Angie cares.
The problem is that Angie cares way more than she should. That is not a bad thing but it does lead to many interesting stories.
Our youngest son, Tristan, has always been very reserved. My thinking on his personality was that he would turn out to be a great humanitarian or a Unibomber. I’m leaning more towards the Unibomber.
Tristan came down with the bad flu that was running through the country last year. There were many deaths resulting from the respiratory problems associated with that particular strain of flue so Angie and I were both concerned when Tristan came down with it.
Angie can be quite obsessive at times. You may have noticed that from the previous stories. Tristan hardly ever returned voice or text messages when he is healthy but this knowledge didn’t matter to Angie, so when he got sick, his mother started to “Awfulize” why he didn’t return her texts after three days of his illness. On this third day Angie had called him three times and texted him 6 times with out reply. The following is the transcript from her texts to me.
Angie – “Tristan is not returning my texts or calls! I’m worried.
Me – “Tristan never returns your texts or calls, don’t worry.”
Angie – “But he is sick. There might be something wrong!”
Me – “There is nothing wrong, he is probably sleeping.”
Angie – “I want you to go by his house and check on him.”
Me – “No, leave him alone.”
Angie – “There is something wrong, I know it!”
Me – “There is nothing wrong, let him rest.”
Angie – “HE MIGHT BE DEAD!!!”
Me – “If he is he probably doesn’t want to be disturbed anyway”
Angie – “DEREK!!! CHECK ON HIM!!”
Me to Tristan – “Mom thinks your dead. Are you dead? (If so, you don’t need to return this text)”
Tristan – “Tell her to leave me alone.”
Me – “Tried that, didn’t work. Return her text of I’ll let her come over”
Tristan to Angie – ” I’m not dead”
Angie – “I’m worried, do you need some food?”
Tristan – “No”
Angie – “Do you have a fever?”
Tristan – “No”
Angie – “Are you breathing OK?”
Tristan – “Leave me alone”
Angie to me – “Tristan texted me but I think he might be delusional. Please go check on him.”
Me – “He is fine, leave him alone.”
Angie – “GO CHECK ON HIM!”
Me to Tristan – “Mom thinks your delusional, please call her”
Tristan – “She is insane, do something about her”
Me – “I’m too pretty for prison, just call her and she will stop”
Tristen – “TELL HER TO LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Me – “Call her and tell her you are OK or I will let her come over”
Tristan called his mother and told her he was OK, just sleeping a lot.
Angie texted me – “Tristan called, he is OK so you don’t have to worry. Why doesn’t he return my calls or texts?”
Me – “I have no idea”
Recently Angie and I went on a business trip to Napa Valley here in California. We stayed at a very nice resort for the seminar I was attending. I left the room early on the day of the seminar and told Angie to call room service for her coffee and breakfast if she wanted.
When Angie called room service they told her it would be about an hour before they could deliver as they were super busy at that time. Angie was fine with that. About 45 minutes later Angie decided she had to use the restroom. Of course, right in the middle of her potty time the knock on the door arrived. Angie hurriedly finished up and ran to the door. The nice young lady told her that the gratuity was included and asked her to just sign the receipt which Angie did.
As she poured her first cup of coffee she remembered that she had not washed her hands after using the bathroom. She started obsessing about it as she felt that she must have contaminated the lady’s pen and that she was passing Ebola or some other loathsome disease on to the other guests. In short time she was convinced that there was a full blown epidemic going on at this resort because she forgot to wash her hands. She tried calling me but I was in the seminar so after an hour of frantically worrying that she has caused the demise of innocent guests she decided to call the room service desk to warn them of the danger.
“Room Service”
“Um hello, I ordered some coffee this morning and well, I uh, forgot to wash my hands before I signed the receipt.”
“OK, don’t worry about it, thank you for letting us know.”
“I don’t think you understand, I had used the toilet before answering the door”
“Umm…….OK, thank you for informing us”
“No, no, I mean that that lady has to sanitize her pen! People can get sick!”
“Umm………..OK…………….. Thank you for letting us know…………we will take care of it…………..have a good day?”
“Oh, OK. Sorry, well, at least you know. Don’t forget to tell her, she was very nice.”
For some reason our connection to room service didn’t go through for the rest of the trip.
When our youngest, Tristan, was a baby he wasn’t wetting his diaper enough to satisfy his mother. She expressed her concern to me and I told her not to worry about it, he will be fine. She repeatedly informed me of the arid condition of the baby’s diaper and finally wanted to take him to the emergency room. I told her no, he is fine but she was sure he was dying. She brought my negligence to my attention again and I informed her that we already had four children so one less won’t be noticed.
She muttered something about me being “heartless” or was that “useless”?
She went back to the boy laying on his back on our bed and removed his still dry diaper. She hovered her face closely over his inactive water spout, probably looking for a cork or perhaps a kink in the line when the geyser erupted with a large stream of urine. Lets just say that his open mouthed mother could positively state that the boy’s urinary tract was now clear and he definitely did not have sugar diabetes.