Date: 2005-01-14
To: a preemptive investigation into vitamin i
Miles today: 0.0

Several days ago my mother took it upon herself to ask my brother why he never wore the bathrobe she¢d given him for Christmas. Sam replied that she never gave him a bathrobe, to which she replied that she most certainly did and she remembered him opening it and flinging it aside cavalierly, to which Sam replied that he did not and she did not, to which my mother replied, Did too; you just forgot because you weren¢t interested in any gifts that weren¢t video games, to which I interjected, Boy, this is a productive conversation you two are having. Eventually Sam left the room insisting that he did not have a bathrobe, (¢I do not have a bathrobe!¢) made a beeline for my mother¢s closet, and emerged twenty seconds later with a shrink-wrapped, blue terry cloth bathrobe in his size. ¢Mom,¢ he said. ¢It was in your closet the whole time. You never gave it to me.¢There was a pause while my mother eyed the clearly unopened bathrobe, a nonplussed expression on her face. ¢Well,¢ she said finally. ¢Merry Christmas.¢¢Thanks,¢ said Sam, unwrapping it. ¢Hey. I like this bathrobe.¢The next day someone ¢ I don¢t know who ¢ left the bathrobe on the stairs. Sam swears it wasn¢t he who left it there and my mother says she didn¢t either, though she admits that her memory where that bathrobe is concerned has not exactly proven reliable. Either way, fast forward to yesterday morning, when I stumbled out of bed before dawn for an early-morning shift at work, bleary-eyed. I headed down the stairs to the bathroom, slipped on the bathrobe, and fell down the stairs, landing directly on my tailbone. Ouch.I¢m in one piece still, but have now worked two days of long shifts on my feet at work, hobbling around with a broken ass and hands covered in what look like stigmata but are actually burns from the steam wand on the espresso machine. I feel, as I told a friend, like an eighty-year-old with butt-specific arthritis. Not pretty. (It¢s funny: when I lived in New Hampshire, my hands were perpetually covered with burns in various stages of healing, from too many mishaps after late-night stokings of the wood stove. Now they¢re covered in burns again, only this time from catering to yuppies in need of a caffeine fix. Plus §a change.) ¢Ooh,¢ says my mother. ¢Yuppie stigmata. You should write an essay about it.¢¢Maybe,¢ I say, shifting gingerly on the couch. ¢My butt hurts.¢¢So see a doctor,¢ she says.¢You can¢t do anything for a tailbone injury,¢ I say. ¢You have to wait it out. What are they gonna do, slap a cast on my ass?¢¢Shut up about your ass,¢ says my mother. ¢Can¢t you talk about anything else?¢¢My ass didn¢t do anything to that bathrobe,¢ I say. ¢My ass was minding its own business and got up in the morning and wham, bang, boom, down the stairs, all thanks to the prodigal bathrobe.¢ ¢You know,¢ she says, looking down wistfully at her Donna Leon mystery, ¢this happens every night. Every night. I come down and I sit on the couch and I open my book and it¢s like I¢m a magnet, a MAGNET. As soon as I start reading the whole world immediately decides to come talk to me. I want to build another room in this tiny house so there is somewhere, just ONE PLACE, that people can READ in PEACE.¢¢What,¢ says Sam, ¢so you can avoid ever having to talk to another family member again?¢Sam and I think this is funny. Our mother also thinks this is funny, but she is less inclined to admit it.¢I have been,¢ she says, ¢on page 42 for three days thanks to you all and by God I am getting to page 43 tonight.¢ ¢42,¢ I say. ¢Maybe it¢s significant. Maybe you¢re not meant to get any farther.¢¢What?¢ she says.¢It¢s the answer,¢ I say.¢To Life, the Universe, and Everything,¢ adds Sam.¢What are you talking about?¢ says my mother.¢Hitchhiker¢s Guide to the Galaxy,¢ I say.¢It took seven and a half million years for the computer to find the answer, only then it had to go back and find the question. Which turned out to be, What is six times eight.,¢ says Sam.¢The question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is, What is six times eight?¢ asks my mother. ¢That¢s right,¢ says Sam.¢Six times eight isn¢t 42,¢ I say.¢That¢s the point,¢ he says. ¢Duh.¢ ¢Duh,¢ I say.¢Only it all got kind of messed up with the Golgafrinchan telephone sanitizers blasting their middle management into space because of the threat from the mutant star goat,¢ he says. ¢And the Vogon bureaucrats destroying Earth for the hyperspace bypass, plus the hyper-intelligent, pan-dimensional mice.¢¢All clear now?¢ I ask my mother. ¢As mud,¢ she says. ¢Have you been taking ibuprofen?¢ It takes me a second to backtrack in the conversation far enough to realize that she is asking me whether I have been taking it as a painkiller, not whether I am taking it psychotropically.¢Some,¢ I say. ¢It didn¢t help much.¢¢How many did you take?¢ ¢Two.¢¢Valeria fell down the stairs and SHE has to take three or four.¢ Valeria is my mother¢s assistant at work.¢As determined by a doctor, or by Valeria herself, or what?¢¢As determined by a doctor! She tripped on the stairs and messed up her ankle and now she has to take three or four at a time.¢¢Her ankle?¢¢Yes, her ankle!¢¢So we are in fact talking about an entirely different injury here.¢¢Be quiet! Ass, ankle, they both start with A and need I!¢I reflect that my mother would be a natural on the trail. Surely such innate enthusiasm for ibuprofen cannot be learned. In the interests of preserving my stomach lining ¢ at least until March ¢ I think, though, that I might, for now, be better off sticking with the normal dose.¢Besides,¢ she says, ¢when was the last time you took some?¢¢Yesterday. Like I said, it didn¢t do much.¢¢You have to take it regularly, you jerk. Inflammation breeds inflammation!,¢ she says. This, I think, has a rather insidious sound.¢I want you to be nice to me,¢ I say plaintively.¢Never gonna happen,¢ she says, and starts singing: ¢¢Impossible things are happ¢ning eve-ry day.¢ But not that.¢ She is pleased with her wit, and starts laughing.¢Don¢t snarf your Sprite,¢ I say. She snarfs her Sprite.¢Did you hear about those people who died snowmobiling on Lake Winnepesaukee or something?¢¢Yeah.¢¢Don¢t you ever go snowmobiling drunk,¢ she says. ¢Or I¢ll kill you.¢ She starts laughing again.¢You¢re a pretty interesting person, you know that?¢¢Shut up. I am not. I¢m very boring.¢¢If I told you you were boring, you¢d say, Shut up, I am not, I¢m very interesting.¢¢That is true,¢ she says, reflectively. ¢Yes. I would.¢She gives me a hug. ¢I¢m sorry your butt hurts. Poor thing. Go take some ibuprofen.¢