Bad Medicine

At one time or another, you've probably received that joke e-mail, "How to Give a Cat a Pill". Funny stuff; I can definitely relate. What I had not realized until today, however, is that the world is long overdue for "How to Give an Eight Year Old a Pill". Maybe the title just doesn't flow as well. But oh....my....Gods.

Duncan Disorderly has reached that awkward age in the world of medicine. Cough syrups still cater to his age, stuff like Triaminic, Robitussin, Dimetapp - fine if he needs a multi-symptom cold and flu remedy. Anything else, it seems, either comes in ineffectually low-dosage toddler drops intended for 6 and under; and actual swallow-it-with-water pills, which he doesn't feel ready to handle. Now Duncan has been in need of a good decongestant for several days (I have apparently changed my name to "Bob", for one thing.) He seemed highly resistant to the idea of nasal spray, and since I did not relish my mental projection of trying to stuff a little spray bottle up the nose of a struggling 52 pound child, I took a deep breath and gambled on the pills.

For children ages 6-12: 1 pill. One very tiny pill. Coated. An aspirin would dwarf this pill. And I know, or at least deeply suspect, that the child has in the past ingested balled-up paper, bits of eraser, small pebbles, and the unpopped kernels at the bottom of his popcorn bag. Yet within half an hour he had not only failed to swallow the pill, he had very nearly worked himself into a full-blown anxiety attack.

For some reason, he just couldn't do it. Per my instructions, he put the pill on his tongue and drank the water....and then the pill was still there, in his mouth. Then the coating would wear off and the taste would come through....and this taste was SOOO HORRIBLE that there was simply no way he could continue. He became terrified of the bad taste, which was apparently "WORSE THAN TEN HIPPOPOTAMUSES (sic) WITH FUR", and he did not want to hear that the tiny tiny pill would take far less time to swallow than ten hippopotamuses with fur.

I played through my entire repertoire, from pleading to reasoning, bargaining to just flat out putting my foot down and insisting. And yes, I did occasionally allow him to get a fresh pill. Not every time, mind you...I mean, I only had one box. But when the coating wore completely off, I would get a new one to keep him trying (although the thought did occur to me that in thirty, maybe forty more tries, the pill might just dissolve altogether and spare me the hassle.)

Several times I felt a rush of excitement as I thought he had managed it, only to find the pill at the bottom of his water glass. I even critiqued his water-drinking style, attempting to figure out the problem. As a result, I may never share a drink with him again, as I previously had no idea how much of the water falls back into the glass while he is drinking. Near as I can tell, the boy drinks by holding his mouth open and tilting sufficient quantities of fluid into it. I had to give a tutorial on how to tilt a water glass, drink and swallow the water in one's mouth before tilting the glass back to an upright position. Then, back to the blister pack for another pill.

After a total of forty-five minutes, a half gallon of tears, and six decongestant pills in the trash, the pill went down. And this boy, who had sobbed and railed and screamed "I JUST CAN'T DO IT" the whole time, was now soooo proud of himself. The tears dried and the attitude clicked over like the flipping of a light switch. Why, that was so simple. I can take pills just like a grownup!

Please, oh please, tell me that this is a "first time" thing, a six-minute mile, a mind over matter situation. Tell me that now that he's done it and knows he can, he'll just do it. 'Cause know what? The decongestant is actually working pretty well, and will continue to work....

...for the next 4 to 6 hours.

It brings all the boys to the yard

The dirtiest comment I've heard all week came unwittingly from the mouth of a sweet young man who looked like a church counselor.

After my shift, I was sitting at the computer in the lunch office trying to make the figures reconcile when the janitor dropped by and set a chocolate shake on the desk for me. Each Friday, the kids have the additional option of buying shakes, and at the end of lunch the janitor divvies up the leftovers.

At some point, a clean-cut, rather handsome young man (administration of some sort, I think) dropped by and was doing some computer work on the cashier terminals out in the cafeteria. He came into the office seeking a pen, and mistaking my cup for a pen/pencil holder, he reached around the monitor, dipped his hand into my shake and pulled back startled, getting chocolate shake everywhere! We had a good laugh about it, and I helped him clean it up. A few minutes later my fellow cashier passed by and said, "Oh, I'm sorry...have you met our new cashier?"

"Oh yes," he replied, flustered. "I got acquainted with her a few minutes ago when I stuck my fingers in her shake."

All's Fair

I'm embarrassed to admit how much I enjoyed today. Oh, not the work itself, although the work isn't bad. The job is pretty physical, the kitchen gets rather hot, my "Choose Healthy! School Food Service" shirt gets a bit icky, and I come home with sore feet...but it's a straightforward job with plenty to keep me busy and very nice co-workers. No, on this day psychological war was waged against the children...and I enjoyed their squirming, oh yes.

The students at the intermediate school where I work are notoriously bad at keeping track of their debit cards, and this gets to be a big hassle at the end of the line. While some of them are just plain forgetful (and my mother would tell you that I fit that profile myself), most of them are clearly ignoring our pleas, preferring to simply memorize their numbers. I can understand the appeal to them, and if that system was working, I'd be on their side. But they forget the numbers, they type them into the keypad too fast, they enter them when the screen is still not cleared from the previous kid...it gets messy. Also, frankly, we told you, kids. Every day you 'forgot' it, in fact.

Today, when I arrived for my shift, my supervisor asked me to go into the deep freezer, retrieve the large box of ice cream sandwiches I would find there, and divide its contents between the two lines. Okay. She then wrote up copies of a sign - "FREE ICE CREAM WITH DEBIT CARD - NOT FOR SALE" - and posted them at each register. Her smile was positively impish.

We serve, on the average day, around five hundred students. I'd be very surprised if we gave away more than a hundred ice cream sandwiches today. And oh, the wailing and the gnashing of teeth that ensued! Sure, they were just little ice cream treats - but to the ten-year-old mind, missing out on a free reward is a big thing. They complained, they made excuses, they bargained. "I just left my card in my locker is all; can't I go get it?" Well no, honey. If you've got it at school and you're still regularly coming to lunch without it, our sympathy is low.

On a related note: due to some scheduling troubles and people being out, I've been doing a lot of serving lately instead of cashiering. I actually like this more - it's a more physical job, but I don't have to deal with the messed up accounts, balance my register, or worry about confiscating anyone's food. The downside, however, is that the kids can be rather rude. Some apparently don't know the words "please" and "thank you"; some merely blurt out the name of the item they want without using a full sentence; some merely point! I'm not a vending machine, folks.

Mind you, they don't do this with the other servers. The other ladies have been here a long time, they don't take it and they're not shy in correcting the kids. As for me, I'm new, I'm generally uncomfortable correcting other people's children, and my background in customer service has left me accustomed to being servile and polite to customers who aren't polite to me. And they can smell it on me. But I'm catching on, see. These kids are not my customers. They are students in their formative years, and I'm learning through observation that, even as a lunchlady, I'm not only permitted but expected to keep them in line in their dealings with me just as much as their teachers. And thus, my customer service programming finally broke today. Typical conversations went like this:

Kid: (perhaps with a slight gesture) Pizza.
Me: Yes. That is pizza.
(long pause.)
Kid: Uhhhh....and the salad. Pizza and salad.
Me: Yes, your powers of observation are very astute.
(longer pause...then, eventually:)
Kid: May I have the pizza and salad, please?
Me: Yes, you certainly may! Thank you for asking politely.

This repetition slowed down the line quite a bit today, but sweet googly moogly, I think they might larn something. Unfortunately, that something might just be "Wow, that new lunchlady is annoying."

Calamitybird

My profile says that I am "klutzy and forgetful and spacy" - so far that's not something I've really highlighted in my posts. But I guarantee you it's true. It's so true that my husband now calls my many mishaps "Songbird Moments" (but insert my real first name there.) Truly, if I were an actual songbird, I'd have met my demise long ago by flying into a glass sliding door. I find new and interesting ways to injure myself on a regular basis. I also lose keys, sunglasses, replacement keys, gloves, replacement sunglasses, my wallet, ad infinitum. And so, in the interest of Truth in Advertising, I shall illustrate my profile's veracity by giving you the highlights of my day.

8:07 a.m. - My phone woke me. "Did you get lost?" my husband inquired. With the little guy spending the night with friends, I had kept the car last night so that I could go out, with the understanding that I would get up early in the morning and pick my husband up from work at 8am. As I grabbed shoes and keys in a panic and ran for the door, I took a moment to examine the treacherous alarm that I had dutifully set for...hmmm...seven o'clock P.M. One of my recurring Greatest Hits, that.

4:00 p.m. - While out running errands I decided to also stop at Goodwill, where I had recently seen an espresso machine for a few dollars and decided to give it a try. (Have I mentioned that I love Goodwill?) Today was a very windy day, and as I prepared to leave my car in the parking lot the wind snatched the handle from my grasp and banged the door into the van beside me - fortunately, no harm done and no dirty looks from anyone. Cursing the wind and the stooopid car, I locked the door, slammed it shut, turned to stalk away and nearly took a header on the pavement as something yanked me back. A large portion of my coattail was wedged and locked in the car. At this point I also realized that the van was not unoccupied, as the man in the driver's seat nearly cried laughing. I had to laugh as well as I dug around for my keys, unlocked the car and extricated myself.

5:30 p.m. - While cooking one of my very spicy dinner recipes, I got an itch right around my eye. Now, I have learned (and RE-learned, many a time) not to rub my eyes with my fingers while cooking, so with both hands extended away from me I brushed my sleeve across my face. Alas, I can only guess that I'd managed to drag my sleeve across the cutting board at some point, because this tactic did not work. I've irritated my eyes with pepper oil from my hands before, but this felt more like I'd decided to mash an entire Thai pepper into my eye socket. For the next five minutes I could only stand in breathless pain with a dishtowel jammed against my eye. For another ten minutes I alternated between running cold water over my face and trying unsuccessfully to open my eye. I fleetingly considered medical attention, or perhaps an exciting new career as a pirate. Finally I could see again and finish dinner, but for the next 30, maybe 40 minutes my eye continued to burn pretty sensationally.

And lo! We come to the end of the day, it's all quiet on the homefront and I'm still in one piece. Now (carefully) off to bed, with the fervent hope that there will not be any posts forthcoming regarding espresso-related trauma.

Accio game!

This could be promising...a good use for the Wii's new approach. I know a lot of folks like the Wii - my husband, for one, ran out and purchased it - but I've been a big holdout. I gave it a try for the sake of the lovely new Zelda game (I have always been a devoted follower of the Zelda series, particularly after it went 3D on the N64), but I found the control system awkward. And frankly, I don't care if it seems more 'realistic'. I don't want to slash away as though I were really swinging a sword, I want to sink into my couch with the controller in my lap. So there.

But Harry Potter...I can see how that could be a lot of fun. No, I may not feel cooler actually swinging a 'sword', or a 'tennis racket', or waving the Wiimote around as I perform 'surgery' (though this was the most interesting use of the controls so far). But I don't care how old you are. If you are a fan of the J.K. Rowling books, you want to go to Hogwarts. You want to hang out with Harry and Hermione and Ron, you want to play Quidditch, you want to wear robes and be Sorted and transfigure snails into teapots. It took me, a fully-grown woman with a child of her own, a while to admit this. Yet when Duncan Disorderly requested a Harry Potter-themed birthday party this year, I got more into it than he did! I spent months filling little glass spice jars with 'potions' ingredients, sewing robes, printing House badges, acquiring Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans online. Go ahead, laugh away. I'm not alone.

I don't play games often the way I used to, but I may have to give this one a try when it comes out this July. That is, if I'm not too busy reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

"Magically" delicious? Perhaps not.

I love that kid of mine. He's often on his own little planet, coming back from it with thoughts and tales that make no sense to me...but he's an independent thinker and a natural skeptic, and I love the conversations we have.

As I prepared dinner this evening he was off in the living room watching his favorite program, The Fairly Oddparents. It's a Nickelodeon show, which means that during the commercial breaks he is bombarded by hyper sensational commercials for (1) toys, (2) incredibly sugary breakfast cereals coveted by cartoon animals, and (3) snack foods that are designed to be "gross", highly portable (Ooo! Yogurt in a TUBE!), or turn your tongue rainbow colors.

So he walked into the kitchen during one such break and said, "That's ridiculous. Trix wants me to buy their 'new and improved' cereal that's soooo great....all they did was make the cereal into different shapes now!"

Me: "Well sweetie, welcome to the wonderful world of marketing!"

Duncan: "I know! They just want to make more money."

Out of Africa

I get a lot of spam. We all do, of course, in some accounts more than others. My oldest email account is over ten years old now, and while the spam filter does catch most of the daily deluge, I still get some leakage into my Inbox. And I must say, I am deeply concerned for the fate of my clan, as I have learned the following:

1. Every day, at least five or six people with my last name are killed while doing contract work in Africa.

2. These apocryphal relatives of mine are out there working despite apparently having MILLIONS of dollars in the bank.

3. These apocryphal relatives of mine have no next of kin and have never filled out any sort of estate planning paperwork despite having MILLIONS of dollars in the bank.

Now, I don't really know Mark or Steve or George despite sharing a surname with them, but see, the barristers are SO desperate to get this sorted out that if I would only share my account information and some advance fees, they will be happy to pass me off as next-of-kin in exchange a small share of the inheritance! Oh, well then! Uncle Mark, how tragic thy death! Too soon wast thou taken! *sniff*

It's partially my fault, I suppose. My last name is in the e-mail address, easily extrapolated, which probably makes me more susceptible to this particular flavor of scam. I get others, sure...but this one is by far the meat and potatoes of my spam diet. Sometimes they even include a news link to an actual plane or car disaster to 'authenticate' the story, always one in which the actual victims' names are not mentioned. I noticed in one that the scammer hadn't even correctly matched the date of the accident in the news story to the date of the demise of my 'relatives'.

What really gets me, though, is that I've been getting this message for years upon years now... which has to suggest that at least a fair number of folks are falling for it.

And it does bother me. As the saying goes, "You can't con an honest man" - because cons both long and short generally involve capitalizing on the avarice of the mark. And true, this one's no exception. From about halfway through the e-mail: "I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin to the deceased hence I have all the legal document (sic) to back you up for the claim". Any reasonably literate person has got to realize that s/he is being solicited to commit fraud. A big part of me wants to take the attitude that if they're dumb enough to fall for it, they deserve whatever comes to them.

But not everyone's a crook. I imagine some people aren't very literate, and don't understand from the garbled Engrish attempt at legalese the exact nature of the transaction they're being asked to participate in. Some people are desperate. Some people are lonely. Often the people who fall for scams (and evangelists, but oh boy is that another rant) are the people who can least afford it. And no matter how obvious the scam seems to me, I just can't bear ill will toward those people. I feel for them, and I'm deeply ashamed of their fellow humans who take advantage of them in this manner.

I hope their souls feel all sticky.

You're a mean one, Mrs. Grinch

Today I worked the register totally on my own for the first time, no one standing over my shoulder to answer my questions as I went along and jump in if I start drowning. And I lived to tell the tale.

Kids can be so frustrating. Since I'm still pretty new at this, I'm much slower than the old cashier, so periodically the line would start to noticeably clump up between the server and my register. And they just can NOT hold on to those debit cards! So while it should go smoothly - kid swipes card, account appears on my screen, I make the proper debit and clear it - most of them either had to ask me to look up their account by name or they type in their account number on the pinpad beside the card reader. And they all try to punch it in like they've got somewhere to be real fast, leading to multiple attempts. And then the kids behind them will try to punch in THEIR numbers before I'm done with the current kid, making a general mess of things.

Also - why oh why do 5th graders give me cash in such a mess? The ones who paid me in cash for their lunches never gave me unfolded dollars. Even folded dollars would have been okay. I get crumpled wads, or dollars folded over together about four times, or Drunken Hobo Origami. Ai-yaa.

But I digress. 'Member when I said the school won't let 'em go hungry? That's not entirely true. I suppose if we truly did that, some kids could run up unmanageable tabs at the rate of $2.25 per day over a school year. We're supposed to float them for a few lunches, but after that we can't do it. We just give them a "peanut butter bar" and a milk. These things - they look like mini ice-cream sandwiches, wrapped in paper with the words "peanut butter jelly graham cracker sandwich" or something like that on them in plain print. I haven't seen the actual bar inside, and I'm not sure I want to. I was told today that if they're more than seven or eight dollars in the red, I'm not to ring up a lunch for them but instead give them one of those.

And sure enough, it came to that...just once, fortunately. And of course, they see the server before they see me, so she already had a lunch on her tray. Pizza Day. I had the dubious honor of letting her know how much she owed, taking away her pizza and salad, and handing over one of those abhorrent creations. She looked at me like I'd run over her puppy and then offered her a pet slug.

Okay. My supervisor reminded me that, if she's that far behind, the school has called her house at least twice to remind her parents to give her lunch money. At least a week and a half ago, what with the break and all. But I still felt awful.

Bad Carma

Duncan was a wee bit late for school today; you see, my husband normally comes home from work between 8:30-8:45am in our only car, and then I take Duncan to school. Today, however, my phone rang at about 8:35. My husband wanted to know if I could look up our auto insurance policy number.

Siiiiiiiggggghhhhhhh. Not what a girl wants to hear first thing in the morning before she's had her coffee. But I don't complain. Because you see, this time - yes, THIS time - he was hit by someone who (a) stopped and (b) has insurance!

Chalk it up to bad karma I guess. Perhaps in a prior life my husband was a menace to society behind the wheel, because he seems to attract this sort of thing. He's a good driver. We keep our insurance up. He checks over his shoulder before changing lanes, uses turn signals properly and sets the handbrake when parking on an incline and washes his hands after using the bathroom. But check this out -

- in 1999, we got up one morning to find that someone had smashed into the side of our car, breaking the side mirror and messing up the driver's side door. No note, no person. The car door never opened fully again.

- in 2001, we got up one morning and found that someone had smashed into the rear of our car, taking out the taillight and crunching up the bumper. Different car. No note, no person.

- in 2002, my husband was sitting at a red light when someone rear-ended him, then backed up a bit, and sped off around him. Nobody caught the license plate number.

- in 2005, he was driving down a narrow street when someone opened his car door into traffic JUST as my husband was passing him. Minimal damage to the guy's car, but our passenger side was screwed up so badly that the door was stuck shut. A police report was involved this time, and exchange of information went smoothly. But the guy apparently gave us a hotel address and false insurance information. I climbed over the driver's side to the passenger seat every time we went somewhere for the duration of our ownership of that car.

But our luck must be changing (hope!). My husband pulled over the side of the road, grumbling, and cynically watched for the other driver to take off. Instead, she pulled over behind him, exited her car apologizing profusely, and exchanged information with him. Understandably, they went ahead and made insurance calls at the scene this time. Her insurance, Progressive, was prompt and helpful, and we have an appointment to drop off our car with them and pick up a rental tomorrow while they fix the decimated bumper and taillight at no charge to us. The driver herself, who was sweet as pie, called to follow up with us to make sure everything was taken care of.

As for Duncan? Well, he got to make his lazy out-of-shape mom finally take the bicycles out after the long winter and bike to school with him; despite the short notice, he was only a few minutes late. You know, he's probably thinking Daddy should be late more often...