Here’s a not-so-rhetorical question for you.
Is it better to have a family of five taken down with the intestinal flu all at once or in succession eight to 36 hours apart?
Discuss.
I wish I were a better housekeeper. Strike that, I wish I had a housekeeper.
I got a phone call yesterday at 5 p.m. from an insurance guy who needs to take pictures of our house for a new homeowner’s policy. And he’s coming over this morning at 10.
Side note: If I never post again it was the faux insurance guy who killed me and then hid my body. His first name is Rick, I didn’t catch his last name.
We switched insurance companies and are saving a thousand bucks a year, but part of the deal is that they come inside and photograph the kitchen, bathrooms and basement. I wanted to get it over with so I told him to come over today and then I set about frantically cleaning the house. I should really install a few enclosed bulletin boards. That way my to-do lists would remain where I put them and not under the table.
I can work myself into an anxious frenzy with little to no notice and I absolutely hate the pop-in. Most of the time, the house is ready for a pop-in but I prefer having advance notice so I clean to my satisfaction.
I can tolerate 75% cleanliness with my kids and husband. Everyone else requires 100% and I’m talking about everyone — the furnace repairman, a neighbor who ran out of butter (yep, I have one neighbor who’s allowed inside to borrow food) and the cable guy. If I hung one of those enclosed fabric bulletin boards in my kitchen I would have a decorative place to put all of my kids’ school work. Ugh, they come home with half a forest in their backpacks every day.
But keeping order in the house would be easier. I routinely scour this place for the babysitter, my kids’ friends and overnight guest. It never fails; once a foreign body is in my house I suddenly have X-ray vision. Those are the times, while I’m sitting on the couch, that I notice the cobwebs in the corner and the yogurt container that my kid left on the bookshelf.
Excellent.
Back to my lack of organizational skills. I could probably install enclosed cork bulletin boards on the inside door of my bedroom closet. No one would be the wiser and I could keep things under control. Well, I could keep my lists in one spot and I could use some snazzy push pins without my kids stealing them.
But the thought of this guy coming into the house and capturing this stuff on film — forever — has sent me into a crazy spiral. I know that he’ll use a digital camera and that the photos will be attached to our policy. I realize these insurance people could give a shit about a missed glob of shaving cream on the bottom of my pedestal sink.
But knowing that I’ll see it while he’s snapping away is really making my chest tight. And yes, just in case you’re wondering, it really is difficult to be me.
Oy vey. I’m never getting a cat; it’s just not in the cards for me. Why, you ask? Because my oldest kid has asthma and is allergic to cats but you probably already knew that.
These days my middle kid is flirting with asthma. It’s definitely not as severe as my oldest kid’s but it’s questionable and that is why we visited my old buddy the allergist. It seems my middle kid occasionally feels like an elephant is sitting on her chest and when that happens puffing on the oldest kid’s inhaler seems to help.
Sounds like an open and shut case, right? Wrong. Her symptoms are not consistent, I cannot find a trigger of any sort and I’m wondering if the inhaler is having a placebo effect on her. The doctor agreed but did not discount her tight chest so we left with a peak flow monitor, a spacer and an inhaler.
That was almost it until he looked up her prescription history on the computer and discovered the pediatrician had prescribed Flonase nasal spray in the spring. “Does she have allergies?” he asked.
“I’m not sure; she sneezes a lot in the spring.”
“Let’s do a scratch test before you leave,” he said.
Have you ever had a scratch test? It’s not really a scratch. It’s more of digging-a-needle-in-the-skin-and-then-scraping-it-back-out test. Four rows of six on her back.
The results came back like this: allergies to all trees, leaves and pollen which is why she sneezes a lot in the spring. The next row on her back showed up as dust mites. And row three was the domestic cat. Damnation.
So in addition to never having a cat again, I now have to worry about dust mites making a shanty town in the bed skirts. I also need to buy a few mattress covers for two mattresses and two box springs since she shares a room with her younger sister who, as of yet, is not allergic to cats or dust mites.
Now that I’m going on a shopping spree maybe I should break the bank and buy some satin pillowcases while I’m at it. Although those things are pretty slippery, aren’t they? I don’t need her sliding out of bed in the middle of the night, banging her head on the floor and spiraling into an asthma attack.
I’ll just keep using cotton pillowcases and wait for those dust mites to trigger an attack.
At least then I won’t have to deal with a concussion.
