sadly.  “Will you at least try to quit?” 

Joan sighed.  After 20 years of marriage, she knew her Bert and he wasn’t going to drop it.   

“Fine.”   It’ll never happen. 

He slapped his hands together and hooted, then skipped over to his coat, withdrawing a brochure.  He waved it at her as he approached. 

“This.  This is going to be the answer for you.  One of the guys at work talked about it; how great this program was for him.”

The slick brochure was colorful.  It showed healthy people cavorting around soccer fields, the obvious message being “look, we’re not short of breath!”  It made vague promises about helping kick the habit for good.  Curiously, only couples could apply.   

“I’ll make the appointment!” chirped Bert, as he ran down the hall to his office. 

** 

The doctor took her weight, height, looked down her throat.  Snapped a chest x-ray and muttered to himself right in front of her as he read it.   

Joan couldn’t take the silence.  “Well?” 

The young, solemn looking doctor patted her knee.  “You can do this.  You have to do this.  You have the lungs of a 70 year old woman.  If you want to make it another 40 years, you will quit today.” 

Geez, don’t beat around the bush, Doctor.  She avoided her husband’s eyes.  

“What do I have to do?” Joan asked. 

The doctor reached over and plucked the pack of cigarettes out of her purse.  “First off, you’re going to leave those with me.  Second, you are not going to smoke again.  Ever.” 

Joan laughed.  “Really.  Just like that.  You wouldn’t know if I smoked, anyway.”  She waved a careless hand in his direction. 

Suddenly, the young, solemn looking doctor leaned forward and grabbed her chin in a cruel vise grip.  “Joan.  Listen to me.  Your husband has just paid me an exorbitant amount of money to help you quit smoking.  You will quit.  And if you smoke even one cigarette, we will know, and there will be consequences.  Do you understand me?”   

Holy crap.  He was serious.  “What consequences?” she squeaked out. 

“Consequences.”

** 

That first night went well, with ghastly cravings from time to time, but she put on a brave face.  I got this. 

The next morning, she got up with her husband, made the bed, and packed his lunch for the workday.   As she handed it to him, he gave her a gentle smile as he tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.  “I’m so proud of you.”   

She ran upstairs the second his car pulled out of the driveway.  Did he think she didn’t have a spare pack?  Shaking her head, a smile curved her lips.  Knowing she had a forbidden pack of cigarettes was almost orgasmic.  She stood in the bathroom and inhaled deeply, exhaling out the window.  Just this one.  The nicotine coursing through her system made her feel faint.   

The phone rang.  She gave a guilty start and threw the cigarette in the toilet. 

She recognized the doctor’s voice immediately.  His message was short and sweet.  “Joan, we know.”  The phone went dead.   

Joan’s heart was in her throat.  Gee, he sounded awfully sinister.   

She threw away the rest of the pack and debated telling her husband about her slipup.  I’ll decide when he gets home. 

Several hours later, right about the time she expected him home, she received a blocked, concise text message.  “You smoked.  We have your husband.” 

Consequences. 

She drove as fast as she could back to the smoking cessation clinic.  The sign had been taken down.  No lights were on.  She pressed up against the window and felt fear as she saw the interior was completely empty of furniture.  She banged on the window anyway.   

“Please. It was only half. I threw the rest away.  Bert!  Bert!”  She slid to the ground, sobbing.   

She huddled all night long near the window, ignoring the stares of passers by, only going home, alone, when dawn tinted the sky a light, smoky gray, heralding a new day.

A week in review: 7 days in the life of Poopwa Foley

Sometimes, I hear conversations and/or phrasing that make me laugh, or things I think are interesting, or far fetched, or ghastly, and I write them down immediately, because I'm always thinking of YOU, dear reader, and how to entertain YOU. 

I just reread this and realize I should be honest.  I'm not writing things down for you.  No, I write them down because I'm on the downside of 45 and forget EVERYTHING.

Case in point.  Last night, my daughter told me that she was going to be working 12-6 today, Friday.  Around 5:00 pm, I begin to freak out because I have called her twice with no answer, and there is no response to my texts.  I have completely forgotten that she is working until I get her text which says, and I quote, "I'm working LOL."  I quickly called off the search parties.  In less than 24 hours, I managed to not only have a conversation with her about her hours for today, but turn around and panic when I don't hear back from her, because I didn't remember she was safely at work, ignoring her phone, because she's working.  At her job.

Yes, I'm getting old.

However, here are some of the things that have happened lately that I have managed to write down and remember for yens:



so. beautiful.  so. hard. to. take. a. good. picture.

 1)  The moon last Friday night.  It was awesome.  This was taken right after we got home from seeing the Bodeans at the "On the Waterfront", around midnight. 

**

2)  An argument between my two oldest children.  Those arguments used to be over toys, or tattling, or the TV station they were watching. 

Argument 12 years ago:

    "Mom, he took my Barbie." 
    "Mom, she's watched this already, can't I watch my channel?"

Argument now:

Oldest child (son, 23) tiredly makes his way up the basement stairs.  My husband and I and my daughter (21), are sitting on the couch.

    Boy:  My knees are so sore.

    Girl:  Maybe if you weren't on them so much they wouldn't hurt.

    Boy:  (long pause) I can't think of a comeback right now, but when I do, it's going to be f*****g epic. (bedroom door slams)



Still trying to think of something f*****g epic.  It's going to take a while.

**

3)  This unbelievably thoughtful gift my husband got me.  He recently discovered 'the Ebay'.  We set him up a Paypal account and I slid a pamphlet on computer addictions under his pillow. 

But look!  Look!  A poster of one of my most favorite movies about witches!  In a beautiful frame we bought on a shopping trip together!



"Fall in love whenever you can." - Sally Owens
Oh, I will, Sally.  I will.

 To go along with that, I also have a shrine area where I have that paperback and also an adorable beanie baby, a black cat, wearing a witch hat. 

I know!


Possibly the finest literature ever.  And a cat.  On my nightstand.  Before I took this picture, I removed all of the used Kleenexes, cough drop wrappers, and dog hair-y earplugs.  You're welcome.

 **

4) Sunday I made a lovely bean and pasta soup, recipe courtesy of my sister.  I took a picture of the soup but it looked too much like barf so I left that off.  Better luck next time.

** 

5)  I am pretty sure I have a story that's going to be in a book coming out the end of next month.  Stay tuned for more details, like when I actually know for SURE.  However, I made it through the first round and now they're going to send it to me for editing, so...keep your fingers crossed for me.  I'll know more in a few weeks.

**

I think there were a few more things that I wrote down so I would remember. 

However, I forgot my notebook out in the car and the garage door is already shut, so that's that.

I'll have to start a new list of things to remember.  Number One will be to get my notebook out of the car.

Sinus infection? No thanks. Oh, wait, I have one anyway? Great.

It has to be a cosmic payback for publishing the post on the spider in the ear.  Right? 

Last week after sniggering over all the comments on Facebook about people being afraid to sleep at night because a spider might have climbed in their ear as they slept, I realized I myself had an itchy ear.

As stated on Facebook, I really did rinse my ears out with peroxide, effectively killing anything that might have been in there (hopefully) and succeeded in making myself so dizzy I almost fell over in the bathroom.

I missed work last week on Tuesday because I felt so crappy; dizzy, flushed, really headachy...you get the picture.  Since then the pressure in my ears has increased, making it sound like I constantly have a crackling faulty speaker in my head.  And it HURTS.  Like someone took a baseball bat and cracked me in the face.  Not here, or here so much...but right here.



not here, or here so much...but right here.

 Last night, went home and was in bed by 5:30 for a 1.5 hour nap...then back in bed at 9:30pm, still not feeling well.

I dragged myself into work even though I felt icky, flushed, feverish; thinking I could gut it out.  Around 11am I cried "uncle" and made an appointment with the doctor for 3:30 pm.  Which was more like 3:45 pm.

She peeked in my right ear, very routinely.  However, she took an uncomfortably long time looking in my left ear, the source of most of the crackling.  So long, in fact, that I found myself wondering what in the heck could be that *cough spider cough* interesting in there.  I found myself spiderbabbling.

She stepped back, tiny hand on tiny chin.*

"Do you have a pet?"

It's a spider it's a spider it's a spider it's a spider it's a spider

"Yes, why?" (It's a good thing she took my blood pressure before this line of questioning.)

"Is your pet as black as your shirt?"

OMGOMGOMGOMG it's a BLACK spider

I try to appear relatively calm as I tell her we have a black lab who as recently as last night (and every night, as a matter of fact) sleeps on the pillows of our bed.

"Puh" and "puhppy"

"You have a black dog hair in your ear."

"Get it out." I command.  Just in case it's a spider imitating a dog hair, or perhaps she can only see one of its legs.

"It will come out by itself.  No Q-tips.  No ear plugs."  Does she not know Q tips are a necessity of mine?  And that from time to time my husband, maybe, possibly snores (lightly, mind you, sort of a "puh" exhale) and that if I don't have earplugs in, I will hear every single "PUH"?

In her musical voice, she says, "perhaps the ear plugs may have had a dog hair on them when you placed them in your ear."  Oh, yuck.  Note to self:  throw away all ear plugs.  Because I don't place them in my ear, I JAM those suckers in.

Long story short, she checked me out thoroughly, told me I had a fever (I KNEW I WAS SICK) and a sinus infection and put me on antibiotics.  For those of you who don't know, Schnuk's pharmacies fill a lot of antibiotics for free, regardless of insurance.  Lovely pharmacy.

They also have Q tips and ear plugs.

*I LOVE my doctor.  She is awesome. 

What I did over summer vacation



Despite being wracked with grief over the impending divorce of Katie Holmes from Tom Cruise, we were able to have a lovely Fourth of July*.  Busy?  Yes.  Fun?  Yes.  Family?  Some.  Beer?  Yes.  Oh, yes, please.

Not only did we have today off, about a week ago, after work, Joe and I packed, got our routine “drive” coffees and some candy, and then drove to his sister’s house in Wisconsin, arriving around 7:30 pm.



Yes, we actually stayed here.  It was gorgeous.



There, we met up with two of my husband’s sisters, Anita and Carla, and Joe’s mother Mary.  Also present:  Anita’s boyfriend Ron and Carla’s hubby John.  (Missing:  the last sister Lisa, her three kids, and all three of mine.)  Sadly, work schedules are extremely prohibitive sometimes.  L



Hey, turn around.  I'm taking a picture here.



But I digress.

We were there Thursday through Sunday afternoon.  A typical day consisted of getting up and having coffee, then taking a nice hour long walk looking at the pretty scenery.  It was also very hot.  It is beautiful, too, as you can see.  



Woops, wrong picture.  But still pretty darn cute.



That's better. 

Did I mention it was hot?  By the time we got back, it was almost beer: thirty.  Time to get on the bathing suits and head down to the refreshing water after packing up a cooler and some reading material.  I was able to finish the book “The Litigators” by John Grisham (it was good), and Carla worked on the last book by Stieg Larsson, which I believe is “The Girl with the Tattoo Who Played with the Fiery Hornet’s Nest”.   She recommends it highly. 

We read.  We walked.  We ate.  We laughed.  We floated on our backs, on rafts, on noodles.  We hogged the cookies.  We drank one or two beers.  (cough *an hour* cough)  We played games of Sequence every night before the sun, fresh air, and liquid beverages caught up with us…then woke up to do it all again the next day.

We were on lake time.



A very serene Sunday except for the Loch Ness Monster sighting.

In short, it was an awesome (if somewhat abbreviated) vacation.  Good for the body, good for the soul. 

Not so great for the waistline.  Those vacation calories waited until I was asleep before slapping themselves all over my sunburned self. 

Stay tuned for the next article, tentatively entitled “The Girl Who Lost Weight by Running Away From a Hornet's Nest."

*interesting note.  Tom Cruise also starred in the movie “Born on the Fourth of July.” 

Just another Friggin Copay

Cough.  Cough.

Welcome to my world for the past four weeks.  Actually, welcome to my dear, long suffering husband’s world as well, as he’s been enduring this as long as I have.  Neither one of us have slept through the night for quite a while, thanks to my new friend, Tickle.

Tickle = my cough.  It’s the most annoying cough you can possibly imagine.  The kind that starts as a little tiny tickle in your throat, and you think that you can delicately give a little “ahem”, clear your throat and move on with your day.

But that is not the case.  The “ahem” doesn’t work.  The tickle grows in strength like a tidal wave.  What felt like a tiny little speck of dust in your throat has now graduated into something that resembles a feather from a feather duster, except a little bigger.

Your eyes begin to water, you can’t speak, the feather in your throat has turned into the entire duster, and still you can’t clear it, because THERE’S NOTHING THERE TO COUGH UP.

And during the day, at work, several concerned coworkers have their fingers poised over 911, certain that I will choke to death at any moment given my recent coughing spasms.

The worst part, however, is the nighttime.  Invariably, I wake up at 3am or thereabouts, coughing, choking, sputtering and shaking the bed violently, disturbing my poor husband, who wakes at the drop of the hat anyway.  I’m not sleeping.  He’s not sleeping. 

I have tried Nyquil.  Vicks on the chest.  Vicks on the feet.  Vaporizer.  Mucinex. Benadryl, wine, Bailey’s on the rocks, four straight shots of whiskey.  (Surprisingly, no relief.)

I try to creep out of bed in the dark, which is almost impossible when you’re as visually challenged as I am, so there’s the requisite fumbling for my glasses, (and dropping them loudly) then finding my robe (after noisily fumbling a little more) and finally (as quietly as I can) trying to make it around the corner of the bed without stubbing a toe or barking my shin on the bedpost.  Sometimes I even succeed.

(Author’s note:  During one of these episodes, in the hallway, I hit my shinbone so hard on a box that I am still wearing the band aid.  True story.  Thanks for caring.  Maybe the whiskey had some effect after all.)

After days/nights of this, my husband helpfully whispers (when I stumble back to bed) that I should probably see the doctor for my cough so that I can get some sleep.  However, I get the impression that he means, “so I can finally sleep, because you’re about as graceful as a monkey when you climb into bed.”

At work the next day, I spend several terrifying moments googling “dry cough”, I raced for the phone to secure an immediate appointment with my doctor.  After lots of questions (on her part) and lots of nervous shaking (on my part) she informed me that one of the major side effects of my new blood pressure medicine is DRY COUGHING. 

She informs me to stop taking that medicine immediately, busily researches for a moment, then settles on a non-coughing alternative, faxes it to the pharmacy, and leaves.  I sigh in relief.  No need to wonder how to fit an oxygen tank in my car for the COPD I was certain I had.  Dr. Perky sticks her head back in the door, informs me that “Oh, by the way, although a dry cough is not one of the side effects of this new medicine…leg/foot swelling is a possibility.”  And smiles.

I breezily assure her that all the exercise (say wha?) that I do at the gym will probably prevent any swelling.  She assures me right back that exercise is not going to help, but if my feet get swollen to the point of being uncomfortable, or if my calves start to scare dogs and small children, to give her a call.   My mouth is hanging open.

Wait, how swollen are my feet going to get?  I ask faintly, but she’s already on the move, surely racing to impart equally good news to her next patient. 

I sit for a moment longer, sullenly rustling around on the white paper as I am imagining big old Frodo feet stuffed into my favorite pair of heels, and sigh. 

I almost miss my cough.